“…’cause they’re hip to your tricks.”

By the way: I found it odd that Meriem Perez Riera‘s Rita Moreno: Just A Girl Who Decided To Go For It (Roadside, 6.18.21) didn’t even mention Moreno’s cameo in Carnal Knowledge, presumably because Riera didn’t approve of Moreno playing a prostitute… But of course, Moreno’s character, ‘Louise,” has the power in this scene. She’s indulging Jack Nicholson’s need for pathetic fantasy in order to have a decent erection — she’s going along with the act, of course, but obviously finds it ridiculous and a little bit sad.

Louise: I don’t think we’re gonna have any trouble tonight. You’re a real man, a kind man.

Jonathan: I’m not kind.

Louise: I don’t mean the weak kind the way so many men are. I mean the kindness that comes from enormous strength, from an inner power so strong that every act, no matter what, is more proof of that power. That’s what all women resent. That’s why they try to cut ya down, because your knowledge of yourself and them is so right, so true, that it exposes the lies by which they, every scheming one of them, live by. It takes a true woman to understand that the purest form of love is to love a man who denies himself to her — a man who inspires worship, because he has no need for any woman, because he has himself. And who is better, more beautiful, more powerful, more perfect…you’re getting hard.. more strong, more masculine, extraordinary, more…it’s rising, it’s rising…more virile, domineering, more irresistible. It’s up in the air…”