Written by: Waldo Salt

Directed by: John Schlesinger

BBD Comments:

One of the best things about Peter’s pick was how few in our larger than usual Crew had seen it, and ‘Midnight Cowboy’ is a film that needs to be seen. It is among the best films ever made, and it holds up to this day as a searing, shocking  and honest film. I wondered of those who hadn’t seen it whether they recognized the most often repeated ad-lib “I’m walking here, I’m walking here.” from its incessant iterations since the film was made.

I have probably seen this film twenty times now, and am not sure how to add to the plethora of observations about it’s structure, content, form, and meaning. It is a brilliant film and deserves its place in the Library of Congress. Where I found myself focusing on this viewing was the exceptional performances of the film’s two leads and I will confine my observations to their work, and to the one scene that lingers with me long after every viewing.

While I may disagree with the assertion that Jon Voight is “even prettier than Angelina Jolie,” none can challenge the excellence of his work in this film. Joe Buck has already faced so many horrors prior to getting off the bus in New York, but Voight finds an innocent core to the character that makes one of the grimmest storylines in popular film seem filled with hope. There is an almost Chekhovian paralysis at work in this story, and Joe’s inability to make a dime hustling either gender falls in line with that theme. Voight’s Buck is a desperate man in a desperate city, and though that desperation leads him to beat and perhaps kill a man (the film is not explicitly clear on this fact), his innocent core remains. He is ultimately defined by his caring for Ratso. He is dedicated to his friend and we can hope in the end that Florida will be kinder to Joe than New York.

Dustin Hoffman is the epitome of a character actor. To think he had played Benjamin in ‘The Graduate,’ just two years before gracing us with Ratso Rizzo is almost beyond belief. Rizzo is so well drawn and so elegantly designed that you almost are not impressed by the performance. You don’t admire the limp, or the voice or the depth of pain in his eyes because you are engrossed in Ratso. Hoffman makes him real, and you don’t marvel at the work because you never remember you’re watching a movie when Rizzo’s face is on the screen. To be honest (if somewhat hyperbolic), I believe it may be the best performance in cinema history. I really do.

My favorite scene in the film, and I’m sure I’m not alone in this, is Ratso’s dream. His low brow imagining of he and Joe’s future in the mythical Florida, is complex, hysterically funny, and painfully tragic. The musical refrain of the imagined Miami, interspersed with the reality of the failing gigolo scam, bridged with Hoffman’s dreamy adoration of his new found friend make this sequence unforgettable. As absurd a dream as it is, we understand why Rizzo longs for it. It lingers with me because most dream sequences try to imagine what the audience would wish for when they are rendered. Heaven has clouds and harps, Lottery Winners are surrounded in falling money laying on a gilded bed. Schlesinger here doesn’t show the “audience’s” dream of paradise, he shows a dream that only Rizzo could have and we learn more about him for the trouble. This cinematic deftness and the able coexistence of humor and tragedy in ‘Midnight Cowboy’ is the very thing that makes it such an enduring classic.

That being said, ‘Midnight Cowboy’ depresses the hell out of me. I hate Joe’s past, present and future. There is great beauty in this film, but it is difficult to endure all of the misery along the way. Still, I am glad it has joined our canon. Peter took a risk opening with this pick, and I applaud him for the effort and the unexpected number of people who had yet to see this monument to friendship amid urban decay.

I look forward to the next time Peter joins the Crew and hope he had as much fun as I did Wednesday night.

Coolbaugh Comments:

‘Midnight Cowboy,’ yet another newbie to me. I don’t know why, but I always put it in the category of ‘Urban Cowboy.’ I don’t particularly like cowboys, and I don’t really like movies about cowboys, unless they make fun of cowboys. So I guess my not seeing this one isn’t that surprising. But I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I thought for Peter to come into the Yard and make a solid selection was a tall order. Let’s face it. The wall is unforgiving, and the Crew is equally so. I’m looking forward to reading everybody’s review, as despite the film’s greatness, it’s leaving your gut open for a Houdini killer, Peter. I never doubted Peter’s knowledge of film, but for some reason, I expected him to go too far over the top and pull out something a bit more obscure from somebody I’d never heard of from 19th century Prussia.

But lo, we got ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ featuring a very “beautiful” (footnote please…hell, make it a hyper-link to the blog) Jon Voight, and a – I can’t say untouchable – very convincing, Dustin Hoffman. Joe Buck (Voight) is a lonesome young cowboy from Texas, who’s had nothing go his way in life, except a few good lays. Now, he decides to try his hand at hustling in New York City, strutting into town with his dick swinging and the world at his finger tips.  It’s a touching film that is broadly relative and appealing. I’d be surprised to find anyone who doesn’t like this film. Anyone besides Wiener. After all, Wiener hat…ah, you know that story.

So, as the film progresses, we see that Buck is running…running from a past that he can’t seem to shake, but doesn’t seem to affect his sweet, happy-go-lucky demeanor. His past cuts into the film’s present in serrated and painful edits that make your heart break for the young man. He’s never really experienced friendship – the closest  thing he had to a friend was his fellow dishwasher at the Diner in Texas…a 70 year old black man – and he’s only been in love once (which apparently ended very tragically as he was forced to watch his girlfriend getting raped by a bunch of local townies). So he’s got a lot to run from.

He begins to find that the roads in New York can be as ruthless, harsh and unforgiving as any in the world, and before he knows it, he ends up having a rougher go of hustlin’ than he ever imagined. Practically put, he stinks at it. He’s either getting blown by college boys for money they don’t have or payin’ bitches when they go mental on him. All the while he’s looking for his career, trying to make a dollar, and we feel the ground slowly slipping away from underneath him. We sense how easy it is for people to end up down and out. But as he’s falling, he finds something he didn’t expect: love, in the most unsuspecting of places - the squatter named Ratso (Hoffman), whom we never quite get a handle on, other than the fact that he’s a genuinely sweet man who is completely tired of being treated like shit, disrespected, and most of all, called Ratso. He’s got some running of his own to do, and he’s always dreaming about the white sand of South Beach, and how nobody there would know that people used to call him Ratso. But at the end of the day, Buck is forced with a decision everybody ends up making in their lives: what’s more important, love or money?

So thank you Peter for a great film. It’s changed the landscape a bit, as it pertains to my film, however, I think I shall stay the course with my predetermined selection. Unless, of course, something happens between now and Wednesday.

Until then.

Onward.

Nubs Comments:

‘Midnight Cowboy’ is a classic that revolutionized art, cinema, and America in its time. One would think a film of this caliber might be too well known for Movienight, but surprisingly, of the large group we assembled the majority (4 out of 7) were first timers. It is for the sake of education, history and art that I am glad Peter brought this official pick into our repertoire. I have to admit this was my first Movienight appearance ever without smoking cigarettes, and I wasn’t thrilled to sit through another awkwardly homoerotic “buddy” movie that I would have to come up with something original to write about, but I got over it by the end, sort of. Also, I think ‘Forrest Gump’ ruined that damn song for me. Nevertheless, this is an amazingly daring movie even for 1969, and it was a risky choice for a first time SELECTOR, both make it a valid and powerful pick.

Whether you’ve seen ‘Midnight Cowboy’ numerous times like I have, or for the first time, its strengths are unavoidable. First off, the acting by both actors is an unequaled balance of extreme characterization and believable naturalism. If approached differently these two characters would never make it off the page and into our hearts. I have to mention here that Dustin Hoffman easily steals the show with this role, however this viewing really made me appreciate Voight’s performance. It is his complete vulnerability, unabashed bravado, and ‘Rocky’-esque dimwittedness that really allow this story to be told. You put this performance up to another Voight role like ‘Runaway Train’ (which I’m sure no one but Tooda has seen) and you see he’s not just pulling a Stallone.

Aside from the acting, the direction and content of this film are avant-garde for the time. Peter squashes my argument about ‘King of Comedy’ being ahead of its time for its mixing of dream sequences with the narrative reality. This film beats it by a decade and mixes dream sequences with flashbacks, dreams in the flashbacks, and drug sequences that make your head spin long before everyone adapted these tricks of the trade. The themes are also quite representative of a nation in transition. The story gives us a hero who, like many, want to escape the harsh reality of their dead-end lives and pursue their dreams in the big city. That is until the big city chews you up and spits you out and you want to escape its harsh realities to paradise, or in this case Miami. This is groundbreaking because film and cinema as art forms always served to provide escape, dreams, and the beautiful side of life. ‘Midnight Cowboy’ takes our naïve noses and rubs them into reality now, with a dose of some dark New York fantasy. It is like “Alice in Wonderland” for late sixties art house flick. We jump through the rabbit-hole and meet a loveable cast of characters like, Ratzo Rizzo, Uptown Society Jew broad, Crazy Preacher, Transvestite, and older Uptown Jewish Broads moving to Florida. Then the bizarre fairy tale is ripped open to expose a tragic end. Of course it has to end with Ratzo never making it to his dream. He dies at the back of a bus being stared at and judged by the same upper-class people he was hoping to escape. It’s like waking up from a familiar nightmare except, sadly, not everyone wakes up. We can only take solace that Joe Buck and the cinematic viewer may awake and evolve. This film is responsible for helping to start a movement which many consider the golden age of cinema where studios were allowing art house films to be distributed to a people hungry for art and revolution.

I do have one note of criticism for Peter in his preamble. Come to think of it there’s two. First off, keep it shorter. It’s an introduction not a dissertation. That's just a small note, which he couldn’t have known being new to the preamble. What I really disagree with is that he said this movie is timeless and speaks to audiences now. Though that is extreme paraphrasing, I would have to argue this film is a perfect capsule for art and America in one of its most significant years, 1969. It’s important to be viewed as a reminder of where we’re coming from, but it doesn’t speak much to current affairs. Finally, I think the ban on prison movies wasn’t specific enough. For what I took to be the reason of the prison-movie ban, I propose for the duration of that ban, no more homoerotic movies with gay scenes. Unless, of course, its woman on woman. Congratulations Peter on bustin’ your cherry and welcome to the most elite club in Hollywood, you’re welcome anytime.

SELECTOR Comments:

Much ink has already been spilled on the homoeroticism of ‘Midnight Cowboy,’ and that's obviously the big pink elephant in the room, so let me address that right off.  I don't consider this a primarily “gay” film first and foremost.  Obviously, the film includes a very frank exploration of sexual identity, bi-sexuality and sexual exploitation, but I have always thought that all of the critical emphasis on its importance to the queer filmic canon distorts this movie's real focus, which is the friendship and simpatico between Joe and Rico, and the ability of simple human empathy- not necessarily homosexual love- to help heal the wounds inflicted by an indifferent and cruel world.

In my estimation, Joe Buck is not, as some would have you believe, a one-dimensional closeted homosexual overdetermined by his fatherless upbringing.  Surely, the flashback segments suggest that his sexual identity is freighted by overweaning but absent females (who may well have abused him sexually, and may well have both been prostitutes themselves- "I got me a new beau tonight").  But I submit that the true key to Joe is his isolation, his loneliness.  The Jesus freak john says as much, and I believe he's right.  Joe is one of those unfortunate people who never learn how to be at home in their own skin. Every sincere attempt he makes to connect with people - with the "old timer" on the bus to NY, for example, or confiding in the dishwasher back in Texas- ends in a sort of unease and existential malaise. 

The performances are absolutely top-hole.  Voight inhabits Joe Buck in a way that skillfully bridges a sort of deconstructed cowboy archetype (in the magnificent opening, he walks past a movie marquee with John Wayne's "The Alamo" in jumbled letters) and a very real and lonely cow boy just trying to make connections with people.  Hoffman delivers an amazing performance that speaks to Ratso's humanity and empathy, as well as his need to be treated with dignity.  Is Ratso in love with Joe?  Probably.  There is a frame, in one of the diner scenes, where Ratso gazes at Joe in a frame of frank adoration.  But the ambiguity of their growing intimacy isn't premised, to me, on homosexuality.  It's a study of empathy and the solace of true friends as caregivers.

For me, the film's only mis-step is in the flashbacks to the Crazie Annie backstory.  The gang rape seems to suggest some sort of misguided association for Joe between sexual intimacy and violence (a theme echoed by the murder, which Joe commits, essentially, out of love for Rico), but it is handled clumsily, and unlike the flashbacks to his upbringing, doesn't shed light on his psychology beyond the obvious.

One of my favorite things about "Midnight Cowboy" is the soundtrack.  Nilsson's ‘Everybody's Talkin'’ serves as a sort of leitmotif, and effects a sublime refrain, at such heartwrenching moments, that it really attains this sort of cosmic, elegiac, early sevenites AM radio quality that I usually associate with Gram Parsons.  The closing theme, during the film's poignant end, uses Toots Thieleman's melancholy harmonica to remind you that Joe's condition is a sort of existential homelessness on the range.

I'm not embarrassed that I bawl every time I see this film.  I'm a sensitive moviegoer, shed tears at films that truly move me, and suspect that I could watch the final 30 minutes of this film 1000 times and would cry every time.  It's just getting at so many truths about the human condition.  I don't think that's overstating the aim of this film.

Obviously, I love this film.  But I would like to take the opportunity to briefly apologize for excessive viewer participation and indeed direction on my part.  Part of this may have owed to my seat, literally in front of the regular membership and guest audience, and this lent an inappropriate performative aspect to my screening of the film.  Having seen this profoundly moving film three full times in anticipation of Movienight, I knew all of the ins and outs and was too eager in trying to ensure that nobody missed a thing.  I was a little guilty of what Tooda has characterized as "preciousness."  Audience response and impressions aren't the SELECTOR's to control or manage, and I apologize for any extra-diegetic hand-holding. 

I was truly honored to present as a guest selector, and hope that Wiener will be able to forgive me for choosing a "Gay Cowboy" film for one of his contributions to Movienight posterity.

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