Carnal Knowledge (Nicholson and Garfunkel) - thoughts and questions

Cafe Society
1

Is this the most depressing movie ever, or is this the most depressing movie ever?

I have never seen another movie like this, that was so unrelentingly bleak and dreary in its portrayal of human relationships. From beginning to end, it was just a gigantic downer, featuring two desperately insecure and pathetic men and the various women unlucky enough to get involved with them. Its depiction of married life is absolutely the most pessimistic one possible, and its depiction of the single promiscuous life is absolutely the most pessimistic one possible. There is basically no joy, whatsoever, in this film.

Also, in that scene where Jack Nicholson is fucking Susan in the woods, and you can’t even see his face because his coat is covering him, he looks like some kind of evil woodland creature ravaging an innocent woman. (I think it may have been intentional.)

Questions:

Why did they pick Art Garfunkel for this movie? I didn’t even realize he was an actor. It seems like a strange and random choice. I think he did fit the role well, but how did he come to be cast? Was he sought out by the producers? Did he use his musical fame to try to get the part?

Did anyone else notice that Garfunkel never actually inhaled all the times when he was shown smoking cigarettes or cigars (whereas Nicholson did.) I guess he isn’t a smoker in real life.

Was this the first movie to show full male nudity (in the shower scenes in college?)

Who on God’s green earth thought that Jack Nicholson could convincingly play a college student in this film? He and Garfunkel were supposed to be roommates who were both in the same grade, but Nicholson looked about 35.

Anyone else seen this? Like it? Hate it? Any thoughts?

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I saw it, didn’t care for it much. I’d heard it was one of those “forbidden” movies for its day.

I bought Garfunkel as a college student more than Nicholson for sure. Besides looking too old, he didn’t seem all that intelligent. I know Garfunkel felt Rodney Dangerfield-esque that “all” he did was sing, so maybe he glommed onto an opportunity to show he had more going for him. And of course having an established name must have paid some dividends at the box office.

Four years after “The Graduate,” I wouldn’t think it was groundbreaking in its day.

3

Don’t I remember Candice Bergen singing a terribly offkey Better Than Ever? That was so well-done that I remember it after all these years.

I really liked the film, but it’s been so long since I’ve seen it that I don’t remember why.

The acting got several nominations including a Golden Globe nomination for Art Garfunkel. The director, Mike Nichols, is one that I would go to see cold just based on his reputation. I remember it as being painful but clever and witty.

I agree that Nicholson is old for the roll, but the period of time covered is more than just the usual four year college tour. Besides, Nicholson could convincingly portray a volcanic eruption if he set his mind to it.

I can never remember if this movie was the first to show full frontal nudity or if that was I Am Curious Yellow – which I never saw. (Guess I wasn’t curious enough.)

Ann Margaret won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actress in CK.

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[QUOTE=Zoe]
Don’t I remember Candice Bergen singing a terribly offkey Better Than Ever? That was so well-done that I remember it after all these years.

[/QUOTE]

I think you have your Candice Bergen movies confused. She sung (hilariously horribly) that “Better than Ever” song in “Starting Over” (with Burt Reynolds). MANY years after “Carnal Knowledge”.

5

[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
Was this the first movie to show full male nudity (in the shower scenes in college?)
[/QUOTE]
I believe the first American film to show full frontal male nudity (at least after the inception of the Production Code) was Haskell Wexler’s Medium Cool, released in 1969 (Robert Forester doing the honors). I can’t speak for foriegn cinema other than that the Puritanical impulse to conceal nudity and essentially human sexuality never really had the same thrust on in continental Europe, and I know there are German and Scandinavian films going back to the 'Sixties that feature nudity (both sexes), erotic scenes, and in a few notable cases, unsimulated sex in a non-pornographic context.

I wouldn’t call Carnal Knowledge a great film, and it certainly hasn’t held up over the years either as a story in its own right or a pop culture touchstone in comparison to movies like The Graduate or Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, nor is it really one of Nicholson’s best early, pre-scenery chewing “JACK!” turns, but it usually turns up on the second tier.

Stranger

6

Didn’t “Easy Rider” (1969) show some male nudity when they were swimming/bathing?

7

Thanks, Cormac262. Then maybe I won’t netflix the movie afterall.

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[QUOTE=Argent Towers]

Why did they pick Art Garfunkel for this movie? I didn’t even realize he was an actor. It seems like a strange and random choice. I think he did fit the role well, but how did he come to be cast? Was he sought out by the producers? Did he use his musical fame to try to get the part?
[/QUOTE]

According to Mike Nichols on the commentary for “Catch-22,” he first met Art Garfunkel (and Paul Simon too) when they were doing the music for “The Graduate,” and thought he’d be good for the character of Nately in that movie–another naive young man, in love with an Italian prostitute. And then, having cast Garfunkel and worked with him there, Nichols considered him and wound up casting him his next film, Sandy in “Carnal Knowledge.”

I do like this movie–although I don’t know if “enjoy” is exactly the word I’d use to describe my feelings when watching it. But I need to think about what I want to say about it, so I’ll come back later.

9

Actually the surprise of the movie was Ann-Margaret. She was known only as a Vegas performer/Elvis girl-fried type before the movie and the critics were amazed that she gave a good performance.

And if you want to see a really depressing movie from that time period, check out Midnight Cowboy.

10

[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
Is this the most depressing movie ever, or is this the most depressing movie ever?

I have never seen another movie like this, that was so unrelentingly bleak and dreary in its portrayal of human relationships. From beginning to end, it was just a gigantic downer, featuring two desperately insecure and pathetic men and the various women unlucky enough to get involved with them. Its depiction of married life is absolutely the most pessimistic one possible, and its depiction of the single promiscuous life is absolutely the most pessimistic one possible. There is basically no joy, whatsoever, in this film.
[/QUOTE]

Yeh, but there’s tits! :slight_smile:

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[QUOTE=BrainGlutton]
Yeh, but there’s tits! :slight_smile:
[/QUOTE]

And they’re spectacular!

12

[QUOTE=lobotomyboy63]
Didn’t “Easy Rider” (1969) show some male nudity when they were swimming/bathing?
[/QUOTE]
Not frontal.

Other male frontal nudity in mainstream films before Carnal Knowledge was released in June 1971:

• Malcolm McDowell and other cast members in If… (1968)
• Charlton Heston in Number One (1969) (probably unintentional)
• Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in Women in Love (1969)
• Norman Manzon in What Do You Say to a Naked Lady? (1970)

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[QUOTE=Walloon]
• Charlton Heston in Number One (1969) (probably unintentional)
[/QUOTE]

How is that possible?

14

Thank you for asking. Non-widescreen U.S. films are usually filmed with a 1.37:1 aspect ratio aperture plate in the camera, but are intended to be shown with a 1.85:1 aspect ratio aperture plate in the theater projector. Lines etched on the camera’s viewfinder show what is within that 1.85:1 area. Sometimes when actors do nude scenes, they are framed along that 1.85 aperture enough to show that they are really nude (hips, top of buttocks, bit of pubic hair). But the naughty bits outside that 1.85 box are still on the 1.37 film, and when the film is watched on home video on a standard television screen (1.33:1 ratio), they’re visible.

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Why did they pick Art Garfunkel for this movie?
Garfunkel was still a hugely well-known pop star of the moment. He’d just broken up his hugely popular folk act with Paul Simon, thus precipitating an inevitable decline as a musical star (the highlights of his career from then on were the recurring reunions he did with Simon), and like fading music stars are wont to do, he tried to make a jump into acting roles (Kind of like what Britney Spears is trying to do now.)

Did anyone else notice that Garfunkel never actually inhaled all the times when he was shown smoking cigarettes or cigars (whereas Nicholson did.) I guess he isn’t a smoker in real life.
Garfunkel was arrested twice for possession of marijuana (see under personal life), so I think it’s safe to guess that in real life - he inhales.

Was this the first movie to show full male nudity (in the shower scenes in college?)
Dunno.

Who on God’s green earth thought that Jack Nicholson could convincingly play a college student in this film? He and Garfunkel were supposed to be roommates who were both in the same grade, but Nicholson looked about 35.
The same people who thought that Dustin Hoffman (at 30) could convincingly play a recent college grad, and that Anne Bancroft (at 35) could convincingly play a peer of Hoffman’s parents. (Well, OK, Bancroft pulls it off, but Hoffman did look too old to be an ‘enfant terrible.’)

Anyone else seen this? Like it? Hate it? Any thoughts?
My take on this film is not that married or single life is particularly reprehensible, it’s that the protagonists themselves are reprehensible. While they both profess to wanting to find ‘the perfect woman’, they are both simply acting on their own neurotic compulsions. Nicholson is a misogynist who gravitates toward flawed women that he can chew up & spit out (like Ann-Margaret), while Garfunkel wants an authoritative mother figure to dominate him (like Sandy Denny). But then, Ann-Margaret & Sandy Denny both willingly get caught up in the drama because of their own neurotic impulses. Ann-Margaret especially enjoys playing the victim. Bergen, the only well-adjusted character in the film, quickly sees through both men and drops them both liked used condoms.

To me, this is not a film about relationship, but codependency. It’s about how flawed people will seek each other out in order to feed off each other. Even the two protagonists’ relationship is symbiotic. Nicholson & Garfunkel don’t even seem to like each other, but they remain ‘friends’ because each of them validates the other’s belief that the women they date (not themselves) are the problem in all their relationships.

16

[QUOTE=kunilou]
And if you want to see a really depressing movie from that time period, check out Midnight Cowboy.
[/QUOTE]

That’s one of my favorite movies. It is depressing, but it’s punctuated by a lot of happy moments. Both of the characters are extremely likable despite their shortcomings in life, and their friendship and the way they help each other survive their hardscrabble life is very touching. Even the ending where Ratso dies on the bus leaves the viewer with the notion that Joe has learned a good amount of street smarts from his friend and that he will be more likely to succeed on his own. Even the little scene where he throws away his cowboy outfit and buys some regular clothes in Florida indicates that he’s grown up and gotten wiser.

Carnal Knowledge on the other hand is just way more bleak, I think, with very little human warmth between characters (almost none, actually.) Midnight Cowboy is about how two hopeless characters all the way down at the bottom of society can lean on each other for support and make it through the hard times with each other’s help. Carnal Knowledge is about how two upper-class, successful professionals who make a lot of money still lead pointless, unfulfilling lives and are unable to find happiness no matter how hard they try.

I’d give Carnal Knowledge the “most depressing” award over Cowboy.

But Jack Nicholson’s performance is really amazing, and worth watching the movie for. The scene where he’s screaming at Ann-Margaret during their argument in the bedroom - man, can that guy play a screaming lunatic like no other!

17

Favorite scene: Nicholson is trying to flirt with a young woman in a bar. She asks him old he is; he tells her to guess. She keeps going up in the wrong direction as the smile slowly falls off his face.

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[QUOTE=Argent Towers]
But Jack Nicholson’s performance is really amazing, and worth watching the movie for. The scene where he’s screaming at Ann-Margaret during their argument in the bedroom - man, can that guy play a screaming lunatic like no other!
[/QUOTE]

“I’ll tell you what you can do with your ultimatum! I’ll tell you what you can do with it! You can make this god-damn bed with it!”

Ah, Jack.

See, I did come back eventually.

To me, the story in this film isn’t so much depressing as pathetic. In the liner notes on the DVD*, there’s a quote from Jules Feiffer about how he originally wrote this as a stage play about the relationships between men and women and “the way things have been for my generation.” Which is a rather bleak assessment of that generation. I feel sure, however, that there are people in younger generations just as hopeless in their relationships for the same kinds of reasons, and that this story could be remade with very little updating–directed by Neil LaBute, no doubt.

Whenever I watch this, I keep thinking “poor _____.”

Poor Susan (Candice Bergen). She had such promise before she became involved with these two guys. One of the flaws of this film for me is that she disappears halfway through and we never hear what happened to her after Sandy left her.** I always like to think she went back to school, got her degree, wrote that novel she was talking about, or did something to get her life back on track.

Poor, poor Bobbie (Ann-Margret). How sad is it that, when Jonathan asks why she puts up with him, she tells him “You don’t know what I’m used to,” implying that this is one of her good relationships with men? Then she gets into that whole scary passive-aggressive thing with sleeping 12, 15 hours a day to manipulate him into marriage, which predictably ends badly.

Poor Sandy (Art Garfunkel). He’s got this romantic ideal of finding love, and this madonna/whore thing to top it off (“Maybe it’s not supposed to be fun with women you love.”) that pretty much ensures he’ll always end up disappointed and never find the perfect relationship he’s looking for. Well, he had a chance of a decent one with Susan, but he ditched it. Schmuck.

Last of all, poor Jonathan (Jack Nicholson). Look where his attitude toward women leads him. Is there anything more pathetic than that final scene, where the prostitute has to recite a word-perfect spiel about how strong and insightful he is just so he can get an erection?***

I don’t feel sorry for is Cindy, and she’s oddly enough the only woman in the movie who could reasonably be described as a ball-buster by anyone except Jonathan. Her attitude toward men seems similar to his about women. And she’s the only major female character who isn’t hurt by these two men–I believe because she has no emotional attachment to them the way Susan and Bobbie do. When she gets tired of them and their games, she simply walks away.

*I’m irked that there really aren’t any extras beyond this little slip of paper accompanying the DVD. Nichols and Steven Soderbergh did wonderfully informative commentary/interviews on “Catch 22” and “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf,” so why not here?

**The New and Improved Superman: I never got the impression that Susan left Sandy. We see Sandy telling Jonathan about how bored he is and how he’d like to get laid (“Please”), and the next thing we see is him with Cindy. Presumably, he left Susan for his new tennis-playing girlfriend.

***In my imaginary Neil LaBute remake, this scene is done with a phone-sex operator doing her nails and looking bored and contemptuous while she recites this rigmarole for her regular client.

19

[QUOTE=Walloon]
Favorite scene: Nicholson is trying to flirt with a young woman in a bar. She asks him old he is; he tells her to guess. She keeps going up in the wrong direction as the smile slowly falls off his face.
[/QUOTE]

There isn’t such a scene. There is, however, a scene where he guesses Ann-Margret’s character’s age, and gets surprised and a bit disturbed as the numbers get higher. IIRC, she turns out to be 29, which is older than he’s supposed to be at this point.