{"id":5395,"date":"2006-09-28T08:57:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-28T12:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5395"},"modified":"2022-10-11T21:47:34","modified_gmt":"2022-10-12T01:47:34","slug":"carnal-knowledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=5395","title":{"rendered":"Carnal Knowledge<\/i>: Mike Nichols’ Style"},"content":{"rendered":"

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” 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.<\/p>\n

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. There is a rawness and reality to what is happening with Bergen in the scene. She was laughing so hard that tears were were in her eyes.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We had to rewind the Bergen scene to watch it again. It’s 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\nIt goes on like that forever<\/i>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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” Mitchell and I have talked about this quite a bit before. What – … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[380,1712],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5395"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179670,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5395\/revisions\/179670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}