Scene by scene analysis of 'Klute'

This is a scene by scene analysis of 'Klute' starring Jane Fonda

This is a plot and scene analysis of 'Klute' that you can follow along with your DVD or Blu ray copy of this film. In the meantime, enjoy this clip. 

Title 4 (00:09-12:02) (11:53) Stop after john pays Bree and wide scene of them on sofa

Summary

The film begins in the Pennsylvania home of business executive Tom Grunemann. He and his wife are hosting a dinner with invited friends including police detective John Klute and Peter Cable who is also an executive at the company that Tom works for. The atmosphere is very casual. Tom and his wife are at opposite ends of the dinner table smiling at each other. 

The following scene begins at the same dinner where 2 detectives interview Mrs. Grunemann concerning her missing husband. Klute is present as he and Tom were good friends. There were no signs preceding Tom’s disappearance as he and his wife were very happy. The cops produce a letter they found in Tom Grunemann’s desk at the plant, an obscene letter to a New York call girl. The letter is 1 of 7 letters they found in his desk addressed to the New York call girl named Bree Daniels.

In the next scene, a tape recorder plays a conversation between Peter Cable and call girl Bree Daniels.

Following the titles, the scene opens in Manhattan, New York at a casting call for a television commercial. One by 1, the casting director and his assistant send the models home, including Bree Daniels. She leaves the casting call and goes to a hotel to turn a trick with a john in town from Chicago.

Analysis

The opening of the film sets the stage for the Jeckyl and Hyde personalities of call girl Bree Daniels and the killer Peter Cable. There is nothing at the dinner table to indicate anything unusual about Peter Cable at all. The large window in the background shows a garden and allows the sun to brighten the room and faces around the dinner table. 

The following scene opens at the same table but it is shot at night and the window in the background is dark. The time of day in both of these scenes are contrasted as a metaphor for Bree and Cable who are both actors in this film, pretending to be people they aren’t and hiding dark secrets. 

In the opening titles, Cable plays a tape recording of Bree trying to get him to relax. Her words on the tape explains how she brought out Cable’s dark side: 

Bree: “Would you mind if I take my sweater off? I think that in the confine’s of one’s home one should be free of inhibitions…”

“You mustn’t be ashamed, you know, there’s nothing wrong. Nothing is wrong.” 

Where there are no rules or laws, there are only animals. We are capable of anything under the right circumstances. But rules, norms, discipline, and penalties keeps us civilized toward one another. Bree’s 1st statement on the tape provides the key to freeing Cable’s dark side because she is actually telling him that he could act out his repressed desires at night, in private, when no one is looking. Her 2nd statement on the tape gives Cable the moral justification to rationalize killing the prostitutes who, he later says, brought out his dark nature. 

After the opening titles, Bree reacts from being turned down for an acting part by manipulating a john out of $100.00. Her dream is to be an actress, to pretend she’s something that she isn’t, and acts out this desire to manipulate others on her johns. The john is very timid but she gets him to tell her what he wants by creating an atmosphere that makes him relaxed and not ashamed. Then, she brings him back down to earth by letting him know that all of her charms—her smile, discretion, interest—are an act when she asks the john for payment up front. The john’s face goes from total bliss to disappointment. You get the sense that she gets her kicks from manipulating the john this way because it validates her acting abilities. 

Title 9 (21:25—24:10) (3:15) Stop after Bree says “It’s just so silly to think that somebody can help anybody, isn’t it?” to her therapist. 

Summary

Bree explains to her therapist why she likes turning tricks with johns over acting, how they are similar and, at the same time, different from each other. 

Analysis

Bree tells her therapist that she isn’t getting anything from the sessions and can no longer afford them. The therapist is Bree in this encounter, a paid comforter providing no real warmth. Bree tells the therapist that acting with johns protects her because she doesn’t have to feel anything for them. This explains her anger towards Klute later. He coaxes feelings out of her like she does with her johns. But Klute really cares for Bree. Her last words in this scene are ironic: “It’s just so silly to think that somebody can help anybody, isn’t it?” These words are ironic because Klute helps her. 

Title 12 (31:01-37:41) (6:40) Stop after Bree says “You could get a perfectly good dishwasher for that.”

Summary

Klute blackmails Bree. He tapped her phone and has recordings of her and her johns. He offers to barter the tapes in exchange for information on Tom Grunemann. She has had so many johns over the years that she can’t remember if she’d dated Grunemann or not. She makes an attempt to seduce him for the tapes but she is unsuccessful in doing so.

Analysis

This scene shows just how disconnected Bree is from the johns she’s slept with. She d a john who beat her up and she can’t remember his face. This also explains why she is pursuing an acting career which is a way of distancing herself from emotions that might dredge up painful memories.

Title 15 (47:57—58:49)(10:52) Stop after they make love and she taunts him saying “Don’t feel bad ‘cause you lost your virginity. Everybody always does.”

Summary

Bree auditions for a part but doesn’t get it. Afterwards, she and Klute go out for lunch and she agrees to help him find a prostitute named Arlyn Page who was assaulted by the man believed to be Tom Grunemann. They stop by a penthouse to question a madam Arlyn worked for. But Arlyn had a heroin habit, the madam told them, and had to be let go. They stop by a nightspot to question a lesbian Arlyn used to date but the lesbian had no knowledge of Arlyn’s whereabouts. They go by the police station’s morgue to check pictures of deceased women with no luck. Finally, they return to the apartment. Klute asks Klute if she can spend the night in his apartment because she hears noise in her own apartment. They make love. 

Analysis

Bree doesn’t get the part because she is incapable of putting her real feelings into the role. Therefore, she’s just faking it and her phoniness is obvious including her fake Irish accent. The irony is that when she is acting with her johns she comes across as real and they actually buy into her performance.

When she shows up at Klute’s apartment, she is not faking her feelings; she is afraid. To make up for not getting the part she auditioned for earlier, and for allowing herself to feel safe with Klute, she makes love to Klute, not out of desire or pleasure for showing him her real self. She taunts him for not making her have an orgasm. Bree is so accustomed to manipulating the feelings of others that she suspects others of doing the same to her.

Title 19 (1:02:56—1:10:20) (7:24) Stop after Klute and Bree embrace

Summary

Bree and Klute find Arlyn Page and her boyfriend who are both junkies and strung out. Bree returns to Frank—her old pimp—in his nightclub and he gives her heroin. 

Klute stops by a high-rise office building to report his investigation to Peter Cable. Cable pretends that he’s pleased but he isn’t. When Klute leaves, Cable plays a tape recorded conversation of himself and Bree on the night he beat her. 

Klute stops by Bree’s apartment. The heroin has her strung out and her place is a mess. He stays with her and helps her come down off the drugs in her system. 

Analysis

Bree is a human being despite the cold front she puts up to the world. And when she feels vulnerable she throws up a wall which is why she returns to Frank every time she shows Klute her unpretty side. She also uses heroin to numb herself to Klute. He sees Bree as she really is, the person and not the actor. He sees her worst and still he accepts her. By contrast, she is rejected by every acting agency which also explains her distrust for Klute, the fact that he accepts her and they don’t. 

Like Bree, Peter Cable is also an actor.  His image is the opposite of someone responsible for murdering prostitutes. This is why he doesn’t become a suspect until the end of the film. At the beginning of the film, he blends in with everyone at the dinner table.

Title 24 (1:18:47—1:25:31) (6:44) Stop at “Let it all hang out, you know, to do it all and fuck it.”

Summary

Bree is talking to her therapist and explaining the changes that Klute is bringing into her life. Later, she and Klute return to her apartment and find it trashed. 

Analysis

Bree is being herself with Klute and allowing herself to enjoy sex which she numbs herself from enjoying with johns.

She tells her therapist that she becomes angry at Klute for making her feel because she needs a certain distance to do her job. Klute is putting her back in touch with herself. 

And he is close to identifying the killer. Peter Cable, like Bree, became violent when Bree got him to let go of his inhibitions. He blames Bree for his violent tendencies. 

Title 27 (1:30:53—1:34:45) (3:53) Stop at “I’ll have her call you as soon as she gets home. I promise.”

Summary

Bree returns to her pimp. Klute beats up the pimp. Bree stabs Klute with a pair of scissors and he leaves. After this incident, Bree stops by to see her therapist who is unavailable. 

Analysis

Again, Bree is put a situation where she feels vulnerable and returns to her pimp, Frank, to distance herself from Klute who also makes her feel vulnerable. Like she told her therapist, when she feels vulnerable she becomes angry with Klute. When she stabs Klute with the scissors this shows that anyone is capable of anything under the right circumstances. This incident shows how Bree helped bring out the killer in Peter Cable. The recording of her urging him to let go of his inhibitions was the beginning. 

Title 32 (1:43:46—1:51:55) (8:09) Stop after she says “I’d go out of my mind.”

Summary

Peter Cable comes face to face with Bree Daniels. He admits to murdering Tom Grunemann and the 2 prostitutes, Arlyn Page and Jane McKenna. He blames the murders on Bree for exposing his weaknesses. He plays a recording he’d made of him speaking with Arlyn Page and killing her. Then, he stops the recording and attacks Bree but Klute comes to her rescue. Cable jumps out of the window. 

Bree moves out of her apartment.

Analysis

Peter Cable confronts his weaknesses and attacks the person he feels is responsible for exposing them like how Bree attacks Klute for bringing out her weaknesses. Later, Bree moves out of her apartment suggesting that she may also be leaving acting and prostitution behind.