By Brian Greene

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“It’s easy to manipulate men.”

That’s a key line in Alan J. Pakula’s 1971 film Klute, which has just been released in a new Criterion Collection edition. The line is delivered by a New York City call girl named Bree Daniels, as portrayed by Jane Fonda, who won a Best Actress in a Leading Role Oscar for this performance.

“It’s easy to manipulate men” is a striking declaration, especially when it comes from the mouth of a paid sexual escort. But some context is necessary here, because when Daniels utters that line to her psychiatrist – in one of a few crucial scenes that take place in Daniels’s shrink’s office – she is actually talking about the one man in her life whom she’s not sure she can control. This is John Klute (played by Donald Sutherland...