September 28, 2006
Carnal Knowledge
We watched Carnal Knowledge last night. I've seen it before, naturally - but whenever I watch that movie, I am baffled by those who blithely say that Mike Nichols has no style as a director. "He's good with situations - but has no marked style" Huh???. Mitchell and I have talked about this quite a bit before. What - because he doesn't bash you over the head with camera moves - he has no style? I am such a Nichols fan that I feel like you could show me a still from one of his films and I would be able to identify him as the director. He has SUCH style. That first scene at the cocktail party ... the theatrical nature of the blocking - the color scheme (all muted greys and browns and blacks) ... the way his camera moves, or then doesn't move ... It's all markedly Mike Nichols-esque.
Also, Candice Bergen is just great. They're all great in that movie but I was particularly struck, this go-round, by her performance. There's one scene where the two guys are making jokes back and forth and she is laughing - but the camera stays on her face the whole time, we never see Nicholson or Garfunkel - and I was quite amazed by what I saw. The rawness and reality of what she was doing. She was laughing so hard that tears were were in her eyes. It was real. You know when you start to laugh so hard and you realize: Oh. I have now reached the point of no return. I am now going to be laughing like this for a good 20 minutes. Candice Bergen is having THAT kind of a laughing fit. Nothing harder to act than real laughter. Especially in a film, with a movie camera right in your face, waiting to pick up on all your lies. You can fake a laugh a bit easier on stage - but you can't do that in the movies. Think of scenes where people literally have to stagger around laughing, out of control. It's hard to get right. There's one long extended scene of laughter in Crimes of the Heart - which is not a very good movie - but that laughing scene is hiLARious and I howl every time I see it. Those three actresses are really laughing and it is infectious. We had to rewind the Bergen scene to watch it again. Amazed by how real it was, and how - almost embarrassing. SO MUCH is going on for her in that moment. She is sitting between two men - and she's sleeping with both of them - but keeping it a secret (she thinks) - and she's torn - and she feels guilty - and out of control - and they are both working really hard, in that moment, to keep her laughing. You can hear the kind of competitiveness in their voices ... Who doesn't want to make a woman laugh like that? It's an extraordinary moment.
(love my screen capture thing) Look at her there. Man. And it goes on like that forever.
And I need to do a whole post about the great-ness of Ann Margaret. Seriously.
Posted by sheilaYour comments on the difficulty of convincingly acting laughter brought to my mind an episode of Seinfeld where Julia Louis Dreyfus (sp?) has a huge laughing fit at a piano concert and has to leave the theater in a rush. I get a laughing fit myself everytime I watch this scene, she does it so well it's contagious! I have a hard time explaining to people why a scene where a character has a laughing fit for no particularly funny reason should be sooo funny for me. They look at me as if I were insane.
Posted by: Ceci at September 28, 2006 9:54 AMhahahaha Beautiful!! I know just what you mean - I've seen Crimes of the Heart a couple times and every time that scene comes - I just can't stop laughing myself. It's a weird thing - but very cool.
Posted by: red at September 28, 2006 10:06 AMthat scene of Candice is one of my fave of all movie history...not only is she laughing but we can see that she is playing the fact that she's sleeping with both..but Garfunkel doesnt know...she has to appease her boyfriend and her lover who is her boyfriends "best friend" at the same time...i love Mike Nichols!!..and yes..Ann-Margaret what a performance!!!
Posted by: mitchell at September 28, 2006 5:56 PMOf course you know the scene I'm talking about, mitchell!!! I know how you love this movie.
And you know the story about the filming of Ann Margaret's big scene - where they argue?? And they did Jack Nicholson's "side" of the argument - but then - Nicholson stayed - and played the scene FOR her, off-camera - so she'd have something to play off of. She was insecure about her acting and Nicholson, typical generous Nicholson, stayed and did that for her - and lost his voice in the process. He yelled for 2 days while they filmed that scene. And watch her reactions - my God, she is so so good in that scene.
I just love him for that. Another kind of star would have left Ann Margaret to play her big huge scene with a stand-in.
Posted by: red at September 28, 2006 5:59 PMshe had a lot riding on this movie...it was her chance to legitimize ya know? She got one of her two Oscar nods for it..the other is as the mother in Tommy...sooo freakin' brilliant in that movie!! I love Jack Nicholson...i saw the preview for the new Scorcese..im kinda off Marty these days..but Jack looks amazing!
Posted by: mitchell at September 28, 2006 6:09 PMMitchell - oh God, I cannot wait for that Scorsese ... I've got such a thing for Jack - and I also love that he is one of the few movie stars where all you need to say is his first name and you just KNOW. A world of associations come up. "Jack".
Yeah, and Ann Margaret ... she has this long silent sequence in carnal knowledge when Jack is taking a shower (uhm, does that character have a cleanliness complex or what? He is ALWAYS taking a shower) - and you don't know WHAT she is thinking ... but you just see her GO somewhere. It is a long soft full moment - the camera just resting on her - watching her think. How many directors do that nowadays? Just rest their camera on someone and watch them? He comes out of the bathroom, and out of nowhere, she looks at him with this bruised hopeful smile (unlike any expression you have seen on this character's face before) and she says, "How 'bout you and me shack up?"
Had to rewind the whole sequence to watch it again - watch the thoughts, unknowable, flicker across her beautiful face.
Posted by: red at September 28, 2006 8:16 PMI loved Ann-Margret in "Bye Bye Birdie" when she was just a teenager. I liked everything about the remake (with Jason Alexander in Dick Van Dyke's role) except that Kim's role was just written for A-M. Both innocent and smouldering. Her "How Lovely To Be a Woman" with that hilarious line - "To go to a fancy nightclub, and stay out after ten! How lovely to be so grownup and free!" was completely believable. IMO.
Posted by: Laura(southernxyl) at September 28, 2006 8:34 PMLaura - ha!! Beautiful comment - I so agree. There was something just so marvelous about her. Actually, there still is!!
Posted by: red at September 28, 2006 9:09 PMI know, I am always a week late commenting on things--hey, life calls. Ann Margaret is just all woman. To me, she has that Gena Rowlands thing--a complete, mature, strong, feminine thing going. As a man, those are two women I wish like hell I knew well. Love them both. And let's be serious, Ann Margaret is hot beyond belief. Not in that phony Pamela Anderson/porn star/empty shell kind of way, but in that "Oh my God, what would it be like to share life with a woman like that" kind of way. Not that I've thought about it, or anything.
Posted by: DBW at September 29, 2006 10:08 AMDBW - I'm sure it's never even crossed your mind. :)
But yeah, she kind of has it all. She's a sexpot - but there's kindness there. Humanity. And she's not a ball-buster.
Posted by: red at September 29, 2006 10:17 AMand talent coming out her ears!!! i remember watching an Ann-Margaret tv special(remember specials???? thats a whole other post!!!)...anyway she and Tina fecking Turner came out on white motorcycles wearing white leather(tight!!) and did Proud Mary...changed my life...both made me worship woman and accept my sexuality all at the same time!!!!...maybe Youtube has it???
Posted by: mitchell at September 29, 2006 1:32 PM//both made me worship woman and accept my sexuality all at the same time//
Thank God for gay icons.
I think it was Herb Ritts who took an awesome photograph of Ann Margaret, in a freakin' Superwoman costume, riding her motorcycle on a desert highway. I remember seeing it in Interview magazine - and she was SCREAMING as she drove. She is riding that motorcycle, and all blurry - and she is SCREAMING. Wild photo - I wonder if I could track it down somewhere.
Posted by: red at September 29, 2006 1:34 PMomg..i have to see that!!
Posted by: mitchell at September 29, 2006 2:46 PM