Main Cast: Jack Nicholson, Art Garfunkel, Candice Bergen, Ann-Margret, Cynthia O'Neal
Release Year: 1971
Country: US
Run Time: 97 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Plot
"Maybe you're not supposed to like it with someone you love." With a script by satirist and cartoonist Jules Feiffer, Mike Nichols's Carnal Knowledge (1971) ruthlessly exposed the damage wrought by pre-1960s sexual mores. From their post-World War II college years at Amherst through the Vietnam era, buddies Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) are a catalogue of male sexual dysfunction. Sensitive Sandy falls in love with and marries college sweetheart Susan (Candice Bergen) only to wonder years later if he missed out on finding the perfect sex/love partner. Jonathan lives for aggressive sexual conquest (starting with Sandy's Susan in college), even as he rails against female "ballbusters," finally guilt-marrying his tiredly voluptuous mistress Bobbie (Ann-Margret, in an Oscar-nominated performance) after she tries to kill herself. By the late '60s, Sandy has moved on to a hippie chick girlfriend (Carol Kane) who can raise his consciousness about the sexual revolution, and Jonathan is single again, but Sandy is a little too old for the peace-and-love generation, and Jonathan bitterly faces emasculating impotence. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Review
Pushing the limits of the still-young MPAA ratings system, Mike Nichols and Jules Feiffer approached Carnal Knowledge's emphatically adult subject matter with a then-shocking candor that was seen as at once a catharsis for the male filmmakers and an exposé of their generation. There are no happy endings for either idealist Sandy or predator Jonathan, as Nichols and Feiffer implicitly link their sexual values to male greed and solipsism. While critical opinion was split over whether Carnal Knowledge was a mature inquiry into America's dirty secrets or a slick, empty case study of pathology, audiences responded -- whether with cringing recognition or youthful pleasure at their elders' idiocy -- and the film became a hit. Even if its language and sex may no longer seem as controversial, Carnal Knowledge remains an acute dissection of male emotional infancy. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Robert Luthardt - Art Director, Clive Reed - Associate Producer, Anthea Sylbert - Costume Designer, Richard Portman - First Assistant Director, Mike Nichols - Director, Sam O'Steen - Editor, Joseph E. Levine - Executive Producer, Richard Sylbert - Production Designer, Giuseppe Rotunno - Cinematographer, Mike Nichols - Producer, George R. Nelson - Set Designer, Lawrence O. Jost - Sound/Sound Designer, Jules Feiffer - Screenwriter
This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.
Copulation; the act of a man having sexual relations with a woman.
Penetration is an essential element of sexual intercourse, and there is carnal knowledge if even the slightest penetration of the female by the male organ takes place. It is not required that the hymen be ruptured or the vagina entered.
The word "carnal" derives from Latincarnalis, meaning "fleshly", and the word "knowledge" in this phrase derives from the "Biblical sense" of "to know", which means "to have sexual intercourse with". [1][2][3](See Genesis 19:4-8 (KJV) compared with 19:4-8 (NIV).)
Usage
In criminal law, the phrase has had different meanings at different times and in different jurisdictions. While commonly a mere euphemism for sexual intercourse (not necessarily unlawful), different jurisdictions have defined carnal knowledge as a specific sex act such as contact between a penis and vagina, some laws elaborating this to include even "slight penile penetration of female genitalia". The definition sometimes includes a set of sex acts that include sodomy and/or oral sex, while some statutes specifically exclude such acts.
Carnal knowledge has also sometimes meant sexual intercourse outside of marriage, and sometimes refers to sex with someone under the age of consent. The phrase is often found in this sense in modern legal usage, being equivalent to statutory rape in some jurisdictions, as the term "rape" implies lack of consent, and consent is considered irrelevant to such cases.
