Midnight Cowboy (A- or 3.5/4 stars)
Based on a novel, 'Midnight Cowboy' (directed by John Schlesinger) dramatized the hopes, dashed dreams, & unlikely companionship of 2 lost souls in 1960s NYC. Dreaming of a fantasy as a cowboy stud, cheerful simpleton Joe Buck (Jon Voight), leaves his dishwashing job in Texas & heads out to NYC to be a gigolo; but he quickly finds out that hustling isn't what he thought it would be after HE winds up paying his 1st trick, a Park Avenue lady (Sylvia Miles). He's woefully unprepared for the harsh reality of 60's NYC (where even rich people seem broke).
He also gets swindled by lowlife conman Rico 'Ratso' Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) but, when Joe falls into dire straits, and with the NY winter about to set in, the sickly grease-haired Ratso takes him into his condemned Lower East Side apartment so that they can help each other survive. From here, flashback sequences show us Joe's traumatic childhood - an unfortunate history of sexual abuse by his grandma & teenagers has made him damaged goods. Things start to improve for the duo when Joe finally lands his 1st legitimate customer, uptown socialite Shirley (a great Brenda Vaccaro), at a downtown party. But just as things look to be going okay, Ratso's health begins to fail. Joe turns 1 final trick to get the $$ for 1 selfless goal: to get Ratso out of NYC & take him to his dream life in Miami, Florida.
One of the 1st major studio movies given the infamous "X"-rating for its then-frank portrayal of sex/homosexual nature, 'Midnight Cowboy' shows great insight into the lives of these 2 wretched men. And the way Schlesinger intercuts the main narrative with Joe's haunting memories of his youth and Ratso's own dreams gives these characters a greater psychological dimension/complexity -- loved that. I admire the way Schlesinger captures Joe & Ratso's confusion amidst turbulent times & to the connection that they make with each other despite their alienation from everything else around them.
'Midnight Cowboy' makes for a great time capsule {great evocation of the mood and danger of the time & place}. The movie brims with dark social & political commentary. And I love that only through his extremely problematic friendship with Ratso can Joe reclaim his sense of humanity. There's a palpable sense of friendship btwn. Voight & Hoffman, here - 2 young actors who pushed themselves in this touching, depressing drama into something that you rarely get depicted in fiction (of any medium). 'MC' tells a powerful story of these 2 losers in NYC, and it is a film that I won't soon forget.
He also gets swindled by lowlife conman Rico 'Ratso' Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) but, when Joe falls into dire straits, and with the NY winter about to set in, the sickly grease-haired Ratso takes him into his condemned Lower East Side apartment so that they can help each other survive. From here, flashback sequences show us Joe's traumatic childhood - an unfortunate history of sexual abuse by his grandma & teenagers has made him damaged goods. Things start to improve for the duo when Joe finally lands his 1st legitimate customer, uptown socialite Shirley (a great Brenda Vaccaro), at a downtown party. But just as things look to be going okay, Ratso's health begins to fail. Joe turns 1 final trick to get the $$ for 1 selfless goal: to get Ratso out of NYC & take him to his dream life in Miami, Florida.
One of the 1st major studio movies given the infamous "X"-rating for its then-frank portrayal of sex/homosexual nature, 'Midnight Cowboy' shows great insight into the lives of these 2 wretched men. And the way Schlesinger intercuts the main narrative with Joe's haunting memories of his youth and Ratso's own dreams gives these characters a greater psychological dimension/complexity -- loved that. I admire the way Schlesinger captures Joe & Ratso's confusion amidst turbulent times & to the connection that they make with each other despite their alienation from everything else around them.
'Midnight Cowboy' makes for a great time capsule {great evocation of the mood and danger of the time & place}. The movie brims with dark social & political commentary. And I love that only through his extremely problematic friendship with Ratso can Joe reclaim his sense of humanity. There's a palpable sense of friendship btwn. Voight & Hoffman, here - 2 young actors who pushed themselves in this touching, depressing drama into something that you rarely get depicted in fiction (of any medium). 'MC' tells a powerful story of these 2 losers in NYC, and it is a film that I won't soon forget.