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Carnal knowledge: A screenplay
Book by Feiffer, Jules
- GenresFilm
Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
About the author
Jules Feiffer
142 books196 followersJules Feiffer was an American cartoonist, playwright, screenwriter, and author whose work left a significant imprint on American satire and cultural commentary. Emerging from the postwar era of newspaper comics, he first gained recognition through his long-running comic strip published in The Village Voice, where his loose, expressive line drawings and psychologically sharp dialogue captured the anxieties, contradictions, and social performances of contemporary life. Feiffer used humor to critique politics, relationships, and everyday neuroses, developing a voice that felt conversational, self-aware, and deeply engaged with the shifting cultural moods of the United States. His graphic style, which often emphasized gesture and tone over detailed renderings, was equally distinctive, and helped expand the visual vocabulary of editorial and literary cartooning. Beyond his cartoons, Feiffer became an accomplished writer for stage and screen; his play Little Murders offered a darkly comic exploration of violence and alienation in urban America, while his screenplay for Mike Nichols’s film Carnal Knowledge drew widespread attention for its unflinching examination of intimacy and desire. Feiffer also wrote children’s books, including the popular The Phantom Tollbooth, for which he provided the illustrations that helped establish the book’s imaginative visual identity. He demonstrated an enduring commitment to making art accessible, engaging with students and general audiences alike through teaching and public appearances, and continued producing work across multiple genres throughout his life. His comics and writings were often autobiographical in spirit, even when fictionalized, providing commentary on his experiences growing up in New York and moving through decades of cultural change. Feiffer received numerous honors for his contributions to American arts, including major awards recognizing his innovation in cartooning, his influence on graphic storytelling, and his impact on theater and film. His later work included longer-form graphic novels and personal memoirs, reflecting on childhood, family, and the evolution of his artistic voice. Feiffer remained an active and inquisitive creator well into his later years, consistently exploring new creative forms and responding to contemporary political and social issues. His legacy is seen in the work of generations of cartoonists and writers who drew inspiration from his willingness to bring emotional depth, social critique, and literary ambition to comics and satire. Feiffer’s work stands as a testament to the power of humor to illuminate the complexities of human behavior and the cultural forces that shape everyday life.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 18, 2012
Right now I can't think of a better American screenplay.
September 23, 2025
Carnal Knowledge, written by Jules Feiffer and directed by Mike Nichols
9 out of 10
Notes and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... and http://realini.blogspot.ro/
Carnal Knowledge is an exceptional film.
It is included on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list:
- http://www.listchallenges.com/new-yor...
The director is the wonderful Mike Nichols, the genius who gave the audiences:
- The Graduate, Charlie Wilson’s War, Closer and other great films
Jack Nicholson, one of the best actors ever, has the role of Jonathan, an interesting, excited, curious, not very loyal young man.
Art Garfunkel, better known for his musical career and his contribution to the soundtrack of The Graduate, plays Sandy.
Jonathan and Sandy talk about girls, their desires and preferences, if they would rather love than be loved…
Jonathan appears the earthier, experienced, the winner type when compared with his more naïve companion.
The former is encouraging the latter to approach Susan, portrayed by the resplendent Candice Bergen.
When Sandy does not get anywhere, Jonathan wants to try his luck, but Sandy persists and gets close to Susan.
Only later on, Jonathan makes a comeback, calls the girl and says that he is the friend of her boyfriend…
They get together and a sort of a ménage a trois follows, with innocent Sandy unaware of being betrayed.
In fact, the pushy, more assertive Jonathan advances much more quickly and becomes intimate with the woman.
Feeling compassion, perhaps pity for Sandy, who admits that it is the first time he kissed or did anything with the girl, she encourages him…
So much so that Jonathan is jealous and even goes as far as to say to the girl who is caught between that:
- Why can’t you be like with Sandy when you are with me?
This was the first period in the lives of the two friends, a stage in which they did not know much about a relationship with a woman.
From this “Age of Innocence” we move to a later time, when Jonathan is more like a Don Juan, a womanizer and a hedonistic type.
He meets Bobbie, portrayed by Ann-Margret- winner of the Golden globe for this performance and nominated for an Oscar.
Their relationship is developing well, albeit based more on Carnal Knowledge rather than on a deeper understanding.
It may be that Jonathan, more interested in sex and maintaining independence at the same time is too shallow to commit to a long term bond.
When Bobbie keeps bringing up her need for stability and a solid association, Jonathan is showing anger and anxiety.
The tension is increasing and there is aggression and violence, more verbal than physical, but the trend is destructive.
The fact that Bobbie quits her job does not help, even if she is bored with it, staying all day at home, mostly in bed is a recipe for disaster.
Psychology research has showed that almost all couples experience a “Honeymoon Effect” and after about two years, creativity is needed so that someone new does not benefit from novelty and need for variety to break the couple.
Jonathan appears to be bored, looking for variety- which is indeed a necessary ingredient for happiness, but can be introduced through other means- and is ever more demanding of Bobbie, who wants to get married.
Sandy’s partner attracts the attention of Jonathan and they are both more interested in someone new, rather than their girlfriends…
And an interesting aspect of the filming, the accomplished way in which Jack Nicholson could act at his best:
“Screenwriter Jules Feiffer said he had no idea how Nicholson would tackle the multiple levels of the Jonathan/Bobbie fight, in which the character is "defensive, enraged, contemptuous, and bullying." If the actor got half of everything Feiffer had put into the scene on paper, the writer said he would be more than satisfied. Nicholson got everything, and on the first take, according to Feiffer. Astonished, the writer asked director Mike Nichols what he had told the actor. "Nothing," Feiffer reports Nichols replying with a grin. "I told him absolutely nothing. He came up with it all himself.”
9 out of 10
Notes and thoughts on other books are available at:
- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list... and http://realini.blogspot.ro/
Carnal Knowledge is an exceptional film.
It is included on The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made list:
- http://www.listchallenges.com/new-yor...
The director is the wonderful Mike Nichols, the genius who gave the audiences:
- The Graduate, Charlie Wilson’s War, Closer and other great films
Jack Nicholson, one of the best actors ever, has the role of Jonathan, an interesting, excited, curious, not very loyal young man.
Art Garfunkel, better known for his musical career and his contribution to the soundtrack of The Graduate, plays Sandy.
Jonathan and Sandy talk about girls, their desires and preferences, if they would rather love than be loved…
Jonathan appears the earthier, experienced, the winner type when compared with his more naïve companion.
The former is encouraging the latter to approach Susan, portrayed by the resplendent Candice Bergen.
When Sandy does not get anywhere, Jonathan wants to try his luck, but Sandy persists and gets close to Susan.
Only later on, Jonathan makes a comeback, calls the girl and says that he is the friend of her boyfriend…
They get together and a sort of a ménage a trois follows, with innocent Sandy unaware of being betrayed.
In fact, the pushy, more assertive Jonathan advances much more quickly and becomes intimate with the woman.
Feeling compassion, perhaps pity for Sandy, who admits that it is the first time he kissed or did anything with the girl, she encourages him…
So much so that Jonathan is jealous and even goes as far as to say to the girl who is caught between that:
- Why can’t you be like with Sandy when you are with me?
This was the first period in the lives of the two friends, a stage in which they did not know much about a relationship with a woman.
From this “Age of Innocence” we move to a later time, when Jonathan is more like a Don Juan, a womanizer and a hedonistic type.
He meets Bobbie, portrayed by Ann-Margret- winner of the Golden globe for this performance and nominated for an Oscar.
Their relationship is developing well, albeit based more on Carnal Knowledge rather than on a deeper understanding.
It may be that Jonathan, more interested in sex and maintaining independence at the same time is too shallow to commit to a long term bond.
When Bobbie keeps bringing up her need for stability and a solid association, Jonathan is showing anger and anxiety.
The tension is increasing and there is aggression and violence, more verbal than physical, but the trend is destructive.
The fact that Bobbie quits her job does not help, even if she is bored with it, staying all day at home, mostly in bed is a recipe for disaster.
Psychology research has showed that almost all couples experience a “Honeymoon Effect” and after about two years, creativity is needed so that someone new does not benefit from novelty and need for variety to break the couple.
Jonathan appears to be bored, looking for variety- which is indeed a necessary ingredient for happiness, but can be introduced through other means- and is ever more demanding of Bobbie, who wants to get married.
Sandy’s partner attracts the attention of Jonathan and they are both more interested in someone new, rather than their girlfriends…
And an interesting aspect of the filming, the accomplished way in which Jack Nicholson could act at his best:
“Screenwriter Jules Feiffer said he had no idea how Nicholson would tackle the multiple levels of the Jonathan/Bobbie fight, in which the character is "defensive, enraged, contemptuous, and bullying." If the actor got half of everything Feiffer had put into the scene on paper, the writer said he would be more than satisfied. Nicholson got everything, and on the first take, according to Feiffer. Astonished, the writer asked director Mike Nichols what he had told the actor. "Nothing," Feiffer reports Nichols replying with a grin. "I told him absolutely nothing. He came up with it all himself.”
September 10, 2026
Five stars. Jules Feiffer's screenplay for Carnal Knowledge (1971) is a masterclass in the negative character arc: One of the bleakest and most honest portraits of postwar American masculinity ever committed to film or page. I read it alongside Mike Nichols's Criterion Collection edition of the film, and the two reward comparison.
What It Is
The screenplay follows two college friends, Jonathan and Sandy, across roughly twenty-five years of their lives, from their days as students at Amherst College in the late 1940s through middle age. Jonathan (played by Jack Nicholson in the film) is the dominant figure: confident, charismatic, sexually aggressive, and possessed of a view of women so warped that it constitutes a kind of pathology. Sandy (Art Garfunkel) is more sensitive and self-deceiving: he tells himself a more romantic story about his relationships with women, but the results are no less damaging.
The film is set partly in western Massachusetts (Sandy and Jonathan at Amherst College, Susan at Smith College), a detail I found personally resonant given that I live in Northampton, not far from both campuses. The Five College area of the 1940s and 1950s that Feiffer evokes is recognizably the same landscape I inhabit, which gave the early sections an additional texture.
The script, like nearly all viable screenplays and nearly all good stories, is structured in three acts. Other sources identify the three sections as set in approximately 1946, 1961, and 1970, though the screenplay itself does not specify years: a deliberate choice that makes the passage of time feel cumulative and inevitable rather than schematic.
The Negative Character Arc
Jonathan begins as a sleazeball with a deeply warped view of women and ends considerably worse. This is a pure negative character arc: the protagonist does not learn, does not grow, does not change for the better. He doubles down on every destructive pattern until he has reduced himself to an elaborate ritual with a call girl that has become the only way he can achieve sexual response.
Goodreads reviewer Nick LeBlanc describes the film accurately as "a scathing critique of masculinity, misogyny, and male homosocial relationships," concluding: "Men are cruel to women because they are insecure about themselves." This is the right reading. The film depicts sexism without being sexist: a distinction that many contemporary reviewers apparently struggle to make. As Roger Ebert noted in his original 1971 review, the film "never finds its male characters 'at fault,' exactly, and the movie isn't concerned with fixing blame. It chooses the tragedy form, not the essay."
That formal choice is essential. Carnal Knowledge is a tragedy in the classical sense: these men are destroyed not by external forces but by their own inability to see women as full human beings. Their suffering is inseparable from the suffering they cause. Jonathan's final scene — the elaborate scripted ritual with the call girl Louise — is not presented as comedy or punishment but as the logical conclusion of everything that preceded it. It is genuinely bleak.
The Lines That Stay With You
Feiffer's dialogue is sharp, specific, and often brutally funny in the way that only very sad things can be. At the end of Jonathan and Susan's college affair:
On the limits of Jonathan's life philosophy:
And the exchange that encapsulates everything about Sandy's marriage, delivered while the audience knows Jonathan has never told Sandy about his college affair with Susan:
And Jonathan on his relationship with Bobbie, the woman he has driven to near-total dependency:
Screenplay Versus Film
Reading the screenplay alongside the film reveals a few interesting divergences. The young woman played by Carol Kane in the film's final section is described as twenty in the screenplay, though Nichols cast and directed her to appear considerably younger: amplifying Sandy's self-delusion beyond what Feiffer's text specifies. Whether Nichols made a deliberate directorial choice to deepen Sandy's patheticness, or whether Ebert simply misremembered the dialogue when he wrote his 1971 review, is an interesting question the screenplay raises but cannot resolve.
What the screenplay makes clear is how much of the film's meaning is already fully present in Feiffer's text. Nichols was a great director (this is one of his finest films) but the screenplay is the engine. The performances, the cinematography, and the editing serve a structure and a set of ideas that are entirely Feiffer's.
Man Against Himself
The central conflict of Carnal Knowledge is "man against himself" — these men are their own antagonists, and the women in their lives are casualties of battles the men are fighting with their own insecurities. None of the characters are likeable. All of them are interesting. We have all met men like Jonathan. The screenplay's achievement is making that recognition uncomfortable rather than reassuring: you are not watching a cautionary tale about someone safely unlike you. You are watching a portrait of something recognizable in the culture that produced all of us.
[Image: Poster of the Feature Film]
Citation:
Feiffer, J. (1971). Carnal knowledge: A screenplay. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Ebert, R. (1971). Carnal knowledge [Film review]. RogerEbert.com. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ca...
Lightman, H. A. (1971). On location with Carnal Knowledge. American Cinematographer. https://theasc.com/article/carnal-kno...
Title: Carnal Knowledge: A Screenplay
Author(s): Jules Feiffer
Year: 1971
Genre: Fiction — Screenplay Book
Page count: 118 pages
Date(s) read: 9/9/26–9/10/26
Book 180 in 2026
What It Is
The screenplay follows two college friends, Jonathan and Sandy, across roughly twenty-five years of their lives, from their days as students at Amherst College in the late 1940s through middle age. Jonathan (played by Jack Nicholson in the film) is the dominant figure: confident, charismatic, sexually aggressive, and possessed of a view of women so warped that it constitutes a kind of pathology. Sandy (Art Garfunkel) is more sensitive and self-deceiving: he tells himself a more romantic story about his relationships with women, but the results are no less damaging.
The film is set partly in western Massachusetts (Sandy and Jonathan at Amherst College, Susan at Smith College), a detail I found personally resonant given that I live in Northampton, not far from both campuses. The Five College area of the 1940s and 1950s that Feiffer evokes is recognizably the same landscape I inhabit, which gave the early sections an additional texture.
The script, like nearly all viable screenplays and nearly all good stories, is structured in three acts. Other sources identify the three sections as set in approximately 1946, 1961, and 1970, though the screenplay itself does not specify years: a deliberate choice that makes the passage of time feel cumulative and inevitable rather than schematic.
The Negative Character Arc
Jonathan begins as a sleazeball with a deeply warped view of women and ends considerably worse. This is a pure negative character arc: the protagonist does not learn, does not grow, does not change for the better. He doubles down on every destructive pattern until he has reduced himself to an elaborate ritual with a call girl that has become the only way he can achieve sexual response.
Goodreads reviewer Nick LeBlanc describes the film accurately as "a scathing critique of masculinity, misogyny, and male homosocial relationships," concluding: "Men are cruel to women because they are insecure about themselves." This is the right reading. The film depicts sexism without being sexist: a distinction that many contemporary reviewers apparently struggle to make. As Roger Ebert noted in his original 1971 review, the film "never finds its male characters 'at fault,' exactly, and the movie isn't concerned with fixing blame. It chooses the tragedy form, not the essay."
That formal choice is essential. Carnal Knowledge is a tragedy in the classical sense: these men are destroyed not by external forces but by their own inability to see women as full human beings. Their suffering is inseparable from the suffering they cause. Jonathan's final scene — the elaborate scripted ritual with the call girl Louise — is not presented as comedy or punishment but as the logical conclusion of everything that preceded it. It is genuinely bleak.
The Lines That Stay With You
Feiffer's dialogue is sharp, specific, and often brutally funny in the way that only very sad things can be. At the end of Jonathan and Susan's college affair:
"Susan: I'll always be your friend.
Jonathan: Jesus, Susan — I hope not." (p. 58)
On the limits of Jonathan's life philosophy:
"Sandy: You can't make fucking your life's work.
Jonathan: (annoyed) Don't tell me what I can or can't do. You're so well off?" (p. 64)
And the exchange that encapsulates everything about Sandy's marriage, delivered while the audience knows Jonathan has never told Sandy about his college affair with Susan:
"Sandy: Maybe it's just not meant to be enjoyable with women you love.
Jonathan: Sandy, do you want to get laid?
Sandy: Please." (p. 82)
And Jonathan on his relationship with Bobbie, the woman he has driven to near-total dependency:
"Leave me! Please leave me, Bobbie. I'd almost marry you if you'd leave me." (p. 98)
Screenplay Versus Film
Reading the screenplay alongside the film reveals a few interesting divergences. The young woman played by Carol Kane in the film's final section is described as twenty in the screenplay, though Nichols cast and directed her to appear considerably younger: amplifying Sandy's self-delusion beyond what Feiffer's text specifies. Whether Nichols made a deliberate directorial choice to deepen Sandy's patheticness, or whether Ebert simply misremembered the dialogue when he wrote his 1971 review, is an interesting question the screenplay raises but cannot resolve.
What the screenplay makes clear is how much of the film's meaning is already fully present in Feiffer's text. Nichols was a great director (this is one of his finest films) but the screenplay is the engine. The performances, the cinematography, and the editing serve a structure and a set of ideas that are entirely Feiffer's.
Man Against Himself
The central conflict of Carnal Knowledge is "man against himself" — these men are their own antagonists, and the women in their lives are casualties of battles the men are fighting with their own insecurities. None of the characters are likeable. All of them are interesting. We have all met men like Jonathan. The screenplay's achievement is making that recognition uncomfortable rather than reassuring: you are not watching a cautionary tale about someone safely unlike you. You are watching a portrait of something recognizable in the culture that produced all of us.
[Image: Poster of the Feature Film]
Citation:
Feiffer, J. (1971). Carnal knowledge: A screenplay. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Ebert, R. (1971). Carnal knowledge [Film review]. RogerEbert.com. https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/ca...
Lightman, H. A. (1971). On location with Carnal Knowledge. American Cinematographer. https://theasc.com/article/carnal-kno...
Title: Carnal Knowledge: A Screenplay
Author(s): Jules Feiffer
Year: 1971
Genre: Fiction — Screenplay Book
Page count: 118 pages
Date(s) read: 9/9/26–9/10/26
Book 180 in 2026
February 7, 2009
A brilliant screenplay that became a brilliant film. Feiffer's lacerating dialogue between two men with differing but equally poisonous views on women is one of those works that makes you wince in recognition. Mike Nichols and a stellar cast did a great job bringing this to life, but the script deserves to be read on its own.
August 8, 2024
A book from another time. Sharing a past perspective is its only utility, otherwise it is the perfect description of what you would call pure sexism today, if not worse.
The back cover lets you think that it’s about reasoning and meaning of love but I’m still waiting for the reasoning to take off.
A friendship that makes you wonder why they are even friends, supposely some relationship that are no more that a fuck-show and a place for the two men to judge if a women has breast big enough to be laid.
Only advantage of this book, very short so you can finish it in 30min
The back cover lets you think that it’s about reasoning and meaning of love but I’m still waiting for the reasoning to take off.
A friendship that makes you wonder why they are even friends, supposely some relationship that are no more that a fuck-show and a place for the two men to judge if a women has breast big enough to be laid.
Only advantage of this book, very short so you can finish it in 30min
November 30, 2020
Just finished reading Jules Feiffer’s stage play Carnal Knowledge, famously adapted into a film in 1971 by Mike Nichols. It’s a scathing critique of masculinity, misogyny, and male homosocial relationships. Unfortunately, most folks will be able to see bits of their worst qualities in these characters from cold avoidance to gaslighting to objectifying sexual partners and the one-upmanship that causes it. A brutal show. Two choice lines: “I’d almost marry you if you’d leave me!” and “Imagine yourself in a room full of hard-ons. It’s fascism.”
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tl;dr—Men are cruel to women because they are insecure about themselves. Watch the movie.
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tl;dr—Men are cruel to women because they are insecure about themselves. Watch the movie.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews