Post by StevePulaski on Nov 19, 2014 12:33:49 GMT -5
Midnight Cowboy (1969)
Directed by: John Schlesinger
Directed by: John Schlesinger
Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman.
Rating: ★★★
I believe you can tell how a person views film and minimalism to a certain degree by asking them what they thought of John Schlesinger's Midnight Cowboy. If they say they thought it was a good film about two lost souls, they only understand about half the film. If they say the film is sad or depressing, then they have effectively realized the ideas and themes in the film. Midnight Cowboy is one of the saddest films I've ever seen, which is a remarkable feat given that the film has no real sad event. The idea of a life unlived, an unwelcoming world, and people that were destined to live their lives without a true sense of belonging, encouragement, or home are communicated so effectively in the film that at times I felt my heart sink and take a moment to regain composure.
Midnight Cowboy isn't a perfect film, as its loose structure can sometimes get the best of it and, as a result, the film can descend into scenes that don't always fit particularly well together, but it's the themes handled so expertly in the film that make me regard it with such a fondness. The film stars Jon Voight as Joe Buck, who we see in the opening credits of the film - set to the brilliantly fitting theme of the film "Everybody's Talkin'" by Harry Nilsson - a dishwasher at a diner who decides to throw on a cowboy suit and head for New York City in hopes of working as a male prostitute for women. Right off the bat, it's a sad state of affairs if packing up, leaving everything you've known behind, and setting course for the big city with ambitions of being a prostitute is one's immediate goal, but I digress. Soon after he arrives in New York City, he meets Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a petty con man with bad health and a limp, who initially takes money from Joe with promises of introducing him to a pimp who is in fact a Christian. Despite this deliberately insincere encounter, Joe and Ratso soon strike a business relationship of hustling New York locals in exchange for lofty cash returns.
The film watches these characters take on a relationship I can only relate to that of George and Lenny in John Steinbeck's classic novel Of Mice and Men. Much like in that work, the two characters are, what we quietly assume, doomed from the start and the remaining pages of the book or minutes of the film is just a reiteration of their shattered sense of belonging. Voight and Hoffman are so good here that they essentially become the film, as we get the sense that writer Waldo Salt had additional plans for these characters in the vein of more situational occurrences, but the performances of the actors and the hopelessness of their characters bleeds through any hope of an event-driven plot.
The only issue I take with Midnight Cowboy is that Salt never seemed to recognize this, and thus, never allowed as many thought-provoking or telling conversations about Joe and Ratso to take place. He never seemed to grasp the idea that Midnight Cowboy plays more like a character piece than anything, and while simultaneously leaving the characters vague enough for connection and not adapting a plot out of a plethora of situations, made a film caught somewhere in the middle of its agenda. Midnight Cowboy, as much as I want to center it and just rave about the greatness of its two leading males, is not a fully-realized film.
Yet, Schlesinger and Salt give Voight and Hoffman enough free range to make them shine, and as a result, the film wound up working out for most involved. Voight became a household name after his performance, Hoffman became known for more than just The Graduate and became a name of equal importance, both earned a Best Actor nomination, Salt was granted the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, Schlesinger the Best Director, and the film Best Picture. While Midnight Cowboy seems to have a bit of a narrative identity crisis, it's nonetheless a display of two fine performances, a non-judgmental relationship between two hopeless characters, and a breakthrough for urban cinema, showing one of the most romanticized American cities as a place where untold ugliness can and does exist.
Starring: Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. Directed by: John Schlesinger.