After suffering through the scratched up EastmanColor release prints of Carnal Knowledge, I was ecstatic when Criterion put out a letterbox LaserDisc of this elegant film. It is a little conservative, shape-wise, but still, I'm thrilled someone made this disc.

Mike Nichols’ film of Jules Feiffer’s Carnal Knowledge remains as interesting to audiences today as it was when it was first released in 1971. It seems hard to believe seeing the film now, but the producers had to fight to get the picture respectable bookings in the South and Midwest. Theatre operators thought that the film was on the borderline of outright pornography with its oblique references to handjobs and so on.

Nearly every video guide from Leonard Maltin on down says that Carnal Knowledge was a controversial film. There is little doubting this, for the film is as stylistically audacious as its subject matter. For Nichols, this was nothing new. His two films previous to Carnal Knowledge were considered by many at their respective studios to be unreleaseable. Both The Graduate (1967) and Catch-22 (1970), were viewed by many as "what was wrong with the movies" at the time.

Carnal Knowledge proved to be no different. Feiffer’s comic decades-spanning fable of Jonathan and Sandy sharply divided audiences over just what "a movie" should be. Certainly many people went to see the picture because of Jack Nicholson, who was the hottest thing in Hollywood, having made a strong appearance in Bob Raphelson’s Five Easy Pieces, released just the year before. The rest of the cast wasn’t much of a draw. I recall people at the time were saying things like, "Why would I want to go see that? Candice Bergen can’t act. Didn’t you see The Sand Pebbles?"

But those who did see the film were surprised by a picture whose subject matter – even more blatantly than in Peter Bogdanovich’s The Last Picture Show – was sex.

© 1971 Icarus Productions

Here was a movie about two college boys in the late 40s having their first sexual encounters with a girl, and their subsequent erotic problems. Some found it fascinating, others thought that this was not an area films ought to deal with. Can you imagine?

At the time, at the beginning of the 70s, there seemed to be two Hollywoods. One of these Hollywoods wanted to make the same kind of movies they had always made; make pictures that were conceived as entertainment for specific audiences. They greenlighted pictures dealing with World War II – Where Eagles Dare (1969), Patton (1970), and musicals, Hello, Dolly! (1969), The Song of Norway (1970). All of these were hideously expensive "movies"; not all of them found their intended audiences.

This Hollywood was being shown up big-time by the producers, directors and writers who were willing to take chances on new material and subjects which had previously been taboo until the setting up of the MPAA’s Classification and Ratings Administration in 1968. They were interested in trying out new waters, and these films were usually done on very tight production budgets with big publicity rollouts.

Certainly, sex had been the "through line" in entertainment and drama almost since its inception, but Carnal Knowledge openly suggested that the "ladies man" sometimes finish last.

This certainly was something worth hearing back in the early 70s, when many of these "now" films from Hollywood were asking us to re-think many of our long-held values, and talent certainly had something to do with it. Producer Nichols assembled a creative team who fashioned an elegant, moody, nostalgic modern American fable. It is a textbook case in storytelling.

I don’t know when I first saw Carnal Knowledge. It was probably at West Los Angeles’ Nu-Art Theatre around 1973. The Nu-Art was what was called a "repertory theatre." At that time, they played a different double feature every night! They rented them for a flat rate long after a film’s regular theatrical run was considered history. They were not picky about letting under-17-year-olds in to see "R" rated films either. At the time, I did not really have an understanding of what Carnal Knowledge was about. I was not old enough. But I do recall being enormously impressed with the staging of it.

"Less is more" I guess is what you would call it. Film is a tremendously plastic medium. Deciding what to show about a given character and how, is open to unlimited possibilities. Since Carnal Knowledge started out as a play (I imagine Feiffer and Nichols, both sometime habitues of the Playboy Mansions both in Chicago and Los Angeles, met and formulated the project under Hef’s roof), each possible stage direction is transferred to the screen in a manner I find intensely cinematic.

The first stage direction in the play: "Susan walks onto stage," becomes one of the longest shots in the film: the camera is looking out into the night at a parked car, which has a slight beam of light thrown across it. Susan (Candice Bergen) emerges from this darkness and approaches the camera, so that we can get a good look at her. We see that she is very good looking in an aristocratic sort of way. Susan passes the camera and into what looks like the first floor of a fraternity house. She looks for someplace to land and sees a side room where a lone and none-too-attractive girl has decided to make friends with a magazine.

Susan turns from this room and its occupant with a look of "No, I don’t want that." And you understand her perfectly. This is what is so cinematic to my eye. There is a trust on the director’s part that you are going to observe what the hell is going on in the scene, and that you will pick up on its meaning and what it reveals about the characters.

Susan continues through a doorway where Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) are standing. You understand Jonathan, not only because he’s played by Jack Nicholson, but because of his first line. He sees that Sandy has given a big fawning look at Susan as she went by. He asks Sandy, "You like that?" That. Like a man talking about baseball teams.

But this is where you realize that it is a matter of preference. Personal attraction and type are the very things that guide our selection of our amorous objectives. Sandy goes through this agonizing scene where he, in the complete awkwardness of virginal youth, goes over to talk to Susan, who immediately embroils him in an intellectual rondelet. While they are talking in the foreground on the left side of the frame, Jonathan is slouching in the doorway watching the proceedings in a high key light in the background on the right. This is in the second shot! All during this time, Susan is looking over Sandy’s shoulder at Jonathan. And just in case you didn’t pick up on it, Sandy asks Susan a question. She hesitates because she is looking at Jonathan; there is a cut to a medium shot of Susan looking at Jonathan off screen; she returns to focus on Sandy, and they continue to talk.

I could go on and on in a similar manner over virtually every shot in this picture. I have always meant to sit down and count the number of shots in the film. Not that many, I’ll bet. There isn’t a restriction on quickly held shots, but there is a minimalism here that informs the entire production, the settings, music, cutting and right down the line, and it gives the picture the air of a fable.

The effect this has is to place an emphasis on the dialogue. Feiffer’s rendering of the various characters is brilliant. Susan’s, "I may want to write novels later – when I have something to say." Sandy, during his and Jonathan’s argument over who reads more, his evaluation of something called Jean-Christophe, spoken in his New York honk, "It’s a claa-sic, you mor-on!" Jonathan, during the same argument, "Ever read Guadalcanal Diary by Richard D. Tregaskis? That was a best-seller, and I read it." Each line in this script is something I savor.

You understand in a way that would have been impossible in an earlier movie why Susan decides to yield to Jonathan’s advances, while poor Sandy has to beg a cold-fish Susan into intercourse. It’s all shown to us in a scene where Susan dances with each in a small pub while "A String of Pearls" is playing on the jukebox. You can see that Jonathan is more dashing, more in tune with his body, more into having fun than Sandy is. This leads up to one of my favorite things in the movie as well as one of my favorite wide-screen compositions ever: Susan laughing her head off while listening to Jonathan and Sandy playing a word game off screen. She is just going for broke with laughter, while the Wurlitzer jukebox occupies the right side of the frame in the background.

© 1971 Icarus Productions

Susan is turning her head this way and that to talk to her two suitors. Enjoy it while you can Susan, because in the following scene, Jonathan reveals that he is forcing Susan to tell Sandy that she and Jonathan have betrayed him. Despite the many differences between now and the era portrayed in this film, and as we know that it was Jonathan who instigated this triangle, we still catch his total hypocrisy in cruelly judging Susan, "You are really something."

The deliberateness of holding shots so long is very similar to the way Feiffer arranges his comic strips: someone will be introduced in the first panel to announce that they will do "A Dance to Spring." They will dance in long shots for panel after panel, while tons of dialogue sprouts from their head in each frame. Then eventually, they will decide that they hate spring, and they stop dancing. This is the essence of Feiffer’s humor: people say one thing, but do another. To Feiffer, this is the core of the human experience.

To be torn in ambiguous directions is certainly God’s big joke on Jonathan. He is obsessed with physical beauty, and has drifted into being a "ladies man" circa early 60s. When we are introduced to Bobbie (Ann-Margeret) atop a revolving bar (how 60s! Where did they come up with that?), we can only wait for the shit to hit the fan. As they drive back to Jonathan’s apartment, they engage in a form of foreplay, ironically speaking of their future divorce and alimony payments.

Jonathan and Bobbie have some good times, all right. I especially love the scene of what I can only imagine is a Sunday morning. Bobbie is stretched out on the bed in the nude, reading the newspaper. I don’t recognize the music playing, but it must be some Bach/Handel sort of thing (this, and the newspaper, gives me the impression that it is Sunday morning). Jonathan is in the shower, "Oh, nurse . . ."

But you are sitting there waiting for it all to blow up in Jonathan’s face. You don’t have to wait long. In a post-coital scene, Jonathan heads for the shower – his character’s refuge whenever somebody is asking too many questions about marriage. Again, we hold on Bobbie for a long time as we study her face and wonder about who she is. When Jonathan emerges from the shower, she asks him if they can live together. This is pure Feiffer. Jonathan, we know, doesn’t really want to have Bobbie move in with him, but he knows that he’s going to give in on this and say yes anyway.

Not only that, but Bobbie knows it’s a mistake in a way. Her reaction to Jonathan’s equivocation is, "You’re a real prick, you know that?" She says it in such a dangerously offhand way, that we all know she means it – especially Jonathan, who resorts to his "bad boy" posture and smiles as he sits, naked, in a chair smoking a cigarette.

And sure enough, life at chez Jonathan et Bobbie is, shall we say, a bit on the grim side. Here is a scene you have never encountered in a movie, and are not likely to see in any movie. It is an evening, seemingly chosen at random, of what Jonathan and Bobbie’s life together is. In the kitchen, which is overrun with darkroom equipment, Bobbie is shown gamely taking a couple of TV dinners out of the oven. She slogs into the bedroom, where Jonathan is watching TV. He asks her if she has remembered to bring him a beer. Thus begins a low-key argument showing us that Bobbie has quit her career as a model in order to – what? Jonathan wants to know too.

That a couple could be so at odds with one another is not something you find in movies too often. You’re supposed to like the hero. But Jonathan isn’t the hero. He isn’t even the anti-hero. It’s Bobbie who keeps us involved with the proceedings from here on; we take an anxious interest in watching where all this is going. It’s no wonder the film finds its conclusion not long after Bobbie opts out of the whole scene.

It’s because our sympathies are with Bobbie that she becomes the focus of the next section of the story. Jonathan and Sandy have met, and we find that Sandy, having become a doctor after marrying the first girl he met – Susan – that he is bored out of his mind. Jonathan introduces to Sandy the concept of cheating on Susan. The suitable partner for this, Cindy, is introduced into this mess in a scene I find very nicely done. She is shown in a tennis outfit, getting ready to play. We hear the sound of Jonathan and Sandy playing against each other. Bobbie, totally out of place, sports the symbol of the tradeoff she has made in order to be with Jonathan: a fur coat.

Cindy lopes off screen to play against Jonathan. Sandy sits on the courtside bench, commenting on the play which, we hear, shows Cindy to be a skilled, competitive player. All of this is done in one long take focusing on Bobbie, who is doing the slow burn. It is a tribute to the way this film hangs together that you can sympathize with what Bobbie is going through. And it is not at all clear what will happen when Bobbie blows up over the whole situation. You just know that it will.

Then, there is a long scene where Jonathan and Bobbie argue over the usual themes: sex and money. The emotionalism of this scene is easy enough to understand: Bobbie is becoming a slug as a result of having been subject to Jonathan’s whims. She violently insists on marriage and family. For a moment, we think that he is going to head off to the shower, but instead, he comes out of the bathroom, and begins the most hysterical outburst perhaps ever recorded on film. In this scene, Jonathan behaves as though he was and animal with its foot caught in a trap.

His answer to the larger question of "will we get married and start a family?" is a resounding "NO!" which is interrupted by the appearance of Sandy and Cindy. They are all going out somewhere. That Jonathan could so firmly deny happiness to the miserable Bobbie one minute, and in the next, suggest to Sandy that they swap partners, is only further proof of the shallowness of Jonathan’s character.

The outrages continue to pile up: Bobbie overdoses on sleeping pills, Jonathan accidentally slips to Sandy that he and Susan had sex together, Jonathan’s scorn of Sandy’s new girlfriend, Jennifer. It is fairly clear that Jonathan is merely maintaining his "ladies man" persona at all costs, while Sandy is at least trying to grow and change. This is particularly evident in the clothes and settings the characters find themselves in at the end of the picture. Jonathan is garbed in the most hideous "swinger" clothes and pad, while Sandy and his "love teacher" are dressed in the height of Hippie Chic.

While the future for Sandy is uncertain, the outcome for Jonathan is swift and terrible. He is in such a weird spot sexually, that his only erotic thrill comes from visiting Louise (Rita Moreno), a prostitute, who must stick to a carefully determined script in order to overcome Jonathan’s impotence. Louise errs, and unfortunately, must lay on a thick coating of machismo compliments in order to get Jonathan erect. This is where Feiffer and Nichols consign this bastard, who followed his own code of behavior: sex without love.

I agree with many who say that the ending of the film comes as a surprise. The film is so sharp you wish it could go on forever. Part of this is due to the narrative style I think. Carnal Knowledge is admired for its simplicity by many filmmakers and viewers alike. Many have attempted to knock off its style, but no one has even come close to doing it. Nichols certainly hasn’t. But then again, his stylistic choice for the text of Carnal Knowledge is not likely to be selected again, for scripts like this one are singular indeed. It remains one of the most unique films in history.

4.3.01