OVP: Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Film: Carnal Knowledge (1971)

Stars: Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Ann-Margret, Candice Bergen, Rita Moreno, Carol Kane

Director: Mike Nichols

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actress-Ann-Margret)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2020 Saturdays with the Stars series, we highlight a different actress known as an iconic "film sex symbol."  This month, our focus is on Ann-Margret-click here to learn more about Ms. Ann-Margret (and why I picked her), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

We're going to jump seven years into the future in our series for two reasons.  One, we have a lot to cover (Ann-Margret has been an enduring star for many decades), and two, Ann-Margret's career post Viva Las Vegas was kind of a bust.  Similar to some of the other stars we've talked about this year (like Jayne Mansfield), after just a few years as the center-of-the-world, the public began to crave a new star on their screens, and Ann-Margret could only be the "new star" for so long.  She had bad instincts during this time period (she turned down Cat Ballou, which went to Jane Fonda & opened up new doors in her career, and according to legend also turned down the part of Liesl in The Sound of Music, though I can't tell if this is just urban myth or is based in reality like the Cat Ballou decline, which actually happened), and her movies frequently had her being overshadowed by her male leads.  Instead, she struck up a Vegas nightclub act during this time frame (a successful one), and went on USO tours.  That is, until Mike Nichols gave her a role that would change her life.

(Spoilers Ahead) Carnal Knowledge is not about Ann-Margret's Bobbie, not really.  It's instead centered around the lives of two pals, Sandy (Garfunkel) and Jonathan (Nicholson), and their 25-year friendship.  Both men, virgins at the onset of the film, have completely different views on women; Jonathan considers them to be "ballbusters," something there for him to enjoy & control, while Sandy deifies them, treating them as life-changing.  

The movie is divided into three chapters.  In the first, they both fall in love with the same girl, Susan (Bergen), who attends their college.  Susan thinks Sandy is a nice guy, but is attracted to the excitement of Jonathan, and sleeps with him first.  As the relationship moves, though, Jonathan becomes angry that Susan doesn't give him the contentment that she gives Sandy.  As a result, they break up (Susan & Sandy marry), and we flash forward to the future, where Jonathan begins pursuing Bobbie, a gorgeous women whom he finds desirable, but eventually too complicated (because she is undergoing depression, and is desperate for him to love her in a traditional way, which Jonathan is not capable of because he views women as objects-of-desire).  Bobbie attempts suicide as a result of the depression, which we find in the final chapter led to Jonathan marrying and then divorcing her.  In this chapter, Sandy has found love with a new young woman named Jennifer (Kane), but has outgrown Jonathan-they have a falling out (not before Jonathan accidentally, wordlessly acknowledges that he & Susan had a relationship during a sadistic slideshow of his past sex partners), and we then see that Sandy truly leaves Jonathan behind, still financially successful but truly incapable of love.  The final scene is a pre-scripted monologue he has with a prostitute (Moreno) who talks about a man's power over her, as this is now the only way that Jonathan (who has increasingly suffered from impotence problems) can achieve an erection.

There are parts of Carnal Knowledge that simply wouldn't work today, and not just because of the deep core of misogyny that runs through it.  The film is an obvious commentary about the Sexual Revolution, and in this case two men trying to make sense of it in completely different ways, and that wouldn't make sense today.  Honestly-it's difficult for me to understand what of this film is dated & what of it is meant as a critique of these two men as a modern audience member.  In some respects I think it does this rather well-it's unflinching, nasty, & not forgiving of its main characters, particularly Nicholson's Jonathan.

But it also dismisses the women at its core.  The problematic people in this film are the men, and any audience member now would be able to tell that.  Jonathan's emotional abuse of Susan & Bobbie is rigid & hate-filled, but not much worse is Sandy begging these women to define him, to be the missing piece he isn't offering them (and to constantly blame them rather than himself when they don't).  Their friendship is unhealthy & they bring out the worst in each other, but that doesn't mean that the director's treatment of the women is much better.  Most of the women as written are nothing parts (Kane's Jennifer doesn't even speak), and with the exception of Moreno in a 5-minute long cameo at the end (where her reciting a script for money shows that she, ultimately, is in control), there's no focus on these women as anything other than through the eyes of the two male leads.

That isn't for lack of trying, though, on the part of Ann-Margret.  As written, Bobbie is a throwaway role; she's simply a gorgeous woman who wants to get married to this guy that she loves, and who is incapable of loving her.  But Bobbie is the crux of the film-she needs to both show us someone that we think is a throwaway one-night-stand, and then have it dawn on the audience (but not Jonathan) that Bobbie is perfect for Jonathan, and that if he can't make it work with her, it spells his doom.  

It's a tricky part, not least of which is that most of that isn't on the paper, and that might've been why Nichols struggled for months to cast it (supposedly everyone from Ellen Burstyn to Raquel Welch to Dyan Cannon to, in a twist, Jane Fonda, pursued the part but didn't land it), but in Ann-Margret he cast it flawlessly.  Ann-Margret is not the actress that Jane Fonda or Ellen Burstyn are, but she knew a good thing when it landed in her lap, and she understood Bobbie.  The way she plays her is marvelous-she shows Bobbie as a girl who had likely been worshipped by men her whole life, but is now on the cusp of thirty, and doesn't understand that while men still pursue her, they aren't willing to give her everything she desired (namely, a traditional family life).  Ann-Margret, still a knockout, but several years removed from her peak time in the spotlight, finds a way to impart that persona into Bobbie, playing her as someone who understands that her time-in-the-sun is over & she might've missed her window for happiness if it doesn't work with Jonathan.  There's a sexism in that reading, but it's the one that Nichols gives us, and I think Ann-Margret plays it well.