Carnal Knowledge

"Carnal Knowledge" (1971) directed by Mike Nichols with Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen, Ann-Margret in an Oscar nominated performance as a sex kitten who wants to marry Nicholson's Jonathan, and Carol Kane and Rita Moreno in the small roles is one of the movies that made 70s so memorable. It is also the movie that keeps reminding me why I love Jack Nicholson of his early years and how grand he was without his "Jackness" which he has developed during all these years. Sandy (Garfunkel) and Jonathan are two college friends and like every straight young (and not too young) man in the world they are obsessed by girls and move from one relationship to another in the course of almost thirty years. Nichols and Jules Feiffer who wrote the play and later adapted it for the screen let us look inside the minds and souls of two educated upper-middle class white males and to learn their very intimate thoughts and secrets concerning their plentiful dysfunctional and joyless affairs and it is not a pretty picture - "Boys begin life not liking girls, later they don't change, they just get horny." The film is honest, uncomfortable, "very slick, very clever".

For the first half hour the characters are so disgusting and terrible, the feeling of bile rising in my throat doesn't subside. These are the people who I have known. And while I cannot bring myself to turn it off, I also can't help but fondly remember watching all of his movies that he made before this one, the spark that say The Graduate or Catch-22 had, and this just feels a little flat. But at the same time, it seems to completely succeed in doing what it sets out to do, creating something suffocatingly real, like watching the most depressing moments in my life played back for me with dim lighting and blonder actresses. The fact that Candice Bergen goes away after that also helps. Upper middle class ennui is something that's almost always tedious to watch, but this is actually affecting. Nonetheless, this feels like the beginning of the end for Mike Nichols. He would never again make anything on a level with Catch-22, and he followed this one up with Day of the Dolphins. Seriously. wtf. Also for the curious, pop star Arthur Garfunkle (as the back of the DVD box puts it) gives a surprisingly strong performance in this.

Mike Nichols directed Jules Feiffer's script of two men in their times with the opposite sexes, beginning with college years, then years later when they have occupations, and settling on middle age. Jack Nicholson creates one of his more complex characters here, which like About Schmidt or The King of Marvin Gardens, doesn't end up the happiest guy in town. His Jonathan is lusting, condescending, scared (deep inside), angry, and intelligent all at once, though never knowing himself well enough to know the one he's getting his rocks off with. On the flip-side his best friend Sandy (Art Garfunkel) is sensitive, unsure, though without a feeling of overt confidence and control like Jonathan has, and that feeling of confidence over the other sex is what keeps them together in discussion, and serves as a tinge in their friendship in their older age.

In college, Sandy meets Susan (Candice Bergen), and is more of a friend at first, while Susan begins an affair she didn't intend on with Jonathan. This unfolds, and when they graduate and are out in the world Jonathan meets Bobbie (Ann Margaret) who is a pure vixen with, at the behest of Jonathan, is a louse and wanting a commitment Jonathan can't take. The last scene with Rita Moreno, and especially the last shot featuring an ice skater Jonathan saw once, say it all about his character- essentially, as it is with nearly all men, he wants what he can't have.

Many of the angles and many of the one shots of faces for long stretches, the camera compositions and time length, etc, reminded me of techniques that director Ingmar Bergman used in his movies that dealt with relationships, men with women, and how the desperation in their personalities either become their downfall, or a life lesson later on. In a sense, Carnal Knowledge is Nichols' throwback to Bergman as was Interiors for Woody Allen, though his dealt with the strife in a family and Nichols is a character study dealing in love and sex. Never-the-less, non-art film goers shouldn't be scared off by the notion that Carnal Knowledge is bleak or sterile. It may not be the most cheerful, or an entirely fair to both sexes, but it is important in that it views Jonathan, Sandy, Susan, and Bonnie, as people, and Nichols doesn't force the viewer to judge these people if they don't want to. For its time it was groundbreaking, and today it's almost mature compared to the barrage of "relationship" movies of late. And, if anything, it should have mass appeal to devourers of film acting. Grade: A

Its a wry, often funny, often sombre drama about the sex lives of two college roommates, Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel (who's actually fine in this - much better than in Catch-22) - at college, and in middle age.

There are really very few movies where the dialogue seems so true and searching, yet funny, that you hang on every word. I can only think of a few - and this is one of them.

It is episodic, and may be broken into two halves - intentionally, importantly. The heart of the story is in the comparison of the first half and the second: how the two men have or have not changed. If you consider this is the purpose of the film, the two halves are not perfect - but nevertheless a fascinating film.

Bitterness, nostalgia and melancholy run through this character comedy from the 70's. Its a frank, confronting (depending on the viewer) laying bare of sex. Though there is very little actual sex in the film, this one is definitely only for adults. A penetrating character study, and a richly worded film filled with wit, irony and character penetration by cartoonist Jules Feiffer.

9/10. Not perfect, but absolutely must-see.

It's depressing to see what a low rating Carnal Knowledge gets. Jules Feiffer, the brilliant cartoonist, wrote an extraordinary script for this film. I loved the dialog so much I found the script on Alibris and read it immediately.

This is a dark movie. Not that it's violent or bloody, but its take on men vs. women relationships is bleak, blunt, and accurate. Jack Nicholson is charismatic and smart in his role, showing the misery at the heart of a cynic.

As others have written, it's not a kids' movie. It's not even a young adults' movie-- I was bored when I first saw it, at 21. It's an "adult movie" in the non-euphemistic sense of that phrase, an adult movie about the mortality of romance