Carnal Knowledge (1971)

A somewhat dated critique of middle-class sexual politics, and one of the better films of Mike Nichols. Jules Feiffer's script is an uneasy, confessional work rooted in the regret and confusion experienced by his generation of Americans--men who reached middle age at a time when the rules governing male-female relationships were undergoing radical change.

The film follows college roommates Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) from youth through embittered middle age. Nicholson is a manipulative misogynist, apparently incapable of emotional intimacy; Garfunkel is his less confident, more sensitive friend. In the opening segment, set in the 1940s, the two compete for the affections of bewildered coed Sandy (Candice Bergen). Ten years later, Garfunkel is a bored suburban husband; Nicholson is quarrelling with his mistress Bobbie (Ann-Margret), who senses his contempt for her but still dreams of domesticity. The final segment shows the aging friends, now accompanied by Louise (Rita Moreno) and Jennifer (Carol Kanet), attempting to cope with the unfamiliar values of the late 1960s. Nicholson's performance here did much to consolidate his stardom, while Ann-Margret, previously wasted as a campy sex kitten, used a meaty role to establish herself as a serious actress. An uneven but unusually thoughtful melodrama.

Pauline Kael had this to say of the film: "Jules Feiffer, who wrote the screenplay, had what sounds like a promising idea: to take two college roommates in the mid-1940s and follow their sexual attitudes and activities through to their middle age in the early 70s. But Feiffer rigged the case and wrote a grimly purposeful tract on depersonalization and how we use each other sexually as objects, and, in the director Mike Nichols' cold, slick style, the movie is like a neon sign spelling out the soullessness of neon. Glowering Jack Nicholson (who becomes a tax lawyer) is a jock with a big-breast fixation, and we watch him over the years yelling at his mistress, Ann-Margret, and exploding in frustration as he becomes more and more impotent, until finally he's being lied to and serviced by a prostitute (Rita Moreno). Arthur Garfunkel (who becomes a doctor) is a mild drip who goes from a dull, proper marriage with Candice Bergen to an affair with a snooty bitch (Cynthia O'Neal) and winds up with a curly-haired, teenage hippie (Carol Kane). It's a parallel history of dissatisfaction and emptiness, and as the men age the picture scores off them repeatedly and never lets them win a round. In the film's politicized morality, if well-heeled Americans have sex it must be vile, because how could they possibly know anything about love? As Mike Nichols has directed the material, the effects are almost all achieved through the line readings, and the cleverness is unpleasant—it's all surface and whacking emphasis."

CAST:

PERFORMER, CHARACTER

Jack Nicholson, Jonathan

Candice Bergen, Susan

Art Garfunkel, Sandy

Ann-Margret, Bobbie

Rita Moreno, Louise

Cynthia O'Neal, Cindy

Carol Kane, Jennifer

PRODUCTION:

Producer, Mike Nichols

Director, Mike Nichols

Screenwriter, Jules Feiffer

Editor, Sam O'Steen

Cinematographer, Giuseppe Rotunno

Production Designer, Richard Sylbert