Carnal Knowledge (1971)
Directed by Mike Nichols
Two lifelong friends navigate complex sexual encounters and emotional entanglements, wrestling with societal norms and personal desires.
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What critics compared Carnal Knowledge to
Nichols has traversed this territory before, in his film of Edward Albee's "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and in his coolly savage "Carnal Knowledge."
But what better director than Nichols -- the man who brought us "Carnal Knowledge" and "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" -- to explore the dark recesses of the human heart?
Venturing back into Carnal Knowledge territory, Nichols zaps Patrick Marber's stage play with a jolt of star power and cinematic sophistication, crisscrossing the love lives of four strangers in London: an obituary writer, Dan (Jude Law); a stripper, Alice (Natalie Portman); a photographer, Anna (Julia Roberts); and a doctor, Larry (Clive Owen).
"Catch 22," "Carnal Knowledge," "Silkwood," "The Birdcage," "Primary Colors" and this past years HBO triumph, "Angels in America."
Nichols, who's been exploring the dark divide between men and women (and love and sex) since "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and "Carnal Knowledge," does near-miraculous work here.
Throughout, he offers a whiff of his 1971 movie, "Carnal Knowledge," which mirrors "Closer" in content.
The movie, produced by Warren Beatty and written by him and the immensely gifted Robert Towne, begins with a reminder of "Carnal Knowledge" (sexual gurglings in the dark), and contains some echoes of Robert Altman's work—mainly in the use of overlapping dialogue.
"Do the Right Thing" was made in 1989, the period directly before Spike Lee discovered that dialogue is much more effective when characters deliver it to EACH OTHER, instead of directly at the camera; as such, it plays like "Carnal Knowledge" juiced up with racism and other thought provoking subject matter.