CARNAL KNOWLEDGE 1971

“The who, the how, the why…they dish the dirt, it never ends.”

Girl Talk   Neal Hefti/Bobby Troup -1965

“Don’t come any closer. Don’t come any nearer. My vision of you can’t get any clearer.”

Girls Talk    Elvis Costello - 1979

In Mike Nichols’ Carnal Knowledge, college buddies Jonathan (Jack Nicholson) and Sandy (Art Garfunkel) engage in an awful lot of girl talk. Or, more to the point, a lot of awful talk about girls. 

Each weighs in on what qualities constitute the “ideal woman." Then, they lay odds on their chances of “getting laid.” They rate women’s body parts to determine their sexual desirability, aka worth. They rate and evaluate intimate physical encounters as though discussing sports statistics...charting the speed of numbered bases reached (1st base, 2^nd base, home run) vs. the number of dates logged. They equate a woman’s susceptibility to their seduction ploys as evidence of her virtue: if she succumbs too easily, she’s a slut; if she resists for too long, she’s a ballbuster. And they bemoan the fact that, no matter how perfect, a woman is never beautiful enough, submissive enough, or ANYTHING enough to sustain interest over an extended period of time. 

Jonathan & Sandy: Amherst College, Massachusetts - Late 1940s

The casual dehumanization serving as the sexist throughline in all of Jonathan and Sandy’s incessant girl talk is attributable, at least in part, to the callowness of youth (when introduced, both boys are virginal teens at Massachusetts’s Amherst College) and reflective of the repressed sexual mores of the American middle-class during the late-1940s (their creepy sexual banter is similar to the same kind of talk played for nostalgic/sentimental humor in Summer of '42, released the same year). However, as Carnal Knowledge follows the fault-finding Jonathan and ever-questioning Sandy through some 20 years of friendship, we come to see that neither the passage of time nor America’s evolving sexual landscape does much to alter the content, timbre, and tone of the conversations between these two perennial hard-y boys.

Older, But Not Wiser
Sandy & Jonathan: New York - Early 1960s

As each fumbles and stumbles their way through dating, marriage, “shacking up,” and parenthood—with love and tenderness making only fleeting appearances, and then, more often than not, couched in erotic desire—the overall impression we’re left with is of two men who’ve approached sexual exploration not as a journey of discovery, but as a quest to have already-established ideas about women confirmed or disproved. Self-reflection and introspection play no part, for the male gaze is ever outward and always infallible.

Faced with the option of uncomplicated fantasy over unpredictable reality, men who grow old without benefit of growing up invariably opt for holding onto the wish for the unattainable, unsullied, idealized dreamgirl. Proving that carnal knowledge is perhaps one of the few forms of education one can acquire without ever learning a single thing.

Jack Nicholson as Jonathan Fuerst

Ann-Margret as Bobbie Templeton

Arthur Garfunkel as Sandy

Candice Bergen as Susan

Carnal Knowledge screenwriter Jules Feiffer (Little Murders, Popeye) conceived of his dark comedy of sexual bad manners as a stage play, but director Mike Nichols told the famed cartoonist/author/playwright that he saw it instead as a film. As such, the movie has a stylistically theatrical feel to it, both in the dominance of language (the script is sharp as a razor) and the frequently used device of making it appear as though a character is breaking through the fourth wall and speaking directly to us. In addition, the cramped framing and preponderance of close-ups make the world of Jonathan and Sandy seem strangely underpopulated, isolated, and self-centered (in the way dreams and memories often appear to us) while simultaneously feeling confessional and all too intimate.

Most distinctively, Carnal Knowledge retains a classic theatrical three-act structure that neatly divides the arrested-developmental stages of its two leads into chapters mirroring America’s shifting sexual mores. Each era is designated by the significant woman in the life of Jonathan, the film’s chief chauvinist.

It's Complicated
Susan and Jonathan connect behind Sandy's back

Act I: Susan (Candice Bergen) The late 1940s  * "The Kinsey Report"  Alfred Kinsey 1948

Jonathan and Sandy fall hard for Susan, a neighboring student at Smith College who looks like the WASP dreamgirl: i.e., she superficially embodies the era-specific attributes deemed ideal for assuming the role of girlfriend, wife, and mother. But Susan is no passive male fantasy figure. She's postwar woman emergent. Straining against gender constraints and just as uncertain of how she is supposed to "be" in the uncharted territory of sex and relationships, Susan is intelligent, opinionated, ambitious, and conflicted. In short, an actual complex human being during an era when all that’s expected of her is ornamental perfection. Things between these three get messy in a hurry.

Carnal Knowledge explores how both men and women can feel
pressured into engaging in sexual activity 

Act II: Bobbie (Ann-Margret) Early 1960s * "The Feminine Mystique"  Betty Friedan 1963 

Jonathan is now an accountant of some sort, single, embittered by a string of unsatisfying relationships, and still searching for his “perfect woman” -- that ideal whittled down by this stage to an exacting checklist of physical specifications. Sandy, now a physician, is married to Susan and lives in a passionless suburban rut he takes great pains to justify. Susan, though unseen, sounds as though she has matured into precisely the kind of vaguely dissatisfied Smith-graduate-turned-suburban-housewife Betty Friedan surveyed as the basis for her groundbreaking feminist tome, The Feminine Mystique. 

Although in the film, 29-year-old Bobbie is an enticing older woman to 20-something Jonathan, in real life, Ann-Margret (who really WAS 29) was four years younger than co-star Jack Nicholson's 33. 

Into Jonathan’s life comes Bobbie, a TV commercial model who is the physical embodiment of the Playboy ideal, and Jonathan’s fantasy girl come to life. Unfortunately, since Playboy magazine failed to disclose just how one goes about living day-to-day with an individual one needs to objectify for sexual arousal, things begin to head south for the pair rather rapidly. The pliant, none-too-bright bombshell who only wants to get married and have kids proves an easy and willing emotional punching bag for Jonathan’s aggression, scorn, and callousness.

"I wouldn't kick her out of bed!"
Jonathan's favorite expression of female endorsement is realized in its most literal, ironic terms with Bobbie, the  sexualized dreamgirl whose depression and willing subjugation results in her rarely getting out of bed 

That the blossoming and eventual disintegration of their relationship plays out almost exclusively within the confines of their bedroom (a playroom turned prison) underscores the realization that Jonathan's and Sandy's quest to align adolescent sexual fantasy with adult reality is a task far beyond either of their capabilities. Easily the most emotionally brutal and devastating section of the film, Act II of Carnal Knowledge lays bare the battle of the sexes in a way that spares no one. As the men approach middle age, wondering whether their teen ideals will ever be realized, it becomes evident that neither has learned any more about women since their days at Amherst.

Divorced, indecisive, and easily bored, Sandy finds temporary solace with Cindy (Cynthia O'Neal), a woman whose self-assurance suits his sly passive-aggressiveness

Act III: Louise (Rita Moreno) Late '60s/'70s * "The Female Eunuch" Germaine Greer 1970 

The college buddies have grown older, but only chronologically. Sandy, sporting sideburns, shaggy mustache, and potbelly over his bell-bottomed jeans, has found a kind of restless peace in his midlife romance with a hippie young enough to be his daughter (Carol Kane). Jonathan, very successful, very alone, and something of a drinker (and looking uncannily like '80s-era Robert Evans), is reduced to regaling guests with a self-narrated slideshow titled “Ballbusters on Parade!” in which the sad spectacle of a lifetime of empty sexual conquests are trotted out and disparaged in escalatingly vulgar terms (sort of like the published autobiographies of Tony Curtis and Eddie Fisher).

As the film nears its conclusion, we’re left with a sense that Sandy’s endless searching (ever external, never within) might eventually lead to some level of fulfillment; after all, he at least concedes that there is a great deal about love he doesn’t know. But Jonathan, firm in the cynic’s resolve to mistake mislearned lessons for wisdom, thinks he has it all figured out. What he has gleaned from twenty-some years of acquired carnal knowledge is revealed in the memorized, methodically recited, misogynist monologue delivered by Louise, the prostitute the now-impotent Jonathan must regularly visit.

The Misogynist's Maxim
Able to achieve arousal under only the most compulsively controlled circumstances, Jonathan has Louise ritualistically recite a carefully prepared (pitiful) speech designed to reassure him of his male dominance. 

If, as Mike Nichols once remarked, Carnal Knowledge is about the fact that men just don’t like women very much, I’d say the only thing surprising about that statement would be anybody attempting to refute it. Certainly not in today's world where the crude, dehumanizing sentiments attributed to Jonathan (a character whose woman-hating harangues brand him shallow and contemptible) sound eerily like what America shrugged off during this recent shitstorm of an election as appropriate “locker-room talk” from “boys” well into their sixth decade running for the highest office in the land.

Has "Boys Will Be Boys" always meant
"Boys Will Be Hollowed-Out Husks of Shame & Self-Loathing"?

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

My strongest memory of Carnal Knowledge when it first came out is how shrouded in secrecy it was. Beyond its provocative title and the prestige implied by the collaboration between highbrow satirist Jules Feiffer and Hollywood wunderkind Mike Nichols (his Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? -The Graduate winning streak took a hit with the costly flop of Catch-22), little to nothing was known about the film’s content in advance of its release.

Nichols’ reputation for extracting unexpected performances from his actors made Carnal Knowledge’s unusual cast a prime focus of interest. For who but the man who deglamorized Elizabeth Taylor to an Academy Award win would have the nerve to assemble in one film: getting-along-in-years up-and-comer Jack Nicholson; high-pitched pop-singer Art Garfunkel; beautiful but glacially aloof “actress” Candice Bergen, and, most intriguing of all, maturing sex kitten and industry punchline Ann-Margret. 

After having a 1972 obscenity verdict overturned, Carnal Knowledge was re-released in 1974 with new poster artwork. In 2001 Mike Nichol's Closer recreated that ad's quadripartite portrait design

Carnal Knowledge was promoted with a minimalist ad campaign so calculatingly discreet—white text against a stark black background, the title in scarlet letters—it proved tantamount to wrapping the film in a plain brown wrapper. Imaginations ran wild as the public (essentially doing the studio’s work for them) envisioned a film of such sexual explicitness and candor, no advertising dared elaborate. 

I was 14 at the time and desperately wanted to see Carnal Knowledge. Imagining it to be just the kind of cerebral smut my parents would begrudgingly allow me to see (provided I name-dropped a few choice critique sources like Saturday Review or The New York Times), but no such luck. My parents had active imaginations, too, and I’m afraid I underestimated the combined effect Ann-Margret and the word “carnal” would have on their faith in my adolescent maturity. Forbidden from seeing the film, I had to content myself with borrowing a copy of Feiffer’s published screenplay from the local library. I didn't get around to actually seeing Carnal Knowledge until the 1980s.

Carnal Knowledge is not one long misandrist harangue about how terrible men can be. But, as J.W. Whitehead notes in the book "Mike Nichols and the Cinema of Transformation," the women are also prone to exploitation and are often subtly complicit in their objectification.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

My oft-expressed fondness for movies that give vent to brutal, blistering, peel-the-wallpaper emotional pyrotechnics places Mike Nichols Carnal Knowledge high on a list of favorite films that include: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, The Day of the Locust, Reflections in a Golden Eye, Last Summer, Looking for Mr. Goodbar, Maps to The Stars, Carnage, and, of course, the Nichols’ own Closer and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Taking the position that the ability to lie to oneself is the greatest special effect known to man, and that nothing is more exciting or dramatically compelling as emotional conflict; these films are my action movies, my superhero flicks, my adventure sagas, and (non) CGI thrill rides.

I’m drawn to films of emotional violence because I consider physical violence is mere kid’s stuff by comparison. Americans have always found facing a gun easier than facing themselves. When they are as honest and insightful as Carnal Knowledge, these movies are very humane in their perspective and bracingly insightful in their compassion. And like all good art, they have the potential to lend an air of poetry to what in real life is often merely chaos and banal cruelty.

Never Trust Anyone Who Begins a Sentence with the Words "Believe Me"
In 1971, a line of dialogue branding Jonathan contemptible and superficial. Today (2016), likely a 3am tweet by a 70-year-old cretin occupying the highest office in the nation

What inspired my revisit to Carnal Knowledge is the degree to which the baby-man words and behavior of a prominent celebrity in our recent election (he is no political figure by any stretch of the imagination, and his name will go unmentioned on these pages) exposed and solidified the unassailable reality that America’s misogyny (like its racism) is so systemic, deep-rooted, and essential to the perpetuation of the status quo; we as a culture actually reward men for never growing up. I agree with the assertion by Feiffer and Nichols that Carnal Knowledge is about the fact that men don't seem to like women very much. But, to that, I'd also add that, in the end, men clearly dislike themselves even more.

Rita Moreno as Louise

PERFORMANCES

I've met young film fans who, having grown up with the Ann-Margret of Tommy, The Return of the Soldier, The Two Mrs.Grenvilles, and A Streetcar Named Desire, were more surprised by her sex-kitten past in Bye Bye Birdie and Kitten With a Whip than by her startling, career-rejuvenating turn in Carnal Knowledge.
She is indeed outstanding and gives a very moving performance that confirms the rightness of her Golden Globe win and Academy Award nomination. But looking at the film today, I'm more surprised that Jack Nicholson's performance escaped Academy notice. He's undoubtedly the oldest-looking college boy on record, but he is electric to watch and plays Jonathan with a naked complexity I can't believe many others could mine so effectively. In truth, everyone in Carnal Knowledge shines brightly, and the performances have only grown richer with time.

Carol Kane as Jennifer

THE STUFF OF FANTASY
In our heteronormative culture, we've devised names for men who hate women (misogynists) and women who hate men (misandrists); but I've yet to come across a suitable word for the parallel cultural phenomenon of gay men who hate other gay men (the word homophobe doesn't cut it for me). I bring this up because, as a gay man, I only see Carnal Knowledge as being partially about the battle between the sexes.

Ken Russell's Tommy (1975) reunited Jack Nicholson and Ann-Margret   

When I can listen to Jonathan and Sandy talk in derogatory terms about women and associate those exact same dehumanizing phrases with experiences I've had listening to gay men talk about other gay men in locker rooms, dance studios, bars, gyms, and supermarkets; I recognize toxic masculinity is not limited to straights. While definitely one of cinema's most acerbic visions of male-female sexual politics, the ragingly heterosexual Carnal Knowledge also has a lot to say to the gay male viewer about the ways our culture teaches ALL men that sex, masculinity, and "maleness" has to do with dominance, objectification, and a disdain for vulnerability.
But that's for another essay at another time.

BONUS MATERIAL

In 2001, Vanity Fair reunited the cast and director of Carnal Knowledge 
for this spectacular group portrait by photographer Annie Leibovitz 

In November of 1988, at the Pasadena Playhouse in California, Jules Feiffer revived his theatrical version of Carnal Knowledge. 

YouTube: Mike Nichols talks about Carnal Knowledge: 2011 Film Society of Lincoln Center

"You want perfection."

Copyright © Ken Anderson  2009 - 2016

WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? 1966

"'Tis the refuge we take when the unreality of the world sits too heavy on our tiny heads."

The above statement, spoken half in jest (and in a Barry Fitzgerald accent) by a subdued, down-cycle, Martha (Elizabeth Taylor) in a brief moment of introspective lucidity, is proffered as a response/admission as to why she and husband George (Richard Burton) seem only to relate to one another through cruelly sadistic games of "truth and illusion." 

This surprisingly self-aware avowal of the role illusion and willful self-deception play in tent-posting lives of disappointment and regret not only sums up the plot of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, but, especially noting the ironic use of the word "unreality" in the quote, could also serve as an explanation for my own lifelong fascination with, and attraction to, film. 

Edward Albee's provocative, 1962 Tony Award-winning stage play was adapted into a censorship-shattering motion picture in 1966 by Broadway wunderkind Mike Nichols. Of course, back then the big attraction wasn't the male half of the famous comedy team of Mike Nichols & Elaine May making his film directing debut. It was the casting of Hollywood's number one power-couple—Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton— and the unlikelihood that one of the most beautiful women in the world could be convincingly transformed into the dowdy, middle-aged harridan of Albee's play.

Elizabeth Taylor as Martha

Richard Burton as George

George Segal as Nick

Sandy Dennis as Honey

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, a 2 hour-plus acid bath of personality assassinations and psychological manipulation trussed-up as a cocktail party, was just one of the many age-inappropriate films I saw on Saturday afternoons with my sisters at the local movie house when I was growing up. The year was 1967, it was summer, and after having played all the first-run theaters, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was starting to make the rounds at the neighborhood and downtown double-feature theaters. We lived in San Francisco at the time and I think we saw it at The Embassy Theater on Market Street.

Back in those pre-shopping mall days, I suspect the only peace our recently-divorced mom ever got was when she could ship us all off to the movies on Saturday afternoons, not caring a whit about what was playing, just so long as it kept us out of the house and off the streets until she came for us at 4pm. On the occasion of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, my eldest sister (16 to my 10 years) was apparently all the "mature adult" accompaniment the theater required to grant us access to a film none of us had any chance in hell of understanding. 

Well, I did understand one part. The yelling.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is about one enormously volatile evening in, by all appearances, the ceaselessly volatile lives of George and Martha. George, an associate professor of history at a small New England college, and Martha, the college president's daughter, have been persuaded this night to play night-cap host to the college's newest arrivals: Nick, the newly appointed biology teacher, and his constitutionally delicate wife, Honey. George and Martha, who are 20 years senior to their unsuspecting guests, share a complex relationship of dispiriting affection poisoned by years of acrimony and self-loathing. As a kind of coping mechanism and walking postmortem of their marriage, the elder couple engage their guests in an intricate game of personal attacks and verbal assaults designed to keep real feelings at bay and to mask the real unpleasantness of their existence.

George Segal, an actor amazingly adept at comedic and serious roles, and the brilliant Sandy Dennis, the only actress outside of Elizabeth Hartman who could have made this underwritten role so memorable

As an adult, my partner and I have spent more than our share of squirmy evenings playing Nick and Honey to some sparring couple's George and Martha, but as a kid, the only thing I could relate to in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was the yelling. As my parents' preferred mode of communication with one another prior to their divorce, it was familiar enough to me to at least make the characters in the film recognizable. But beyond that, I can tell you I really had no idea of what was going on.

Nor should I have, at that age. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is pretty sophisticated stuff for even adults to wrap their minds around.

Dashed hopes and good intentions

I remember the slight disappointment I felt on discovering that Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was not, as I had hoped, a horror film along the lines of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? An easy enough conclusion to jump to given the sound-alike title and the scary-looking poster art that carried the (ineffectual) warning: No one under the age of 18 will be admitted unless accompanied by a parent.

When, in later years, I came to revisit Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, it was as though I was watching the film for the first time. Just a little bit of life experience helped to bring all of Edward Albee's agonizingly perceptive observations into sharp relief. I not only got it, but felt so moved by the daringly theatrical means by which Albee dramatized this simple truth: to live one's life free of illusions is perhaps the most terrifying thing of all.

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM

It would be difficult to overstate the qualities that Wexler's expressive black-and-white cinematography brings to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? In these days of HD, it's even more breathtaking than ever. What an amazing array of gray tones and shadings!

PERFORMANCES

I was never much of a fan of Elizabeth Taylor in my younger years. Her unavoidable presence on the cover of every movie magazine (recounting marital problems, movie-star extravagances, and countless trips to the hospital) soured my impression of her as any kind of serious actress. I never thought of her as much of a beauty, either, as she always reminded me more of a less frumpy Ethel Mertz than one of the most beautiful women in the world. The turning point in my attitude towards Taylor came in 1989 when I had the opportunity to see Glenda Jackson (an actress I absolutely idolized) in a Los Angeles production of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? directed by Edward Albee himself. Fond of the film version, I was not exactly persuaded by Taylor's performance. Now was a chance to see what a "real" actress would do with this marvelous character.

Well, to put it bluntly, Ms. Jackson was terrible. She just seemed to miss everything that was vulnerable about Albee's Martha, and (surprising to me) was unable to muster much passion behind her tirades. As the evening wore on, Elizabeth Taylor's performance began to loom largely and impressively in my memory, and by the time the curtain came down, I was convinced that I had given Elizabeth Taylor a bum rap all those years. 

Elizabeth Taylor's monologue in this sequence is some of the finest acting of her career

I've seen a great many Elizabeth Taylor films since then, and not only do I now consider her to have been truly one of the great beauties of the screen, but I feel that her looks and off-screen exploits have clouded many a fair assessment of her talent. I like her a great deal now, and when I look over some of the films I'd once dismissed, I recognize that Taylor was one of the rare ones: a movie star who was also a compelling actress. Her choice of roles that I once regarded as spotty, now seem rather daring in her never pandering to the sort of "safe" casting usually associated with stars of her caliber. She's something the likes of which we're not apt to see again, EVER.

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

It must have been quite a voyeuristic thrill for fans of Taylor and Burton to see the famously hard-drinking, combative couple, playing a hard-drinking, combative couple onscreen. And indeed, there is something about their easy rapport and effortless chemistry here that is never duplicated in another film. I particularly like those small moments where George & Martha reveal their deep affection for one another, and how they lapse into familiar patterns of easy cohabitation between the shouting matches. Perhaps all we're seeing is the dysfunctional mutual appreciation of two people who've found in each other, a worthy adversary, someone who can keep up with the game, but it's a layer added to the characters that serve to soften the pain of their near non-stop body blows. That neither Taylor nor Burton plays their roles "one-note" - allowing for flashes of tenderness between the bursts of vitriol - is what makes this film such a standout for me.

Liz and Dick: Probably the only real-life couple ever to display any real chemistry onscreen
besides Gracie Allen & George Burns

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

The grace of all art is its ability to find poetry in the ordinary and prosaic. As I stated earlier, I grew up around a lot of yelling in my family, and along with lacking anything resembling a poetic thrust, it lacked a sense of danger to me. I was used to it and I thought that was how all people who loved each other communicated. Growing up, I identified with comedies and dramas of familial discord to a disturbing degree. (I was a big fan of Tennessee Williams and those "Eunice" segments of the old Carol Burnett variety show. It was only in later years that I came to recognize that that WAS my family.)

As it turns out, my partner of 16 years was raised in a household where his parents talked and discussed things and never allowed him to see them yelling at one another. So, as you might guess, our first viewing of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? together was almost traumatic for him. Even to this day he really can't take the endless shouting and mean-spiritedness, so this is one film I love that I usually enjoy alone (all the better, because I'm often crying like a baby at the finale).

"Total war?"
"Total!"

What's wonderful is that in our years together, my partner has helped me to see that yelling is not the way that healthy people express love, and I've since learned to appreciate histrionic drama where it belongs, on the screen and on the stage, but not in my life.

Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? may not be everyone's taste, but it's a beautiful film. Mike Nichols and everyone involved did a marvelous job. If you have the stomach for it, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a deeply affecting look at explosive emotions that you get to view from a relatively safe distance.

"Just us?"
It's Elizabeth Taylor at her absolute best in this, the most heartbreaking sequence in the film.
Reduces me to waterworks unfailingly.

Copyright © Ken Anderson   2009 - 2011

CLOSER 2004

If the amoral bed-hoppers that make up the bulk of daytime tabloid talk shows were articulate, intelligent, impossibly attractive, and rich; their lives might be something like the lives of the four spiritually damaged protagonists of Closer, Mike Nichols' searing look at the pain people cause one another in the name of love.

Julia Roberts as Anna

Jude Law as Dan

Natalie Portman as Alice

Clive Owen as Larry

The tony trappings of upscale London fail to mask the rather ugly games of sexual one-upmanship that characterize the entwining relationships of the film's four lead characters. Based on a play by Patrick Marber (who wrote the equally perceptive and acidic Notes on a Scandal - 2006), Closer is a sexual roundelay that skewers romantic myth and lays waste those who narcissistically pursue love as though it were part of a self-improvement program. Here, the believers of love at first sight; those souls whose religion is passion, chemistry, and the heart wanting what it wants - are revealed to also be the ones most likely to grant themselves license to lie, deceive, and inflict pain. Provided it's all done in the name of love.

 

 

 

Changing Partners

Having explored the ins and outs of caustic relationships in both Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) and Carnal Knowledge (1971),  Mike Nichols is cinema's unofficial frontline correspondent in the war between the sexes. With wit and candor, he goes to places of rare honesty in human relations and somehow finds ways of making us see parts of ourselves in some of the most odious characters. He has a gift for shining a compassionate but cold light on some of the worst aspects of human interaction and, in the process, reinforces the notion that sometimes, even at our most monstrous, most of us are rarely ever less than just human.

"Hello, Stranger"

WHAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS FILM:

The language. Though biting and brutal, the dialog in Closer is too clever to be real:

Portman: “I don’t eat fish.”
Law: “Why not?”
Portman: “Fish piss in the sea.”
Law: “So do children.”
Portman: “I don’t eat children, either."

- but direct and to the point in revealing character and the small ways we use words to protect ourselves, wound others, and ultimately conceal. The film is as much a treat for the ears as it is for the eyes.

The Truth: 

“Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her clothes off. But it’s better if you do.”

PERFORMANCES

Years before Black Swan Natalie Portman proved that she was more than just a sci-fi geek pinup. Though outrageously beautiful and possessing a natural star quality, Portman is refreshingly low on self-consciousness and unafraid to go to the uglier places a character might take her. Cast cannily as the kind of male fantasy dream girl she's been marketed as since her career began, Portman reveals levels of intelligence and will that are not often associated with waifish objects-of-affection. She is never less than compelling throughout and, for me at least, virtually wipes the rest of the accomplished cast off the screen.

 The Lie

THE STUFF OF FANTASY

At one point in the film, Portman's character describes rival Julia Roberts's photographic artwork as 

"A bunch of sad strangers photographed beautifully.” She might just as well have been talking about the film she's appearing in.

Closer is indeed a film about unpleasant people acting unpleasantly, but everyone is shot so lovingly they're practically incandescent. As a fan of vintage movies, my heart has a special place for that time in history (pre-late-50s realism) when movies were populated exclusively by those humanoid gods and goddesses we called movie stars. They didn't look like anyone we'd ever seen, and the world they inhabited onscreen didn't even remotely look like the one we inhabited. It was a hyper-reality that created a dreamscape to build fantasies on.

Closer, with its gleaming sets and uniformly gorgeous cast, uses old-time glamour to present a merciless look at the dark side of romantic desire. It's so effective in creating a kind of visual/emotional paradox that I can't help thinking it's a conscious creative choice on Nichols' part.  

THE STUFF OF DREAMS

The one scene I never tire of watching is a sequence that takes place in a private room of a strip club where Natalie Portman and Clive Owen verbally spar about love, lust, and longing.

It is amazing on so many levels. From a purely technical standpoint, the astounding virtuosity of the camera angles alone makes for a unitary lesson in filmmaking.

It's funny, tense, sexy as hell, and oddly moving as these two enact a mating dance of the lonely.

It certainly doesn't hurt that Natalie Portman sets the screen aflame, either.

WOW!

WHAT FUELED MY DREAMS

From everything I've written thus far, I've made it sound as though Closer were an anti-romantic comedy (black comedy) and basically down on love. The truth is, like that other favorite of mine, Two for the Road, Closer is at its core a deeply romantic film. Chiefly because it dares to show the bare bones of relationships and dramatizes the hard work and self-sacrifice necessary to achieve true intimacy with another. The four protagonists in Closer all fumble about blindly seeking love without knowing how to return it, demanding love without earning it, and giving love without committing to it.

Love Gets Ugly 

It deflates the popular romantic ideal (one favored by movie love stories) of the instant attraction, the animal connection that sparks all great romances. Closer dares to posit that those who indulge this conceit are fantasists in love with the idea of love and are unprepared (or lack the maturity) to do the hard work required if one hopes to grow "closer" to another individual.
To my way of thinking, a film like Closer gives love the respect it deserves.

Not everybody has the stomach for movies like this. Indeed, the public stayed well away from this film when it was released. But the relationships I grew up around (and I dare say a good many of the relationships I see today) look more like the ones depicted here than the inherently dishonest, wish-fulfillment fantasies of The Bridges of Madison County or Under the Tuscan Sun. That may be my curse or blessing; I don't know. But what I do know is that I've seen more tears shed and people hurt over the pursuit of false ideals than I ever have over people coming to terms with the fact that love takes courage, selflessness, and a willingness to be vulnerable.

Law: “Deception is brutal. I’m not pretending otherwise”

Closer is an adult story about the responsibilities of real love. That it tells its story with wit, intelligence, and style only serves to make it one of my fave-rave films of all time. A modern realist classic.

Natalie Portman - Stopping Traffic

Copyright © Ken Anderson    2009 - 2011