Carnal Knowledge

Jack Nicholson yelling at you is a sexual experience on its own.

Occasionally hilarious drama whose viewing can still offer provocative and uncomfortable insights into the male psyche. Like how I found out the friend I viewed it with had spent the last 20 years of his life under the assumption that Simon and Garfunkel were gay lovers.

Being introduced to this for the first time as an adolescent by my father, I had the feeling it was telling truths that were painstakingly avoided elsewhere. Re-watching in 2021 after a further 35 years or so of life, those truths are largely confirmed, rather unfortunately – although the appetite for truths of this kind has if anything become anorexic. Garfunkel is the weak link (but also the weak character), but Nicholson is great and Bergen, Ann-Margret and Rita Moreno are all very good.

Jack Nicholson playing a college student felt odd, until I realized this film was just taking moments in their lives. Nicholson plays charming, even when he is a ball of masculine rage, so well. Not surprised to read that this was originally a play.

I liked the coming of age stuff in the first act best but the ambitious multiple decade-spanning plot definitely worked, and I enjoyed the many conversations between Nicholson and Garfunkel as well.

Impressive and honest presentation of a lot of truths and issues about sexuality, but maybe the sharpest ones are about Jonathan, a life-long womaniser surrounded by pussies, affairs, fear, jealousy and hatred: through and beyond this exciting, painful and frustrating vicissitude of emotions and desire, maybe we can start to seek for real questions and answers about male sexuality if we can really think about why Bobbie and Louise say he's nice and what Louise's last sentences actually mean.

The tumultuous sex lives of two men leave them ultimately enveloped either in cynicism or self-delusion. Jules Feiffer's uneven script doesn't always reach the archetypal heights it aims for, but Mike Nichols directs it brilliantly, and the cast is superb: Jack Nicholson as the brooding Jonathan, Art Garfunkel as the fatuous Sandy, Candice Bergen and Ann-Margret as the ill-treated Susan and Bobbie; Rita Moreno caps it off with a stunning monologue. Marvelous cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno.

A movie that asks the question: What does it mean to be in a relationship? What is important? Love? Commitment? Compatibility? Romance? Sex? It also puts into perspective what we as a society place value on. Everyone's knows the character of Jonathan: the misogynist who can't live with women but can't live without them. Jack Nicholson gives us an intense performance as usual.

There's something glib about the way this minimalistic, play-like, take on relationships divides humanity into 2 groups: jaded takers & desperately naive suckers. People tend 2 be a little more complicated & the film's unflagging emphasis on humanity's uglier aspects can feel like the sophomoric wisdom of smug college students 2 the less pessimistic. The thing is: the dialogue & the actors r so brilliantly put together that these characters & their relationships never seem less than real.

"Where the fuck is my shoe horn?!" Ha ha, this movie is so great. Nicholson is an amazing womanizing prick and Garfunkel is surprisingly good. Definitely underrated.

This film has an interesting script that focuses on the male point of view in relationships. The cast is really good here, especially Jack Nicholson and Ann-Marget. The plot deals with various relationships there is not much else but that is all this film needs. Overall I would recommend this movie.

Jack Nicholson'dan sekssist 1 romantizm. Kadınlarla arasını iyi olduğunu sanan, üniversiteden kankasıyla da kadın avcılığına çıkan Jonathan'ın hikayesini izliyoruz. Cesur sahneleri, kadın düşmanları ve egoist erkek egemenliğini izlediğimiz film, Jack Nicholson'un sinir krizlerini başarılı performansıyla izletiyor. Stüdyo filmi tadı veren, fakat dış mekanlarda harika çekimleri olan film. Filmin sonunda, beni mutlu et. Karısı bize meze yapıyor gavat.

Really the only issue I have with this picture is that Candice Bergen is so mesmerizing in the first half that it bothers me that she doesn't appear on screen in the back half.

Could do with a bit more satire to make this pessimistic film go down a bit easier. The first third is intriguing for its two-timing plot, but then gets ignored for a boring second third, then tensions and (light) introspection make this more interesting in the last third. Not hugely cohesive for me, and spotty throughout with how entertaining or dull it is.

One of the most brutal takedowns of toxic masculinity I’ve ever seen and it came out at least a decade before the term was even coined. A plethora of incredibly powerful scenes showing a refusal to put any effort into understanding women or treating them as equals, and the natural result of this. Imagine living in 1971 and you’ve seen Nicholson in Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces, and then this you would be losing your MIND raving about this guy

For being mostly dialogue and keeping my attention the entire time, I'd have to rate this pretty high, if only for the writing, but you also had some good performances, Nicholson and Bergen particularly.

It's a classic, you moron.

Nicholson is fabulous as a misogynistic ass. With his action being "explained" in the first part with him and a surprisingly solid Art Garfunkel as college-friends dating the same woman, which was the best part of the movie imho.

A fantastic character study with excellent acting, writing, and cinematography. It making viewers so uncomfortable only solidifies its standing as a fantastic film.

Depressing, but very realistic look at romantic relationships. Presents all characters as not much more than egoistical despicable animals, but aren't we all like that at least once in a while? Still powerful today, must've been quite a surprise for American audiences grown on their mellow cinema of the 60s.

The temporal jumps threw me a bit, but otherwise I found this a very fascinating, and wryly amusing, film. It does, in some ways, feel very rooted in the 70s where perceptions of gender roles were more rigid, so the specifics sometimes come off as dated. Despite this things there's an underlying humanity to Nicholson and Garfunkel's performances that I found provided a gateway into their thought processes and made them sympathetic enough that you could see through the mask of masculinity.

VISUAL. STORYTELLING. Idiosyncratic portrayals of absurd, contradictory characters. The ending feels a bit rushed. Some big piece is missing here. Top notch Nicholson. Garfunkel is tremendous in this and Bad Timing. Eerie foreshadowing when Jack says "Heeere's Bobby" late in the film.

JACK NICHOLSON SHOWERS TO AVOID COMMITMENT

I'm not sure why i never rated this when i saw it a few years ago. I guess i can maybe sort of appreciate it more now, but still it's basically like Rohmer for Dummies. The fact that Neil LaBute claims 'I simply don't know that Carnal Knowledge has been surpassed, in terms of its honest depiction of the way men and women treat each other' kind of says it all. Feiffer's satire at least seems comparatively well intentioned, but not particularly subtle and ultimately comes off as sort of stilted.

Amazing acting and some truly fascinating material (particularly considering the time in which it was made). Includes one of the all-time greatest Jack Nicholson freakout scenes. It's an uncomfortable, unpleasant sit, with some surprisingly funny humor thrown in here and there - and one that you'll be thinking about for awhile after you've seen it.

A chillingly accurate and cynical account of the sexual mores and hang-ups of American males over two decades.

The directional effort is amazing, but the plot itself bored me a lot.

Carnal Knowlege makes a great companion piece with that other cynical relationship movie: Closer. They were both directed by Mike Nichols. (No surprise there.) The tone is fairly brutal & uncompromising but it's darkly funny as well. Ann-Margret is brilliant as the sexpot Bobbie, who Jack Nicholson seduces & then proceeds to grind down.

A man's descent into misogyny, predetermined through the film's solemnity and staginess. Must have held more power in its time of sexual revolution. Nowadays I expect subtler character shadings, more verve, more fun.

True to form for Feiffer, funny and bone-cynical throughout

It's obvious that Jonathan is pretty screwy, but don't let that obscure the fact that so are most of the other characters, especially Sandy.

A good movie about sex and relationships; it starts out really funny, and over the course of the movie steers more and more into drama until the very end. Not exceptional, but worth a look.

Ânsia de Amar estreava há 50 anos nos EUA. https://letterboxd.com/ladyspiggott/film/carnal-knowledge/