Directed by Mike Nichols
Two lifelong friends navigate complex sexual encounters and emotional entanglements, wrestling with societal norms and personal desires.
Wie bitte wär's mit Liebe?, Carnal Knowledge - Die Kunst zu lieben, Познание плоти, Пізнання плоті, Conoscenza carnale, Ce plaisir qu'on dit charnel, Porozmawiajmy o kobietach, Köttets lust, Der obszöne Vogel der Lust, Ce Plaisir qu'on dit Charnel, Iniciação Carnal, Testi kapcsolatok, Conocimiento carnal, Die Kunst zu lieben, ידע הבשרים, Плътско познание, Kødets lyst, Ânsia de Amar, 猎爱的人, 애정과 욕망, Tělesné vztahy, სხეულის შეცნობა, İlk Defa, Miehuusvuodet
USA 
CanadaR 
UK18 
JapanR18+ 
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Italy 
FranceTP Canada Denmark France Italy Japan UK USA 
more "are men okay?" per minute than almost any other movie i've ever seen.
look at these assholes.
Imagine being pressured into sex with Art Garfunkel
Well, damn, they don't really make 'em like this anymore, do they?
While the plot to this film is virtually non-existent, with the film simply spanning 25 years in the lives of two college friends with extra focus on the women that come and go in their lives - what the film tries to do is incredibly ambitious. It's not very subtle at times, but I found it fascinating to be given an insight into how these two characters look at intimacy between people, and how these feelings change over the years. The film explores difficult psychological processes in a really honest way. I thought it was extraordinary how, without hammering it home, it highlights so many different views on…
happy 50th anniversary to the slideshow presentation alternative comedy set <3
Carnal Knowledge might have been the first film to really deal with sex addiction, and the first film to use the word c*u*n*t* in cinema. It also contains one of Jack Nicholson’s three best performances (I’m sure you’ve seen “Cuckoo’s Nest” and “Chinatown” by now). Nicholson ages twenty years in the movie, from his college years to middle age, the whole time keeping female conquests on something of a scorecard. The mid-section deals with what is likely the longest lasting relationship of his adult life (Ann-Margret is the sex kitten who yearns to be treated as something more). One shouting match exchange suggests Nicholson’s immaturity level as he eschews tenderness to instead bully, and his final scene suggests a pathetic attempt to go from limp to aroused. An important film, I think the best one from Mike Nichols (“The Graduate”) who directed from playwright/cartoonist Jules Feiffer’s script. Art Garfunkel, clumsy with women, is the best friend.
The first time Hollywood served up c*nt; “Carnal Knowledge” comes with an acrid aftertaste of unrequited male desire.
Mike Nichols’ 1971 film was possibly the first use of the ‘other’ four letter C-word in mainstream American cinema. The curse is spewed by Jack Nicholson’s womanizing bachelor, Jonathan, who berates his partner-fling-f*ckbuddy, “Answer me, you ball-busting castrating son of a c*nt bitch!” It’s an outburst born of ineptitude and insecurity; of a life spent pretending to have an answer for everything, when in fact Jonathan answers to nothing but his own hubris.
“Carnal Knowledge” unfolds over 25 years, beginning with Jonathan and his college buddy, Sandy (Art Garfunkel) falling for the same woman (Candace Bergen). The object of their mutual desire,…
Beating The Heartbreak Kid to the punch by a year, this feels like almost a redo of The Graduate for people who were so busy identifying with Benjamin's sympathetic ennui that they missed out on how awful he actually is.
Love the unbroken focus on women listening to men spouting pure horse shit. I honestly found it more powerful to force the audience to witness the 'masks' they're forced to wear, compelling you to look at them as the humans they are and do the work the men on screen refuse to: actually decode what their own repressed thoughts and emotions are. (Certainly more preferable than having a man try to write clunky dialogue to come out of their mouthes…
Mr. Nichols’s best.
must be exhausting to expect so much from another person and not expect the same from yourself
this "relationship comedy" (as arte billed it) starts very annoying, especially on the audio/score level, but then slowly descends into a dark drama about toxic masculinity at a time when this term wasn’t really moulded yet. you keep on wondering how much of the real Jack Nicholson is in his character here. after all the 70s were the time when Polanski was staying in his crib. always felt Jack might be one that got away with the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll lifestyle back then. this movie here might be a hint, who knows.
women are objectified, by the protagonists aswell as formally within the storyline. it’s a mans movie in the wake of Bitter Moon (well the other way round…
Carnal Knowledge is a pretty downbeat film about the failure of intimacy which was created at the peak of intimacy being made in the sexual revolution of the time and plays out as a deeply cynical film looking into how Sex can ruin relationships and lives and how it can be misinterpreted. The story runs across several decades in the life of Johnathan and Sandy two friends who navigate love and the toxic ideas that come up with it but both are trapped in emotional immaturity and both exhibit different reactions to later life. Nicholson is great as Jonathan he’s cold and shallow and plays the character in an incredibly cruel way and how he ends up at the end…
