I've been finding a few old-movies-that-I've-never-heard-of that are really amazing, even for audiences who weren't born until after the movies were made. The things you often expect from an old movie, as a young person, is that it's going to be cheesy, irrelevant to life as it currently exists, and generally have boring camera angles. But anyone who's seen The Graduate can tell you that this just isn't true. In fact, after watching several old movies I'm beginning to develop the fear that society in general stopped progressing sometime during the mid-seventies.
Klute, although filmed in 1971, discusses issues that are taboo right now, 31 years later. Yes, that's right, you can be born in the seventies and be over 30. You can also be born in the eighties and pick up a six-pack at Meijer. (Yes, Meijer you non-midwestern fools.)
I rented Klute on a strange hunch, which is how I rent most of my movies. Oddly, my strange hunches seem to repeatedly score me some good movies. Also, my strange hunches seem to correlate with an award of some kind. This particular strange hunch correlated with an Oscar for Best Actress, received by Jane Fonda for her role as Bree.
I don't know who Fonda was competing with, but she more than likely deserved to win. She did some really subtle things just right. For example, playing the part of someone who is playing the part of something else. That's not easy.
When I put this movie on my netflix queue, I had no idea that it would be so scary. What's interesting about this version of scary, is that it is scary with, as far as I can tell, only one abrupt shocking scene in the whole thing. It keeps you constantly thinking that something is about to happen, and manages to drag this out for nearly the whole movie.
Another interesting thing about the scariness in this movie, is how well it compliments a theme that seems to have nothing to do with horror. Yet, the horror makes you realize something, it makes you see the fear that Bree has for losing control over her life. It sets the tone of eeriness and uncomfortableness that the two main characters both feel throughout the story.
The taboo that I have haven't explained yet is that Bree is a call girl. Of course, this has been done before, or, actually after, but in my head it's before because I saw the other ones first. But, this movie seems to investigate what it's like to be a prostitute much more thoroughly than, for example, Pretty Woman. Now that I think of it, Pretty Woman presents us with an insane proposition, and that is that a very attractive woman is a street hooker. Anyway, Klute does much better to explore the psychology of a woman who trades sex for money. It looks at what attracts her to the profession, and how it affects her life and her relationships. It also does this without resorting oversimplified premises of what is right and wrong, and without also doing the opposite and suggest that there are no consequences for anything.
By the way, "Klute" comes from the name of the man who falls in love with Bree, but the story is very much focused on Bree. Basically, Klute is something that happens to her, and the movie is about how she adjusts to it, and the things that she feels about it.
I can't say much more without revealing more of the movie than I want to, so I'll just say, see this movie, you'll probably like it regardless of your specific taste, but especially if you like to think about strange concepts, or if you like to be scared shitless.