John Barry, Jean "Toots" Theilemans,
Harry Nilsson
Runtime:
113 minutes
Everybody's talkin' at me
I don't hear a word they're sayin'
Only the echoes of my mind.
People stop and starin'
I can't see their faces
Only the shadows of their eyes
I'm goin' where the sun keeps shinin'
Through the pourin' rain.
Goin' where the weather suits my clothes
Bankin' off of the northeast winds
Sailin' on summer breeze
And skippin' over the ocean like a stone...
"Everybody's Talkin'" by Harry Nilsson
This song fits Joe Buck (Jon Voight) perfectly because the most obvious
fact about him is he sees what he wants to see. He doesn't process
images like a normal human being, everything is filtered though
the clouds of his hopes, dreams, wants, and delusions. Joe is a
dumb Texas hick, oblivious to the ways of the world. However, this
obliviousness comes more from being a product of his society than
from not being able to spell a five letter word and believing he
gets car sick on a boat from the fish smell.
Joe is very much a daydreamer. The film is constructed with a series
of flashbacks and dream sequences that are triggered by as much
as an incident reminding Joe of something "similar" that
happened to him and as little as the word Sally in a shop window
making him think of his dead Grandmother Sally Buck (Ruth White).
While these visions of his ideal life and nightmares of all his
previous misfortunes are running through his head, the truth that
stands before him is passing him right by.
Joe's biggest misstep is buying into the images and words he sees
and hears. His worldview seems to have been formed through John
Wayne's movies and The National Enquirer's brand of "facts."
We listen to WABC radio from New York with him, and witness him
disturb the bus by giving a good ol' Texas holler when he learns
from an interview that he perfectly fits the local women's ideal
of a man, which is as follows:
A man who takes pride in his appearance.
I think consideration first.
Tall, definitely tall.
Someone I can talk to in bed.
A good sense of humor, not afraid of sex.
A Texas oil man. Aggressiveness.
Outdoor type. A rebel.
Young. Youth.
Joe was a simple no ambition Dishwashing Cowboy on the road to nowhere.
In this small nothing town he might have been the #1 stud with
women falling all over him. Realizing "the only one thing
I ever been good for is lovin'," he concocts this naïve
idea that he's going to quit his job like a movie cowboy ("You
know what you can do with dem dishes. And if you want man enough
to do it for yourself, I'd be happy to oblige. I really would."),
hop on a bus to the Big Apple, and immediately become The New York
Gigolo. I wouldn't recommend boring yourself with Frank Sinatra,
but Joe should have paid attention to the part of "New York,
New York" that goes "If you can make it here, you'll
make it anywhere." Obviously there's more opportunity in a
big city, but if this new lifestyle was so easy why was Joe doing
a minimum wage job rather than living off some rich women in Texas?
Joe thinks of himself as a John Wayne type, but seemingly a version
with Cary Grant's mystical powers of entrancing women. He doesn't
have anything that could be called a plan even by the loosest use
of the word. He's just a macho narcissist drawn by the mystique
of being a studly cowboy hustler because movies, television, print
media, and radio have at least indirectly made such a lifestyle
cool and heroic. They've glamorized these kind of images, and made
them seem easy to achieve. He's built New York City up in his mind,
but when he finally gets there it's nothing like he's imagined.
Midnight Cowboy is a movie that destroys myths and demonstrates the
difficulty of trying to attain one's dreams. Joe's great misconception
of media leads to broken dreams, promises, and hopes when Joe tries
to live his version of the American dream. The film wastes no time
in pointing out Joe's lack of intelligence, style, class, tact,
quick thinking, brainpower and so on make him unable to succeed
in a place he doesn't understand in the least.
John Schlesinger, one of Britain's most acclaimed directors of the
1960's whose last two movies Darling & Far From the Maddening
Crowd had even received Academy Award nominations (Darling a
good movie that utilized Schlesinger's background in documentary
won 3 including an undeserved Julie Christie as best actress but Maddening Crowd,
also a very good movie this time with typically brilliant cinematography
by Nicolas Roeg, was not too well received at the time), chose
Midnight Cowboy as his first American movie. Being an outsider
like his main character, Schlesinger was able to give the movie
the exact opposite feel you get from watching a New York movie
by Martin Scorsese, who knows the city so intimately. You don't
get a great understanding of why the people are the way they are,
live as they do, but that gives you a strong feeling of alienation
that works perfectly when the story is about a clueless shunned
outsider.
Similar to Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop (the second American film by
the Netherlands' director, but his first set in the US), one of
the best things about the movie is the observations of an outsider
who rightfully doesn't approve of everything he sees and certainly
is unafraid to point it out. Schlesinger proves he has the guts
to handle bleak, dark, dismal material from start to finish without
coping out. He approaches all but the two main stars, which happen
to be men hence the complaints of a fearfully one-dimensional depiction
of women, with ruthless cynicism. He creates a cold, heartless,
impersonal city of uncaring zombies that only associate with others
when they need or at least want something from them.
The most biting commentary in a film built around moral and social
decline shows the self-centered city dwellers nearly walking over
a man who has passed out on the sidewalk in front of a jewelry
store. Some of them are too busy to notice the guy exists, but
most of them simply don't care. Joe is the only one that stops
next to the man, but he's not exactly The Good Samaritan. He's
created his image based on the myth of coolness, so rather than
go against the grain (everything about him actually does but he
can't see this), he decides that it's acceptable behavior to keep
walking and leave the poor man to die or whatever. This commentary
is practically mirrored at the end to show that it's not NY which
is the cancer, it's the entire country.
The most famous scene in the film is when Joe & Ratso, not caring
about anyone else that inhabits "their" street, walk
through a Don't Walk sign. Ratso, nearly run over by a cab driver
who as luck would have it was paying enough attention to his surroundings
to stop just in time, pounds on the hood of the cab screaming "I'm
walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!" as he points to "his"
spot in the middle of the road and they begin swearing at each
other. In addition to the callous selfishness of the unneighborly
New Yorkers, a bit of Ratso's scheming persona is revealed when
he mentions to Joe, "Actually that ain't a bad way to pick
up insurance, you know?" What's weird about the film is you
want to laugh at scenes like this and their various petty thefts,
but they cease to be humorous when you realize they are simply
the reality of this life.
Not only is Joe far from a natural hustler, he's not a quick student
of the game. Mainly he just walks around the city with his Midnight
Cowboy get up smiling toward people who don't notice him, or doing
silly things like grabbing a kid's balloon from behind in a pitiful
attempt to draw attention to himself. When someone does deal with
him he makes crucial mistakes like expecting change when he gives
the butler a large bill as a tip, getting taken for $20 "cab
fare" because he held his wallet full of money open by an
aging hooker (Sylvia Miles) he mistakenly picked up thinking she
was one of those desperate woman that were going to pay him, paying
Ratso twice for an introduction before he sees who he's introducing
him to, and generally not "hustling" the people he's
just "performed" for because he feels sorry for them.
His ever-increasing guilt about his choice of professions grows
that much more when he sees two people on TV making a living dressing
up a dog to look like a child. The host, of course a hypocrite
because he voices his distaste but his show is what's giving them
their notoriety, asks, "Isn't this really a case of conning
a lot of lonely people?"
Joe is not willing or able to see himself clearly. He can only concede
that he's failing (miserably) because he doesn't have proper management.
He meets Enrico Salvatore "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman)
in a bar. Quickly impressed by the way Ratso knows the ropes, and
not taken aback by him snatching his last cigarette that was intended
for a cross dresser that was trying to hit on Joe, Joe buys Ratso
a drink and starts spilling his guts. When Ratso is a bit lost
by Joe's escapade with the hooker, Joe says, "Oh hell, I'm
a hustler. You didn't know that?" Joe's dream that a hustler
was some glorious hip recognizable thing, perhaps the modern day
cowboy, should have been crushed when Ratso kindly responded, "How
am I supposed to know that? I mean, you gotta tell a person these
things." Of course, Joe is slow and Ratso is not so kind.
Seeing Joe is so clueless about the territory the slimy Ratso knows
so well because he's been forced to learn the hard way, Ratso manipulates
him into a meeting with a guilt ridden homosexual religious fanatic
pimp. This bushy eyebrowed bald old buzzard named Mr. O'Daniel
(John McGiver), who looks like he would have been a prime candidate
for a bit part in the Twelve Monkeys
insane asylum had that movie been made earlier, warns Joe in a
twisted evangelistic way "I'm gonna use ya! I'm gonna run
ya ragged!" but Joe happily responds with a cowboy yell.
The key to the film is the platonic friendship formed by Joe and
Ratso, which recalls John Steinbech's Of Mice and Men. This outcast
duo are not the iconography of the time period like Joe would like
to think, they are the victims, the people this society would sweep
under the rug if it wasn't too much effort.
Ratso is a sickly vagabond who would look like he was on his last
leg even if he wasn't gimping around. When we see Ratso for the
second time, a lot more than his hair is greasy. He's no longer
sporting his nice clean suit that he probably stole from somebody.
Instead he has holes in his socks and nothing to offer Joe but
64 cents worth of sticky coins and half of an already extinguished
cigarette. He looks like a bum, but Joe still looks more out of
place with his Stetson and spit polished boots.
Ratso as we see him now and throughout the rest of the film is probably
as he always was, a man doomed to a life of doing whatever schemes
and tricks he can come up with to scrape a living on the street.
He is a survivor, but I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that
he's only in this position because he wasn't going to work a legitimate
low paying job like his father the shoe shiner.
"End up a hunchback like my old man? If you think
I'm crippled, you should have caught him at the end of the day.
My old man spent fourteen hours a day down in that subway. He come
home at night, two to three hours worth of change stained with
shoe polish. Stupid bastard coughed his lungs out from breathin'
in that wax all day. Even a faggot undertaker couldn't get his
nails clean. They had to bury him with gloves on."
While Joe looks at stealing as the last resort, we get the idea that
Ratso wouldn't have it the other way. Trusting a man like this
is a huge risk for Joe, especially considering Ratso screwed him
over the first time. At this point, Joe really has nothing to lose
though. He's cynical and skeptical of what Ratso wants from him,
fearing he's a homosexual even though Ratso has already made homophobic
remarks, but figuring he's tougher than Ratso and has no money
left to lose, he accepts Ratso's invitation to "his"
place, a dirty roach infested East Village tenement building. "The
X on the windows means the landlord can't collect rent, which is
a convenience, on account of it's condemned," says Ratso.
In this run down building, their bond forms out of loneliness,
destitution, and their common cause/will to survive. We see the
kind side of Ratso as he does things like cook (not well) for Joe,
and his beaten down side as he tries to cling to his last shred
of self respect demanding Joe call him Rico in his own place, which
Joe is unable to do until it's too late.
What makes their friendship so powerful is that their bond grows
as things get bleaker and bleaker. Even though they are both (or
at least think of themselves as) hustlers, they don't sell each
other out for a couple bucks. Joe has a chance to desert Ratso
to go to the psychedelic party of Hansel & Gretel McAlbertson
(Gastone Rossilli & Viva), a couple of "fruity" experimental
Andy Warhol type filmmakers who gather a disparate group of rejects
to get some bizarre clips of them. However, Joe, the one who got
his picture taken and the invitation, asserts to Ratso "I'll
just tell em you want me I don't go nowhere without my buddy here."
The party is definitely a highlight of the production, an exceptionally
lit and colored visual feast capturing a carefree drug laden time,
as well as a highlight for Joe, who with Ratso's management is
able to secure his first paying client.
Joe is able to learn from Ratso, but as he finally gets some clue
and is able to make a little money on his own, his growth is shown
just as much by the way he tries to help out his increasingly more
sickly friend who can barely walk. He takes on the role of the
provider and caretaker as best as he knows how (which admittedly
isn't particularly well), buying him medicine, trying to get him
to stop smoking as he already has a deadly cough, and offering
to try to pay for medical attention. The latter never happens because,
aside from hustling, the one thing Joe & Ratso have in common
is that they are dreamers. While Joe believed New York would be
the answer for him, Ratso knew it sucked and dreamed of living
easy on the beaches of Florida ("The two basic items necessary
to sustain life are sunshine and coconut milk. Did you know that?
That's a fact. In Florida, they got a terrific amount of coconut
trees there. In fact, I think they even got 'em in the, uh, gas
stations over there"). His belief in this dream is so powerful
that his sickness (pneumonia?), which has made him helpless and
harmless, will magically be cured if he gets there in time. As
dumb as Joe is and as thrifty as Ratso was, it's Joe that is able
to grow from their experience together and realize there must be
a better and easier way to live.
The subjective dream and flashback sequences are remarkably presented.
Utilizing hyper editing techniques that were way ahead of their
time, we are treated to a dizzying trip through the psychedelic
delirium of the protagonist's mind. What makes the scenes work
so well is the images are stark and easily processable. They are
only on the screen momentarily, but they register and have an impact
that, even though you probably couldn't name everything you saw,
mounts by the end of the scene. The best sequence is when a terrified
Joe runs out of O'Daniel's house searching for Ratso who he's aimin'
to kill. The real scenes of Joe running are in color while
Joe's visions are in black and white, but there are also red gelled
color scenes of Joe & his girlfriend getting raped that links
the local boys lust for vengeful violence with his. The music and
photography give the scene an interesting feel that would be like
watching a '60's spy and horror film put together by some experimental
drugged out director.
Instead of using a series of flashbacks with different women to establish
him as a coveted lover, they only show his reassuring girlfriend
Annie (Jennifer Salt, daughter of the screenwriter) who is nicknamed
Crazy and winds up being pulled away from Joe and carted off to
the asylum. Annie regularly says Joe is "The Only One,"
and we get the sense that they were both raped because the other
men in town didn't liked being regularly shunned because she was
only interested in loving Joe. The small problem with this is we
don't know if Joe's dream of being coveted by all the rich, bored
NY City housewives is based on one poor mentally unstable country
girl being obsessed with him or if the women in cowboy country
actually bought into his act and were begging for him. I suspect
it's the former, but what's the point of inserting an add on detail
like this if it's never going to be clarified? Much more importantly
though is how can someone who suffered such traumatic incidents
be so naïve and light hearted? One of the key themes is loss
of innocence, but all these incidents suggest he lost it before
he came to New York! They would likely have made him a cold, cynical,
and jaded person before we met him. One kind of gets the feeling
he's so nice just so the audience can more readily sympathize with
him. However, his being overly nice can be defended because a big
point is to show how much his style conflicts with the city lifestyle
of the time. His ambition is not likely to endear him to many of
these people, but neither does his positive qualities.
The whole homosexual issue is also poorly handled. There's regular
gay bashing and homophobia, even by the principal actors who form
as close to a homosexual relationship as you can have while keeping
it in your pants. Their dire need for someone to help them would
perfectly justify their relationship. They have hit the bottom
of the pit of despair, so they take a chance on one another hoping
two "providers" gives them a better chance to survive
than one. That they are such polar opposites actually makes them
work well together in their five and dime tricks, scams, and hustles.
However, instead of going with this logical foundation of survival,
we are treated to a series of flashbacks that I guess are meant
to show Joe longing for a male companion because he didn't have
a father, his mother didn't care about him, and his grandmother
either left him to go screw around or did it in his presence. Meanwhile,
Joe & Ratso visit the grave of Ratso's father to show that
he too is lacking a male presence. All of this says nothing and
just serves to distract from the points of the movie that say something
that not only goes along with the characters present actions, but
also make sense and works. This homophobia as well as the self-loathing
and fear of religion established in the scene with Mr. O'Daniel
manifests in a brutal murder that in my opinion is pointless in
more ways than one. Although nothing shown is particularly inappropriate,
I'd feel better about the film if the horrors focused on the prostitution
or life in a condemned building without electricity, heat, etc.
than being a supposed manifestation of a tacked on background.
In spite of there being a point to the frank and risqué material,
and the sex scenes not being particularly abundant or explicit,
Midnight Cowboy was originally slapped with an X rating. The film
was nominated for seven Academy Awards though, becoming the first
and only X rated movie to win Best Picture. John Schlesinger also
won Best Director, and Waldo Salt won (probably not deservingly)
Best Writing - Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium.
Ironically, Jon Voight & Dustin Hoffman lost Best Actor to
Joe Buck's hero John Wayne. I like Wayne and critics have definitely
underrated him, but I watched True Grit less than two weeks ago
and have already forgot the movie and his performance. Good stuff,
but Voight & Hoffman have created characters that are indelibly
etched into your brain. I think Voight is more deserving than Hoffman
is because he's in the movie a lot more and he's created someone
real while Hoffman has created a very interesting character. Voight's
character also calls for more range, and he successfully makes
a subtle yet shocking real transition from wide-eyed naïve
cowboy to frightened and hardened hustler that, until there's a
reality of new hope in Florida because he's changed his outlook
on making a living, only retains a kindness and understanding for
the person who earned it. Hoffman though deserves credit for risking
his new found fame from The Graduate by virtually reversing the
role. Sylvia Miles somehow garnered a supporting actress nomination
for her two minutes of work, while Hugh A. Robertson was robbed
of Best Film Editing.
The X rating was removed after these 7 Academy Award nominations.
This would never happen today because the Academy has become a
bunch of rating seeking pansies that shy away from anything remotely
risky in favor of the undeserving big names and highly successful
mindless popular movies. In my opinion, the best film of 1999 was
The War Zone and the best film of 2000 was Requiem
for a Dream. Both films made a stronger statement than Midnight
Cowboy, pushing their topics - incest and drug addiction respectively
- as far as they could possibly go in the process. They took no
prisoners in displaying the brutal truth at it's grimmest to make
the strongest preventional statement possible. The former was eventually
granted an R rating, while the later was kept out of most theatres
by sticking with it's guns and going unrated. Nonetheless, they
had to make a watered down version so the puritanical Blockbuster
would stock a version of it that undoubtedly is not worth renting
because half the purpose is probably defeated. Each film could
easily have garnered a similar number of nominations, but neither
of them made any money, so forget about even the awards that should
have been gimmes like Jennifer Connelly for Best Supporting Actress
(anyone who says Damn Judi Denchers work in Lasse's dog Chocolat
even approaches the stunning remarkably complex work Connelly did
in Waking the Dead or Requiem must have the memory of Guy Pearce
in Memento), Darren
Aronofsky for Best Director, and Jay Rabinowitz for Best Film Editing.
Between the two of them, there was one token nomination for Ellen
Burstyn's performance. For the best actress performance in recent
years, she got the honor of losing to popular poseur Julia Roberts.
While being a very effective time capsule of a certain decadent lifestyle
filled with loneliness and emptiness during the disillusioned Vietnam
War era, Midnight Cowboy is also a film which ages exceptionally
well. Of course there will always be some people who are turned
off by the changes in ideology, styles, and music, but in a slightly
different way most of the films commentary is truer today than
ever because values, morals, and conditions have largely declined
in the interim. The songs are certainly from the period, but few
movies having songs that fit their theme better and the harmonica
of Jean "Toots" Theilemans really creates a feel for
the scenes it's used in. Technically it's a remarkable achievement,
shot excellently on location with the kind of artistry we see less
and less of today as more and more movies rely on phony effects
even for the sets. Schlesinger's films during his mid 60's to mid
70's heyday were ahead of their time for production values. Just
look at how he embraced the new SteadiCam technology to make Marathon
Man a more impressive film. In the end, Midnight Cowboy is a devastating
movie like you expected all along unless you are used to today's
Hollywood movies, which are afraid to not send the audience home
happy. As a whole though, the film is hardly all gloom and doom
because the friendship between Joe & Ratso and sequences that
show their dreams shed some light on even the darkest of circumstances.
