Episode Details

A new release from the Criterion Collection represents yet another successful retrieval of an important film originally released by that company on the Laserdisc format they specialized in for 15 years or so before they started releasing movies on DVD. Carnal Knowledge, Mike Nichols’ 1971 follow up to Catch-22, functioned as a lightning rod for candid conversations and high-stakes legal proceedings in the immediate aftermath of its release and still shows plenty of potential for stoking fresh discussions and charged debates about how so many men relate to women in regard to sexuality and committed relationships. I had a chance to review the new 4K edition and this post is a collection of various clips I’ve made about the film, both recently and back in October of 2019 when I reviewed the film as part of my ongoing Criterion Reflections podcast that covers films published on various formats by Criterion in the chronological order of the films’ original releases.

For the sake of convenience and to provide maximal coverage of my response to the film itself, I’ve attached the episode to this post, which should include it in the CriterionCast Master Feed in your favorite podcast player of choice, or you can just listen to it here on this page. I want to thank Richard Doyle and Grant Douglas Bromley for their contributions from nearly six years ago – they brought great insights and well-informed perspectives into the conversation and made it a much more interesting talk than if it was just me speaking into a microphone by myself! We even got into the question of whether we thought Criterion would be willing to re-publish a film that was in many ways so centered on two men who brought so much casual misogyny and chauvinistic privilege into their mutual assumptions