I loved being in the film called 'Carnal Knowledge' - the one

“I loved being in the film called ‘Carnal Knowledge’ — the one with Jack Nicholson, which was very dark but a really brilliant movie. I loved being in ‘The Ritz.’ ‘The Ritz’ I think is just hilarious. I just saw it again recently and by God, it’s still funny!” — so spoke Rita Moreno, a woman of grace and fire, whose art has crossed generations and whose presence has shaped the story of cinema itself. In these words, she speaks not only of her joy in performance, but of the enduring power of art to reflect both darkness and laughter, both truth and delight. For she reminds us that to be an artist — and indeed, to be alive — is to embrace the whole spectrum of experience: the tragedy and the comedy, the deep and the light, the shadow and the flame.

When Moreno says she loved being in “Carnal Knowledge,” she honors a work that dared to reveal the darker sides of human intimacy — a story raw, unsettling, yet true. The ancients, too, knew that art must face the darkness to illuminate the soul. The Greek playwright Euripides wrote tragedies not to depress, but to awaken compassion, to make the audience confront what they would rather not see. Moreno calls the film “dark but brilliant,” and in that phrase, we hear the timeless lesson that beauty is not only in joy, but in truth told without fear. Art that does not flinch from pain becomes a mirror of the human spirit — fragile, flawed, but capable of redemption.

Yet she also delights in the memory of “The Ritz,” a comedy wild and irreverent, filled with laughter that breaks tension and restores breath. Her joy in recalling it — “by God, it’s still funny!” — reveals something profound: that laughter endures. While darkness teaches us compassion, comedy teaches us resilience. The ancients revered this balance. After the somber tragedies of Athens came the comic plays of Aristophanes, reminding the people that to laugh at life is to triumph over it. Moreno’s reflection reminds us of that eternal rhythm — that laughter and sorrow are not enemies but companions, taking turns in the dance of the human soul.

Between “Carnal Knowledge” and “The Ritz,” Moreno’s life embodies this harmony of opposites. One film shows the depths of human complexity; the other, the joy of absurdity. The ancients would have called this the mark of a complete artist — one who can move between light and shadow without losing her truth. In every age, such artists serve as guides to the heart: they show us that strength lies not in choosing between joy and pain, but in holding both and transforming them into beauty. Moreno’s reverence for both films reveals her wisdom — she knows that the artist’s task is not to escape reality, but to illuminate it, whether through tears or laughter.

Consider the story of Sophocles, who wrote both the harrowing Oedipus Rex and the uplifting Antigone. In one, he showed the blindness of man; in the other, the courage of defiance. Both were born from the same hand, the same spirit — for art that lasts must speak to the whole of existence. Moreno’s delight in the “dark but brilliant” and the “still funny” is the same understanding: that every generation needs both tragedy and comedy to remain whole. It is in laughter that we recover from despair, and in darkness that we rediscover our need for light.

Her excitement in revisiting her work — “I just saw it again recently” — also carries a deeper wisdom about legacy and time. To see one’s art endure, to still find it moving or funny decades later, is to witness the power of creation that transcends its moment. The ancients called this immortality through memory. The sculptor leaves behind marble; the poet, verse; the actor, living moments preserved in film. Moreno’s astonishment that “it’s still funny” is the joy of the creator who sees her work live beyond her — the laughter of others echoing long after the cameras have stopped.

So let this teaching be passed down: Art that endures is born from truth — and truth lives in both the sorrow and the joy. Do not fear to explore the dark, for there you will find depth; do not be ashamed to laugh, for there you will find healing. As Rita Moreno reminds us, to live fully is to embrace the full symphony of being — the solemn and the silly, the broken and the beautiful. Seek out the stories that make you feel everything, for those are the ones that make you alive. And when you look back upon your own creations, your labors, your loves, may you too be able to say, with a smile that time cannot dim: “By God, it’s still funny — and it’s still true.”