What's the AFI Project, you ask? For more information, or if you just enjoy my bemused ramblings, read here: http://www.spout.com/blogs/pippin06/archive/2008/3/1/25756.aspx
Midnight Cowboy is on the following AFI lists:
The Original Top 100 (#36)
100 Greatest Film Songs (#22 - "Everybody's Talkin'")
100 Movie Quotes (#27 - Enrico 'Ratso' Rizzo: "I'm walking here! I'm walking here!")
The Revised Top 100 (#43)
For some reason, I was unable to procure Midnight Cowboy from acquaintances, relations, or my beloved Netflix, so, as temptation makes it so easy compared to the more daunting task of trying to scout out a hard or digital copy of the movie a bit more legitimately, I procured the film another way. Yes.
It's been a week since I've watched this film, thanks to the opening of "A Wonderful Life" at the Grand Rapids Civic Theater, in which I play many roles (your general ubiquitous ensemble type member). Buy a ticket today! I knew very little about the film, except fhat it received an X-rating at the time of its release, and that it was the first X-rated movie to win the Best Picture Academy Award. Other than that, I didn't know what I was getting into, aside from the available though cursory plot descriptions. Even now, days later, I'm not sure what it was I watched or how I feel about it, other than, like The Graduate, I feel that this film may be another one of those perfect time capsules that represent a generation and a decade but don't necessarily transcend those boundaries. Then again, maybe the film is powerful but subtlely so, working its power by making one think after the film finishes, rather than during the viewing of it, and giving the film greatness when considered after-the-fact.
Joe Buck (a young and boyish-looking Jon Voight - Angelina Jolie's dad for you Tomb Raider fans) decides to leave his small Texan hometown, where he works as a dishwasher in a greasy spoon, to make his fortune as a gigolo in New York City. Though he exudes a buoyant, though stupid, sort of confidence at his prospects of charming potential Park Place penthouse patrons, he finds that the night life as a fantasy cowboy is not as easy or as lucrative as he first thought, especially when he finds himself paying his teary-eyed first trick. Fortunately, Joe meets Enrico 'Ratso' Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a swindler and petty thief with a stunted walk due to a physical deformity, who navigates condemned city tenements in an effort to survive. While initially mistrustful of Ratso, since he once swindled Joe out of some money in a scam to connect him with a pimp who, apparently, has found Jesus, once Joe finally goes broke, he accepts Ratso's reluctant offer to stay with him. The unlikely odd couple then come to rely on each other in the face of the cold, hard city perils, as Ratso attempts, futile though it is to do so, to develop a clientele for Joe and when the pair find themselves at a Warhol-esque party overflowing with hard drugs. In the meantime, Ratso grows ill and gets worse, dreaming though he is of sunny Florida and its healing sunshine.
I've thought long and hard about my opinion of this picture and why others might consider this a great movie. I think part of its luster comes from the groundbreaking mainstreaming of some subjects that earned its X-rating, though, let's face it, the movie would be an R by today's standards. There's the implication of homosexual gratification when Joe agrees to a male trick (played by a young Bob Balaban). There's also some much more explicit heterosexual sex going on, not to mention overt drug use. It's all kind of timely given the year of release,1969, which was also the year of Woodstock and the height of sexual revolution and anti-war sentiment in the country. I can't help but feel that these elements, so obviously depicted the way that they were, elevated this film to a cultural height and sense of legend that, perhaps, outshines and overshadows how good or great the film really is.
Perhaps that's oversimplifying it a bit, though, even selling the film short, because Joe and Ratso find each other when they are otherwise alone, when the morning after settles into hard reality or when the haze of the high fades. All Movie Guide describes the film as an "ode to the impossibility of the liberation from reality." It seems to be the generational response to the times as the swinging 60s began their transition to the stagnant 70s. It's a cynical take on things, even if there is more than a grain of truism to it, though the film offers that glimmer of hope, that sense that even the loneliest, lost soul can find belonging and connection, even if fleeting.
It's these complex themes that prompt me to like the film, but I don't love it or see it as a masterpiece of film artistry. It's a testament to times and feelings and places, and it has a timeless quality, but it's a time capsule that either holds relevance for the viewer, or it doesn't. Voight and Hoffman give very good performances, but their characters feel like caricatures, undermining the gritty realities being depicted with a somewhat cartoonish surreal hue that, at least, prevented me from connecting with their story - at least until the haunting conclusion, which brings all of the emotional themes to a resonating center.
The film was based on a novel, and I lend the credit for the many layers and commentaries being explored to the original author. I enjoyed the direction by John Schlesinger (though I don't think it's so wonderful just because he was British and not American - I think that's kind of a naive, even an arrogant way to look at it). I liked how Joe's personal history was interspliced with his present day, making each hazy flashback dream-like, though, as it turned out, hard to follow. This also goes for Ratso's idealized visions of escape in Florida with the impossibly bright cinematography on top of natural sunlight to lend each vision even more surreality. I also think the "Everybody's Talkin'" song, which also, appropriately, crops up on the Forrest Gump soundtrack, was a pitch perfect accompaniment that sort of boiled the movie down to a cliffnotes version that could be appreciated by any viewer of any generation. It deserves its assignment to the AFI's Songs list.
I liked this movie, and I liked its message about belonging and connection as it related to Joe and Ratso's partnership, a theme that would eventually be recycled in many formats and ways, not the least of which include themes explored in the musical "Rent." I didn't love it though because I felt the movie has been elevated more than it deserves, and I say this, perhaps, as a biased Generation Xer seeing the film for a first time through the lens of history. Perhaps, if I were a boomer reliving the era in my viewership, I would think differently.
Because of the portrayals of the characters - which didn't seem to me to be sensitive or sympathetic, even given each character's particular hardships and histories, and whether that was originally written or performed or directed that way, I don't know - I am going to rate the film a 7.5 between shaky if entertaining and minor flaws/very good. Some may cry blasphemy, but I've given the film a week's worth of consideration, and this is how fair I can be - and truth be told, I do like the movie, as I stated before. I just don't find it the great film that many other people seem to see it as. So, as to tests, this is not a pass for me, aside from what I procured. I wasn't offended by any piece of it, but I didn't like it enough to purchase it. Midnight Cowboy is a film for a generation, but for me, there are other films of the era that I enjoy more - including The Graduate - which leave me feeling a little more positive about and connected to the idealism and the ensuing harsh wake-up calls the country received those decades ago.