The Knack...and How to Get It

It's funny that Richard Lester is my favorite filmmaker of the 1960s. At the time, most art filmmakers tied themselves to amateur theories, but Richard Lester had little indentity in it. There was not an ideological pamphlet to accompany his films. The truth is that was he was really one of the most daring filmmakers of his time.

The premise of The Knack is simple enough. A school teacher deals with an over exuberant ladies man in his roommate and lives a life of ineptness because his roommate's success highlights his shyness. Things begin to change for both men when happenstance brings about both a new roommate and a naive, but attractive young lady into the mix. The moral of the story is that the school teacher comes into his own by the end of the film, but the true motivation of this film is the wonderfully elaborate filmmaking design to show all the action.

Richard Lester is the only filmmaker I know of who was criticized by critics for being too clever and too inventive with this film. The pace was too fast for some to keep up with. Lester, an unabashed stylist of little motivation for his Beatles film, Help!, does find true direction for his talent in The Knack. He ties the whirlwind camera movement and editing to gage the psyche of our confused but hopeful protaganist. The fun ride is a hyperbolic journey through his head where the major feelings are suppose to highlight his fears and confusions. Lester also imprints some 60s trends into the filmmaking, but the greater design is designated to the main character.
What is most impressive about The Knack is that Michel Gondry had a similar motivation in making "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", but Gondry also had the luxury of developed technology to create a lot of his visual tricks. Lester relies solely on his competance and talents as a director. There isn't a shot in the film that exceeds the capitabilties of what wasn't already long available in filmmaking for years. I imagine the technology went back to the 1940s.
It's an incredibe film and sadly looked over today because it distinctly feels like it is from the 1960s, but the cultural pastiche shouldn't be a demotion. The fact a movie like this could have been made then should be in its style should be its greatest compliment. Lester's first major work and a film in my top five for personal favorites.