Carnal Knowledge (film)

Carnal Knowledge is a 1971 American comedy-drama film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Jules Feiffer. It stars Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, Candice Bergen, and Rita Moreno.

For the euphemism for sexual intercourse, see Carnal knowledge. For the ITV quiz show, see Carnal Knowledge (TV series).
Carnal Knowledge
Theatrical release poster
Directed byMike Nichols
Produced by
Written byJules Feiffer
Starring
CinematographyGiuseppe Rotunno
Edited bySam O'Steen
Production
company
Distributed byAVCO Embassy Pictures
Release date
  • June 30, 1971 (1971-06-30)
Running time
97 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$5 million[2]
Box office$12,351,000 (US/Canada rentals)[3]

Plot

The story follows the sexual exploits of two Amherst College roommates over a 25-year period, from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. Sandy (Art Garfunkel) is gentle and passive, while Jonathan Fuerst (Jack Nicholson) is tough and aggressive. Sandy idolizes women, while Jonathan objectifies them. He frequently uses the term "ballbuster" to describe women as emasculating teases whose main pleasure is to deny pleasure to men; he extends this term to mean women who want to get married instead of accepting that men mostly want unattached sex. Since each man's perspective of womanhood is extreme and self-serving, neither is able to sustain a relationship with a woman.

The film has three parts. Part I occurs when Sandy and Jonathan are college roommates. Part II follows the men several years after college. In the final part, the men have become middle-aged.

In the beginning, Sandy and Jonathan are discussing women, and what kind appeals to each. Sandy wants a woman who is intellectual. Jonathan is more interested in a woman's physical attributes.

Sandy shyly meets Susan (Candice Bergen) at an on-campus event and they begin dating. Although they enjoy each other's company, Susan is reluctant to enter into a physical relationship. Unbeknownst to Sandy, she is pursued by Jonathan, who feels a physical attraction for her. They have sex. Jonathan tries to persuade Susan not to have sex with Sandy, but after some delays, Susan is also having sex with Sandy. Part I ends with Susan and Jonathan breaking up.

Part II finds Sandy married to Susan, while Jonathan is still searching for his "perfect woman." Jonathan now defines perfection by a woman's bust size and figure. Jonathan begins a relationship with Bobbie (Ann-Margret), a beautiful woman who fulfills all of his physical requirements. However, Jonathan constantly berates Bobbie for being shallow. Jonathan finds that this purely physical relationship is no more satisfying than his previous relationship with Susan. Bobbie leaves her job at Jonathan's suggestion. She then becomes depressed, spending long hours doing nothing but sleeping in the apartment she shares with Jonathan. The relationship deteriorates. Jonathan berates Bobbie for not cleaning up the apartment while he is out working a nine-to-five job all day. He claims that he doesn't understand why breakups always have to end with "poison."

Sandy's relationship with Susan is faring no better. Sandy is dissatisfied and bored with the physical part of their relationship, even though he and Susan "do all the right things." He relates how they are "patient with each other" and concludes with a statement that perhaps sex is not "meant to be enjoyable with a person you love." He says that being in bed with Susan as she tells him what to do is like taking orders at a short-order grill.

Sandy and Susan end their relationship. He begins dating Cindy (Cynthia O'Neal) next. Sandy, Cindy, Jonathan, and Bobbie find themselves together at Jonathan's apartment, where Jonathan suggests privately to Sandy that they trade partners, to "liven things up a bit." Sandy goes to the bedroom looking for Bobbie. Cindy dances with Jonathan and reprimands him for attempting to bed her with Sandy nearby, but indicates she is open to seeing him on his own, saying he should contact her at a more appropriate time. In the meantime, upset by an earlier fight with Jonathan about her desire to get married, Bobbie has attempted suicide. She is found by Sandy, who calls the hospital to have her taken to intensive care.

Part III opens with now-middle-aged Jonathan presenting a slideshow entitled "Ballbusters on Parade" to Sandy (also middle-aged) and his 18-year-old girlfriend, Jennifer (Carol Kane). The slideshow consists of pictures of Jonathan's various loves throughout his life. He skips awkwardly over a slide of Susan, but not before Sandy notices. He also shows an image of Bobbie, saying they are divorced and had one child together, and he is paying her alimony. Jennifer leaves in tears. Sandy idolizes his new lover, explaining that "she knows worlds which I cannot begin to touch yet." Jonathan believes his friend is deluding himself.

Time passes. Jonathan remains successful, but is alone. A prostitute (Rita Moreno) is with him, and they go through a ritual dialogue about male/female relationships which is apparently a script written by Jonathan. At the end, the prostitute recites a monologue (again scripted by Jonathan) praising his power and "perfection," which apparently has become the only way Jonathan can now get an erection.

Cast

Production

The script was originally written as a play. Jules Feiffer sent it to Mike Nichols, who thought it would work better as a film.[4] The script contains numerous curse words, some of which were rarely heard on the screen before this time.

The $5 million budget was provided by Joseph E. Levine of which $1 million went to Nichols. The movie was shot in Vancouver.[2]

The changes in the morals of American society of the 1960s and 1970s and the general receptiveness by the public to frank discussion of sexual issues was sometimes at odds with local community standards. A theatre in Albany, Georgia, showed the film. On January 13, 1972, the local police served a search warrant on the theatre, and seized the film. In March 1972, the theatre manager, Mr. Jenkins, was convicted of the crime of "distributing obscene material". His conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court of Georgia. On June 24, 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court found that the State of Georgia had gone too far in classifying material as obscene in view of its prior decision in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973) (the Miller standard), and overturned the conviction[5] in Jenkins v. Georgia, 418 U.S. 153 (1974). The court also said that,

Our own viewing of the film satisfies us that Carnal Knowledge could not be found … to depict sexual conduct in a patently offensive way. Nothing in the movie falls within … material which may constitutionally be found … "patently offensive" … While the subject matter of the picture is, in a broader sense, sex, and there are scenes in which sexual conduct including "ultimate sexual acts" is to be understood to be taking place, the camera does not focus on the bodies of the actors at such times. There is no exhibition whatever of the actors' genitals, lewd or otherwise, during these scenes. There are occasional scenes of nudity, but nudity alone is not enough to make material legally obscene… Appellant's showing of the film Carnal Knowledge is simply not the "public portrayal of hard core sexual conduct for its own sake, and for the ensuing commercial gain" which we said was punishable…

Reception

Critical response

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film four stars out of four and called it "clearly Mike Nichols' best film. It sets out to tell us certain things about these few characters and their sexual crucifixions, and it succeeds. It doesn't go for cheap or facile laughs, or inappropriate symbolism, or a phony kind of contemporary feeling ... Nicholson, who is possibly the most interesting new movie actor since James Dean, carries the film, and his scenes with Ann-Margret are masterfully played."[6] Vincent Canby of The New York Times was also positive, calling it "a nearly ideal collaboration of directorial and writing talents" that was "not only very funny, but in a casual way—in the way of something observed in a half-light—more profound than much more ambitious films."[7] Writing in Film Quarterly, Ernest Callenbach called it "a solid and interesting achievement—as was [Nichols'] Virginia Woolf. It is a cold and merciless film, but then artists are not required to stand in for the Red Cross. They document disasters, and it is we the viewers who must clean them up, in our own lives."[8] Gavin Millar of The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "Though not the last word on the subject, it's still a telling and unhysterical assault on male chauvinism; and if that's fashionable, it's not unwelcome."[9]

Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times was less enthused, calling the film "the iciest, most merciless and most repellent major (and seriously intended) motion picture in a very long time." Champlin thought that Nicholson had "some powerful moments" but his character "is never comprehensible as anything but a clinical study, although the study offers no clues to how he got that way."[10] Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called it "a rather superficial and limited probe of American male sexual hypocrisies."[11] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "I wouldn't mind having a nickel for every moviegoer who walks out of 'Carnal Knowledge' feeling cheated and despondent. The basic problem with the film is that it's the artistic equivalent of the sort of thing it purports to be satirizing and abhorring: it's a cold, calculating, unfeeling view of cold, calculating, unfeeling relationships."[12] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film two-and-a-half stars out of four and called it "basically a one-note story ... The characters do not change or learn; they do not even repeat their mistakes in very interesting ways."[13] Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote, "This movie says not merely that there are some people like these, but that this is it—that is, that this movie, in its own satirical terms, presents a more accurate view of men and women than conventional movies do. That may be the case, but the movie isn't convincing."[14]

Rotten Tomatoes retrospectively gives the film a score of 87% based on reviews from 30 critics, with an average rating of 7.72/10. The site's critics consensus reads: "Although it comes lopsidedly from the male gaze, Carnal Knowledge is a sexually frank and ferociously well-acted battle between the sexes."[15]

Accolades

Carnal Knowledge was nominated for Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (Jack Nicholson), Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture (Art Garfunkel), and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (Ann-Margret).

  • The 1971 All in the Family episode "Gloria Poses in the Nude" has Archie and Edith coming home after watching the film. Edith thought it was a religious film because she thought the title of the film was Cardinal Knowledge until Archie corrects her.
  • The 1992 The Wonder Years episode "Carnal Knowledge" has Kevin Arnold and his friends attempting to sneak in to see the film despite being underage.
  • In the 1992 Seinfeld episode "The Trip", George Costanza and Jerry Seinfeld ponder whether Candice Bergen showed her breasts in the film.
  • The 1993 animated series Rocko's Modern Life has an episode titled "Carnival Knowledge", which is a pun on the movie's title, although the episode itself has very little to do with the film.

Home media

Carnal Knowledge was released on DVD December 7, 1999, by MGM Home Video.

See also

References
  1. "CARNAL KNOWLEDGE (X)". British Board of Film Classification. 1971-07-19. Retrieved 2012-10-20.
  2. Film Industry Making It in Vancouver: Film Industry in Vancouver Films Making It in Vancouver Jennings, C Robert. Los Angeles Times 21 Nov 1971: x1.
  3. "All-time Film Rental Champs", Variety, 7 January 1976 p 20
  4. Nichols Meets Jules Feiffer: Mike Nichols
  5. "University of Virginia Library Online Exhibits - CENSORED: Wielding the Red Pen". explore.lib.virginia.edu.
  6. Ebert, Roger (July 6, 1971). "Carnal Knowledge". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved April 21, 2019.
  7. Canby, Vincent (July 1, 1971). "Film: 'Carnal Knowledge'". The New York Times. 63.
  8. Callenbach, Ernest (Winter 1971–72). "Short Notices: Carnal Knowledge". Film Quarterly. 25 (2): 56.
  9. Millar, Gavin (October 1971). "Carnal Knowledge". The Monthly Film Bulletin. 38 (453): 193.
  10. Champlin, Charles (July 2, 1971). "'Carnal' Indicts Sexual Patterns". Los Angeles Times. Part IV, p. 1.
  11. Murphy, Arthur D. (June 30, 1971). "Film Reviews: Carnal Knowledge". Variety. 22.
  12. Arnold, Gary (July 2, 1971). "Carnal Knowledge". The Washington Post. D1.
  13. Siskel, Gene (July 8, 1971). "Carnal Knowledge". Chicago Tribune. Section 2, p. 10.
  14. Kael, Pauline (July 3, 1971). "The Current Cinema". The New Yorker. 44.
  15. "Carnal Knowledge". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved July 5, 2020.
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