Best Actress 1971: Jane Fonda in "Klute"

After having lost the Best Actress Award two years earlier to surprise winner Maggie Smith, Jane Fonda finally won her first Oscar (among a good deal of other awards) for her role as a tough but also very insecure call-girl whose life is threatened by a stalker in the thriller/character study Klute.

The reason why Klute isn’t really working is that mix of thriller and character study – it’s a movie that doesn’t seem to know what it wants to be and the compound of styles and genres, of action driven by characters and characters defined by the need for suspense makes it hard for the actors to rise above the weak script. Especially Jane Fonda suffers from the fact that she so obviously tries to give a multidimensional and deeply layered performance in a movie that doesn’t know how to handle it. Bree Daniels, the character that Jane Fonda is playing, never feels complete because everything that she performs or expresses feels like a last-minute attempt by Jane Fonda to widen her impact on the story and show the insecurity behind the tough façade. While this is all still very admirable and done with the usual competence by Jane Fonda, it feels like a failed attempt to reach true greatness. So, what remains is a performance that is still much more complex and multifarious than expected but the feeling of self-importance that Jane Fonda exudes at every moment of Klute prevents her from achieving the level of excellence she so exhaustingly tries to conquer.

Jane Fonda is an actress who possesses great instincts for what she wants her characters to be and how to express this. Unfortunately, she belongs to the category of actresses who aren’t able to bring these instincts across completely successfully. In her worst performances, Jane Fonda seems like a bad drama student who missed too many lessons; in her best performances, she seems like a very talented drama student who has mastered all the techniques and methods of acting but to whom one always wants to say ‘Okay, Jane, please do it again. And this time mean it.’ There is always a certain shallowness in her work, a feeling that she never gets as deep into her characters as would be possible and she herself would like to. Instead, she projects a constant awareness and reflection about her acting styles and choices. Maybe Jane Fonda suffers from the fact that she is too intelligent to completely let go and trust these great instincts inside her. Her famous and praised scenes with her psychiatrist, scenes in which Bree opens herself up and step by step reveals her inner fears and the demons that keep her from changing her life and allow herself to be happy, are generally considered to be a wonderful proof of her spontaneity and ability to slip into her characters, but to me, every movement of her arms, every expression on her face, seem to be a result of careful consideration. While she doesn’t feel as controlled in her performances as other actresses, it still seems that inside Jane Fonda’s head there is a constant reflection about what to do next and how to move now while saying the lines. This way, her best performances have a certain fascination from a technical point of view and, as mentioned before, are obviously a display of a great deal of talent, but they always stop one step before reaching a full embodiment of her characters. The praised scene when Bree, alone and feeling unwatched, licks a spoon with cat food, as if out of habit, is certainly an interesting acting choice that shows that Jane Fonda understands her character, but it never feels like a spontaneous gesture that came from being ‘in character’.

Jane Fonda mostly suffers from a rather fake voice that prevents her from delivering any lines naturally or being fully convincing in her parts. When Klute, a detective looking for a disappeared man who used to be one of Bree’s customers, tells her that he watched her with an older man in his office, she angrily shouts at him ‘Goddamn you!’ – this scene so wonderfully displays the problems in Jane Fonda’s voice as she so obviously tries to say these lines with the right amount of anger and frustration but the result feels rather bored and forced and most of all…acted. Because of the problems with her voice, Jane Fonda can never prevent me from being aware that she is constantly acting and constantly searching for the next gesture.

Overall, it’s the combination of Jane Fonda’s intelligence, her constant awareness while acting and her shortcomings as an actress that prevent her from giving fully realized performances and characterizations. But this doesn’t mean that there isn’t still a lot to enjoy about most of her work, especially in Klute.

Her ability to fully understand her characters is certainly her strongest asset. Jane Fonda clearly knows Bree and what she feels and thinks. While a lot of scenes with Bree feel forced into the movie and don’t really connect with the rest, Jane Fonda has the ability to turn Bree into one logic creation. It’s only her performance that holds everything together and shows the fear and terror of Bree just as effectively as her insecurity and worries. In some ways, Bree is a woman who is fearing for her life twice – on the one hand, there is a deadly stalker following her but there is even more that troubles her. Her own inability to let herself enjoy life, her constant need to punish herself. There is something inside her that prevents her from taking a step in the direction she really wants to go and makes her always chose the other way, an unknown force that makes her destroy all the good things in her life. She may be trying to get out of her profession and start acting or modeling but something always pulls her back. It’s a childlike fear of happiness, a troubled soul that Jane Fonda displays with an intelligent and detailed performance. Her scenes with her psychiatrist may not appear as improvised and real as they would like to be but there is still a lot to admire about Jane Fonda’s work here. In these scenes, she is able to create a certain fascination about Bree. The sudden honesty, her self reflections that show that Bree knows more about herself and her own feelings than apparent at first sight, create a wonderful contrast to her earlier scenes and it’s in these moments that Bree suddenly becomes much more complex and captivating than before or after. Her surprise about being loved for who she is and not for what she represents or pretends to be is a wonderful human moment.

Still, for all the lines of self-awareness that Jane Fonda gets to deliver in these scenes, her greatest moments are wordless ones: when she is walking with Donald Sutherland along a little market and she tenderly hugs him from behind with a relaxed smile that has never been seen before. It’s in this moment that Bree allows herself to be happy, that she suddenly realizes how happiness can feel. But Jane also displays a certain sense of feeling secure and protected. In this one moment, Bree, who always likes to be so tough and strong, shows that she has everything she needs – but it’s also a smile that shows that Bree is aware that this happiness won’t last forever but just this one time, she is willing to let herself feel good. And then there is Jane Fonda’s final scene in which she, in a never-ending close-up, shows an unforgettable display of fear and grief.

Bree is a kind of messed-up character, a woman who is scared about being happy and rejects happiness when she finds it. She is unwilling to get too close, she prefers the distance and being alone despite the terror that has entered her life. These characteristics create a remarkable chemistry with Donald Sutherland as Jane Fonda can slowly show the change in Bree, how she plays with Klute but seems to hate herself for it, how she becomes closer to him even though she doesn’t want to. Bree is a realist, a woman who would like to dream but prevents herself from it. Jane Fonda expresses all this with while also handling the various themes and styles of Klute.

Even though she shouldn’t be, Bree Daniels is a fascinating character. And in some ways, Jane Fonda does give a fascinating performance that is a wonderful display of technical ability. Unfortunately, she misses an emotional and honest core in her interpretation and because of this, she gets