Some movies, no matter how effective, will always be first and foremost products of their time. As an example (because if you haven’t noticed by now, I tend to discuss a specific movie in this column) let’s take Midnight Cowboy. Is it still a powerful, personal and darkly funny film? Of course, but from the second it starts, the flick can’t be viewed as anything but a product of late 60s, early 70s gonzo filmmaking; That special moment when the art house and the multiplex merged and all of the sex, filth, and violence of the world that Hollywood’s scissor-happy censors tried to bleach from the big screen found their way into popular entertainment. Midnight Cowboy was one of the vital milestones of that movement, a movie that wore the freshly-created X-rating as a badge of honor all the way to a Best Picture win at the Oscars.
The film remains compelling and affecting 43 years later, yet also has a quaint, time capsule quality. What seemed outrageous at the time is no longer quite as shocking and with the then relatively unknown central pairing of Dustin Hoffman and John Voight now superstars as well as decades of quotation transforming throwaway lines (“I’m walking here!”) into pop culture iconography, the film’s realist punch is lessoned. Midnight Cowboy is still a great movie, we’ll just never be able to experience the subversive and groundbreaking effect it had on audiences in 1969, even if time-traveling DeLoreans start selling wholesale.
The now familiar sounds of Harry Nilsson’s “Everybody’s Talkin’ At Me” introduce us to John Voight’s Joe Buck, an impossibly naïve Texas boy who moves to the big smoke of New York with dreams of easy city livin’. However, his plan is not to become a Broadway star or business tycoon, but a high-end hustler servicing the wealthy and beautiful middle age gals of NYC. It seems like an attainable goal compared to what most lonely souls seek from the city, yet proves to be damn near impossible. He eventually finds an unlikely business partner in the weazy squeaky-voiced wannabe pimp and walking embodiment of old New York sleaze Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman). They have big plans for streetwalking success and retirement in Florida. Of course, that doesn’t happen and eventually Buck and Ratso find themselves stumbling towards and ending that can’t possibly be pleasant.
The project was the first major American production from director Joe Schlesinger. The British export had already earned a name for himself on the international filmmaking scene with titles like Darling and Billy Liar. He brought a contemporary filmmaking style born out of the French and British New Wave movements of the 60s. That meant unflinching realism as well as jittery handheld photography, jump cuts, and self-conscious directing. This visual approach dates the movie now and is more distracting than elevating. His other addition to the movie that doesn’t hold up are split-second flashbacks revealing the psychological motivations behind Buck’s peculiar life goals. The Freudian implications of Buck’s oddly sexualized relationship with his grandmother and a scarring gang rape may have seamed like a fascinating touch at the time, but now feels rather pat and obvious. Then there’s the final long ride to Florida, a famous ending and one that is closer to soap opera than real life tragedy.
Yet, despite those criticisms, enough of the film works for Midnight Cowboy to remain a classic. Schlesinger brought an outsider perspective to American idealism and eccentricity that he for milked gentle comedy and is probably more amusing now than in 1969. Most importantly, the openly gay director turned the relationship between Ratso and Joe into a genuinely touching love story. It’s more implicit than open, a bromance long before the annoying term was coined. But perhaps his greatest achievement was finding and nuturing John Voight and Dustin Hoffman as his central pairing. The duo could not be more ideally cast and the performances still rank amongst their best.
Voight’s hilarious innocent dragged through gutter could so easily have been a clichéd Southern goofball, but he finds the damaged soul behind the character type. Hoffman’s Ratso was the role that confirmed his status as one of America’s greatest character actors following The Graduate and all sleazy New York scumbags in films to follow owe a debt to his portrayal. The actors bounce off each other beautifully, clearly challenging themselves throughout the production and managing to ground their characters without missing the comedic potential. The film’s reputation rests almost entirely on those characters and performances these days and they are more than worth sitting through all of the film’s “hip” 60s indulgences. Whether you dismiss it as a dated relic or revere it as an influential classic, Midnight Cowboy is required viewing for every film lover. That X-rating might look more like PG-13 now, but the characters and harsh New York landscape remain fascinating.
Midnight Cowboy will screen at the Revue Cinema on Tuesday May 22 at 6:45pm
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Phil Brown writes about classic films for Toronto Standard‘s Essential Cinema column.
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