Midnight Cowboy: WTF?

[pkbites]

I noticed that Midnight Cowboy was on my Cinemax "on demand' channel and it occurred to me that I had never seen it. Being a highly rated flick and over 40 years old you'd think I'd have seen it by now, but no.

So I watched it last night.


Huh?

WTF made this movie so great? It's rated at 90% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4 stars out of 4 everywhere else.

Why? What am I missing here?

Please discuss.

[Musicat]

I never much cared for it, either, and I saw it when it first came out. It was rated X, which tells you a lot about the rating system as it existed then and how it changed. Not long after that, X rated movies were prohibited from advertising in many newspapers, and a mainstream movie would never want that rating.

Good acting by Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, though. It showed a seamier side of life than most seamy-side movies did at the time, I guess. The critics were desperate for something to talk about.

Almost forgot -- "Everybody's Talkin'" was a great song.

[Snowboarder Bo]

Well, watching the hustler get hustled by his mark was pretty funny.

Also, the film was rated X, and still managed to win the Best Picture Oscar. The story was way over the top for it's time (and still would be today, if remade, IMO) and is actually a bittersweet character study. Brokeback Mountain owed quite a bit to this film, I thought.

The soundtrack was also excellent, with songs from Warren Zevon and Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman.

It was groundbreaking as all hell for 1969.

[well he's back]

The bittersweet character study (as Snowboard Bo said); the acting by the leads; the soundtrack. Those aspects stand the test of time, the rest not so much.

Sometimes as broke college students (I saw it when it first came out & I was in high school) we would live on crackers and ketchup packets and think of this movie.
And, "I'm walking here" yelled at a car as you cross the street like Ratso will always be funny.

[pkbites]

The acting was superb. But the plot was all but non-existent: dumb ass hick from Texas thinks he's a stud, goes to New York and learns life ain't a bowl of cherries.
I kept waiting for some significant plot development or twist, or "moral of the story", or something. It never came.

Originally Posted by Musicat

Almost forgot -- "Everybody's Talkin'" was a great song.

Yeah. But I didn't need to hear it a zillion times in 2 hours.

[Sam A. Robrin]

If you weren't around then, you have no idea just how taboo homosexuality was as a topic in those days. For Hollywood to release a film that showed plausible scenarios of something most Americans preferred to regard as a not-to-be-discussed myth wasn't merely ground-breaking, it was epochal. That it now seems like no big deal is evidence of how successful it was.

[Spoke]

Yeah, many acclaimed 60s movies haven't aged well. See also Easy Rider.

[Musicat]

Originally Posted by pkbites

The acting was superb. But the plot was all but non-existent: dumb ass hick from Texas thinks he's a stud, goes to New York and learns life ain't a bowl of cherries.
I kept waiting for some significant plot development or twist, or "moral of the story", or something. It never came.

Aha! Groundbreaking.

[pkbites]

Originally Posted by Sam A. Robrin

If you weren't around then, you have no idea just how taboo homosexuality was as a topic in those days. For Hollywood to release a film that showed plausible scenarios of something most Americans preferred to regard as a not-to-be-discussed myth wasn't merely ground-breaking, it was epochal. That it now seems like no big deal is evidence of how successful it was.

I was around. I was 9, but I was there.

Yours is a good post but it only explains why it might have been regarded as a ground breaking movie then (ground breaking, not, necessarily, good) and why it is now regarding as a good movie.

Even though I enjoyed the vintage signs, hamburger stands, and cars, I found myself far more bored than entertained by this film.

[Diogenes the Cynic]

The grittiness and naturalism was also pretty new and groundbreaking at the time. That quasi-documentary look and feel of really walking around in the city with no Hollywood polish or gloss. The movies hadn't really shown a character like Ratso before - a completely unglamorous, seedy, unwashed street person, and not a "movie" street person, but someone who seemed real. Not important or noticeable, just real. It was like picking one of the thousands of random, shabby nobodies off the streets of New York and making him a central character. That was a new idea at the time, and it didn't hurt that the character was acted so well by Hoffman.

[kunilou]

Originally Posted by Spoke

Yeah, many acclaimed 60s movies haven't aged well. See also Easy Rider.

Tastes change, storytelling styles change. Scenes that to one generation are vital for "establishing tone" are considered pointless and boring by another.

When 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1968, audiences were hypnotized by the Dawn of Man scene that opened the movie. Twenty-five years later I watched it with my daughter and we were both screaming "MAKE IT STOP!" after the first five minutes.

As for Midnight Cowboy, great acting, gritty, daring for its time.

[fjs1fs]

Originally Posted by kunilou

Tastes change, storytelling styles change. Scenes that to one generation are vital for "establishing tone" are considered pointless and boring by another.

When 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1968, audiences were hypnotized by the Dawn of Man scene that opened the movie. Twenty-five years later I watched it with my daughter and we were both screaming "MAKE IT STOP!" after the first five minutes.

As for Midnight Cowboy, great acting, gritty, daring for its time.

I would like to second your comments about 2001. I've tried to watch it several times over the last 25 years, and have been bored to tears every time. I obviously enjoyed the amazing soundtrack but the movie is just so lame. I thought Midnight Cowboy was okay, but also vastly overrated. As far as standing the test of time is concerned, some movies do. Many times time I pick up the Godfather (or Part II) in the middle, and I get sucked in by its greatness. Great art is truly timeless.

[joebuck20]

Well, I ain't a f'real cowboy...

[Markxxx]

I liked it because I am gay and it was good to see, but I can see how others can be bored.

On the other hand I was bored to tears with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Last Motion Picture Show but everyone else seemed to love those movies.

[joebuck20]

I like it because it's a good portrait of the sort of isolation that comes from living in a big city, even when you're literally surrounded by people. It's sort of what it would be like if Edward Hopper made a movie.

And in case you're wondering, yes my username is derived from the movie, but that's just because I liked the way it sounded and it seemed easy to remember - not because I have any aspirations of, you know, becoming a gigolo.

Though I am a stud.

[pkbites]

Originally Posted by kunilou

Tastes change, storytelling styles change. Scenes that to one generation are vital for "establishing tone" are considered pointless and boring by another.

This is a good point but it doesn't explain why there are people in 2011 that just saw this movie recently that think it's great. I have no idea what I would have thought had I been 50 years old in 1969 and saw it then. But @ 50 in 2011 I found it boring and unimpressive.

[Two Many Cats]

Originally Posted by Markxxx

I liked it because I am gay and it was good to see, but I can see how others can be bored.

On the other hand I was bored to tears with The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Last Motion Picture Show but everyone else seemed to love those movies.

I was okay with Midnight Cowboy. It had a couple of neat parts like when cowboy stud Voight is trying to get payment from his first customer who is at first completely oblivious as she talks on the phone (and I think it was to her husband!) and then is highly insulted when she finally realizes he wants money for services rendered.

I also liked Ratso's "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!" and the never ending debate about whether that was a real car crashing into the movie.

But now, see, I liked The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie a lot. Especially the scene when she realizes that the idealised fascist bullshit she's been spouting off in class has killed one of her students. Brilliant.

And I did NOT care for The Last Picture Show. It had all sorts of little touches of mysogyny. The nude pool scene where the girls are all full frontal, but the boys' penises are all artfully hidden, that kind of stuff pisses me off no end. Also, there's a scene where an attempted child sexual assault is played almost for laughs. You could not possibly do that kind of thing today.

[kelly5078]

I saw "Midnight Cowboy" when it came out. It's one of those movies that might be okay if it weren't for everyone saying how wonderful it was, but after the buildup I thought it was a big disappointment. I can't fault the acting, though.

[hogarth]

Originally Posted by Spoke

Yeah, many acclaimed 60s movies haven't aged well. See also Easy Rider.

I'd add "Last Tango In Paris" to that list, although it's a few years later.

[pkbites]

Originally Posted by kelly5078

It's one of those movies that might be okay if it weren't for everyone saying how wonderful it was, but after the buildup I thought it was a big disappointment.

I think you've hit it. I really, really, do!!!

I've seen a zillion movies, and I've always gone out of my way to see old movies that I didn't see, even those going back to the 1920's or older.

Most of those old movies live up to their hype. It's when one like this doesn't that just bogs it down.

I still want to know, however, why did people in 1969 think this movie was so great, why do they still think it's so great, and why does anyone who has first seen the movie recently think it's great? What was/is/still is the appeal?

[salinqmind]

Originally Posted by kelly5078

I saw "Midnight Cowboy" when it came out. It's one of those movies that might be okay if it weren't for everyone saying how wonderful it was, but after the buildup I thought it was a big disappointment. I can't fault the acting, though.

Me, too. It was rated 'X' and I knew it wasn't pornography, but I don't know what I expected. Something shocking? Well, there were hints of shocking, but nothing in-you-face offensive, really.

It was playing on a double bill with "Fortune and Mens Eyes".



THAT was truly shocking!

[Equipoise]

It's not just a character study, it's a movie about friendship, the most unlikely friendship imaginable. Two outsiders, weirdos in their own distinctive way, end up bonded to each other.

SPOILER:

When Ratso dies on the bus ride to Florida, you, or, well, I can sense Joe's profound loss. He's just lost the only friend he ever had. It's still very moving to me.

[foolsguinea]

It's based on a book, of which I have read one page from the middle, not really caring enough to read the whole thing.

I suspect it's more about the experience of meeting all these broken people than a plot per se.

[aceplace57]

This movie was earth shattering for it's time. The Hollywood Hayes Code had barely ended a year earlier. Under the Hayes Code there was no cursing, no nudity, certainly no gays, bad guys couldn't profit from their crimes, good guys were good and there were no shades of gray in characters etc. It was an entire moral code imposed on movies since the mid thirties. Hays was a fire and brimstone dude that wanted movies cleaned up.

Midnight Cowboy broke every convention the Hayes code stood for.
So did a lot of movies between 1969-1979. It was like the shackles came off and the writers, directors and producers could create stories they had always dreamed of.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_...roduction_Code
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_H._Hays

[salinqmind]

In 1969 you had The Italian Job, A Boy Named Charlie Brown, and Cactus Flower. A caper, a kiddy show, and a romance. Then you had MC, The Wild Bunch, and Easy Rider on the other end of the spectrum.

[Sam Stone]

I think it's a great movie. I think it was great in 1969, and I still think it's great today.

No, there's not much plot, or much action. That's because the movie is a series of character studies - with New York itself being a character. The New York of 1969 was a much darker, seedier place than it is today. At least, the region around Times Square was. Throughout the movie New York has an almost malevolent presence.

In 1969 people came there for the glamour, for the 'action', for the 'scene'. Andy Warhol was the big cheese. New York was the center of the high society life. The power of the movie is that it stripped away the glamour and the pretense, and showed how cold and empty it all was - how sad most of the people around the 'scene' really were.

But mostly, it's about two people who are simply out of their depth and out of control, trying to survive in a dark, foreboding world they aren't really equipped to handle. Both have dreams - Joe Buck was going to conquer the city and become a famous, rich gigolo. Ratzo Rizzo was going to escape the city and the cold and dark and live out his life in the warm sun. Neither person had the wherewithal to make it happen, so the city sucked them in and destroyed them by preying on their own weaknesses.

Watching Midnight Cowboy reminds me of Edvard Munch's Self Portrait with Burning Cigarette. Munch was a dark, depressed man (he's the person who painted The Scream if you're not familiar with his work). Munch once said, "The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born." Anyway, look at Munch's self-portrait - that could easily be a painting of an older Joe Buck and the world he fell into. Coincidentally, Munch's mother and sister both died young of tuberculosis - as did Ratzo Rizzo.

I first saw Midnight Cowboy probably thirty years ago when I was a teenager. I've seen it a handful of times since. I sometimes can't even remember the whole 'plot' such that it was - just snatches of iconic scenes and atmosphere. But every time I think of that movie it gets to me. It has a large emotional impact. And that's what great art is supposed to do.

[CalMeacham]

When 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1968, audiences were hypnotized by the Dawn of Man scene that opened the movie. Twenty-five years later I watched it with my daughter and we were both screaming "MAKE IT STOP!" after the first five minutes.

I loved 2001 when it first came out, and I stumbled on it a couple of days ago, and had to watch. Obviously our feelings are very different.

For me, 2001 is the cinematic equivalent of good 1950s SF (just Forbidden Planet is good 1940s sf. Films are always at least a decade behind literature). It doesn't pander to a popular need for action or dumbing down, and I still find it awesome.



I still haven't seen midnight Cowboy, though.

[PoorYorick]

Originally Posted by Two Many Cats

I also liked Ratso's "I'm walkin' here! I'm walkin' here!" and the never ending debate about whether that was a real car crashing into the movie.

According to Dustin Hoffman in an interview I saw, the line was a total ad lib. The car was supposed to stop much earlier.

[Cayuga]

Here's the thing abut 2001: You have to see it in a theater.

I've seen it on a big screen dozens of times, and been captivated every time. I've seen it on a TV twice, and been bored silly both times.

The movie is visually complex (best term I could come up with at the moment), and it's paced so as to let you take in all the visuals. On a small screen, the complexity is lost, and the pacing is way too slow.

A similar movie (in that regard) is Days of Heaven. I saw it in a theater, and thought it was a great film. Then I saw a 16mm projection on a small screen in a classroom, and was bored. I was the only one in the class who'd seen it before, and I had to work hard to convince the others that the problem was the display, not the movie. I later saw it projected big, and loved it.

Few people believe me when I explain this, so rip away. But I stand by it.

[Bridget Burke]

Originally Posted by Snowboarder Bo

.....The soundtrack was also excellent, with songs from Warren Zevon and Harry Nilsson and Randy Newman.

It was groundbreaking as all hell for 1969.

Legendary folky hero Fred Neil actually wrote "Everybody's Talking."

The movie? I think I saw it years after its release. Not my favorite, although I'm sure it was "important."

[Nava]

Originally Posted by Sam A. Robrin

If you weren't around then, you have no idea just how taboo homosexuality was as a topic in those days. For Hollywood to release a film that showed plausible scenarios of something most Americans preferred to regard as a not-to-be-discussed myth wasn't merely ground-breaking, it was epochal. That it now seems like no big deal is evidence of how successful it was.

Most Americans and most every-fuckin'-body, that movie was the biggest scandal in Spain since Gilda - and it didn't even get shown!

[CalMeacham]

Here's the thing abut 2001: You have to see it in a theater.

I've seen it on a big screen dozens of times, and been captivated every time. I've seen it on a TV twice, and been bored silly both times.

The movie is visually complex (best term I could come up with at the moment), and it's paced so as to let you take in all the visuals. On a small screen, the complexity is lost, and the pacing is way too slow.

All movies are made to be seen on The Big Screen. Nobody makes a film intending it to be seen on a 26" home TV. Gahan Wilson once wrote that the only way to see Bela Lugosi's 1931 Dracula was on a big screen in a classic movie theater.



But that said, I'm captivated by 2001 on a small screen, too. I certainly don't find it ill=paced or boring. And it's not because of my memories of seeing it on The Big Screen.

[jjimm]

Thank you, Sam Stone, for an excellent post.

pkbites, looking for a plot or a moral is pointless. It's more like a Truffaut study of relationships and angst, with two extremely strong and believable performances - and a ground-breaking subject at the time. If you don't like that kind of thing, of course, it will suck. Personally I find the movie amazingly moving and am moved almost to tears by the ending, every time.

[well he's back]

Interesting discussion. I forgot to mention earlier that when I first saw the movie I cried through the whole scene on the bus. Anyway, amazing how different people's tastes are - I was bored by 2001, with and without drugs, large or small screen. Days of Heaven is awesome, even on the small screen to me. I have driven 3 hours to see it again on a big screen though. Last Tango=pretentious claptrap. My view when seeing it on first release & haven’t changed my mind. Last Picture Show – I liked parts of it at the time I saw it way back when, but forgot most of it. Bonnie & Clyde is one of the few films from that general era that holds up for me.

[joebuck20]

Originally Posted by Sam Stone

I think it's a great movie. I think it was great in 1969, and I still think it's great today.

No, there's not much plot, or much action. That's because the movie is a series of character studies - with New York itself being a character. The New York of 1969 was a much darker, seedier place than it is today. At least, the region around Times Square was. Throughout the movie New York has an almost malevolent presence.

In 1969 people came there for the glamour, for the 'action', for the 'scene'. Andy Warhol was the big cheese. New York was the center of the high society life. The power of the movie is that it stripped away the glamour and the pretense, and showed how cold and empty it all was - how sad most of the people around the 'scene' really were.

But mostly, it's about two people who are simply out of their depth and out of control, trying to survive in a dark, foreboding world they aren't really equipped to handle. Both have dreams - Joe Buck was going to conquer the city and become a famous, rich gigolo. Ratzo Rizzo was going to escape the city and the cold and dark and live out his life in the warm sun. Neither person had the wherewithal to make it happen, so the city sucked them in and destroyed them by preying on their own weaknesses.

Watching Midnight Cowboy reminds me of Edvard Munch's Self Portrait with Burning Cigarette. Munch was a dark, depressed man (he's the person who painted The Scream if you're not familiar with his work). Munch once said, "The angels of fear, sorrow, and death stood by my side since the day I was born." Anyway, look at Munch's self-portrait - that could easily be a painting of an older Joe Buck and the world he fell into. Coincidentally, Munch's mother and sister both died young of tuberculosis - as did Ratzo Rizzo.

I first saw Midnight Cowboy probably thirty years ago when I was a teenager. I've seen it a handful of times since. I sometimes can't even remember the whole 'plot' such that it was - just snatches of iconic scenes and atmosphere. But every time I think of that movie it gets to me. It has a large emotional impact. And that's what great art is supposed to do.

I think you hit the nail on the head. This was really the first movie to unabashedly show New York in all its gritty, grimy, unsanitized glory - the hustlers, the druggies, the porno theaters, stuff that had only been hinted at, if even that, in previous mainstream films about the city.

[NAF1138]

Originally Posted by pkbites

The acting was superb. But the plot was all but non-existent: dumb ass hick from Texas thinks he's a stud, goes to New York and learns life ain't a bowl of cherries.
I kept waiting for some significant plot development or twist, or "moral of the story", or something. It never came.

That's not what the movie was about though. It wasn't there to teach you a lesson, it was there to show you these characters lives. That sort of quasi-naturalistic story might not be interesting to you, but it has it's place. You don't have to like it, but accept it for what it is before judging it.

Also, you missed the story if all you got out of it was "dumb ass hick from Texas thinks he's a stud, goes to New York and learns life ain't a bowl of cherries. " Those are the circumstances. The story is about the friendship that develops between him and Rizzo. It's a fairly classic story about opposites finding friendship in adversity the same as the Odd Couple of Of Mice and Men.

Beyond that and the really stunning acting, it has amazingly well drawn characters. Really ridiculously detailed realistic three dimensional characterizations of both individuals and types. Again, that sort of character study might not be your bag, but it's what the movie is about.

It's also an interesting comment on New York City at the time the movie was made and what that sort of city life does to people, and how the people on the fringes of society are being killed off and left behind.

It's a good movie.

[salinqmind]

(quibble: Forbidden Planet wasn't a 40's movie, it came out in 1956. It's a very 50's movie, all Technicolor, advanced special effects, and Eisenhower era leading men.)

[kunilou]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

I loved 2001 when it first came out, and I stumbled on it a couple of days ago, and had to watch. Obviously our feelings are very different.

I didn't really mean to trash 2001. I think in most respects it holds up very well, and in some respects it's outstanding. All I really meant was that one of Kubrick's storytelling tools had one effect on me when I first saw the movie and a lesser impact when I saw it decades later.

[CalMeacham]

(quibble: Forbidden Planet wasn't a 40's movie, it came out in 1956. It's a very 50's movie, all Technicolor, advanced special effects, and Eisenhower era leading men.)

At the risk of continuing a hijack, you need to read more carefully. I never said it was a 1940s movie. It is, however, the essence of 1940s science fiction. Just as 2001, made in 1968, is the essence of 1950s science fiction.

[panache45]

Originally Posted by salinqmind

It was playing on a double bill with "Fortune and Mens Eyes".



THAT was truly shocking!

Yes, and I wonder whether it's significant that these films came out just before Stonewall. I saw this double bill with my then-bf, and we were amazed that there were now mainstream movies with gay themes. And then "Boys in the Band" came out the following March.

[CalMeacham]

I didn't really mean to trash 2001. I think in most respects it holds up very well, and in some respects it's outstanding. All I really meant was that one of Kubrick's storytelling tools had one effect on me when I first saw the movie and a lesser impact when I saw it decades later.

There's no "right" answer -- de gustibus and all. I was just protesting the absolutism of the "it doesn't work now/on a small screen."

[Musicat]

Originally Posted by Cayuga

Here's the thing abut 2001: You have to see it in a theater.

I'll go one step further: You have to see it in a Cinerama theater, where you can be enveloped by the screen. Awesome. The only thing that is better visually nowadays is IMax.

[GreasyJack]

Originally Posted by kunilou

When 2001: A Space Odyssey came out in 1968, audiences were hypnotized by the Dawn of Man scene that opened the movie. Twenty-five years later I watched it with my daughter and we were both screaming "MAKE IT STOP!" after the first five minutes.

My only real problem with the scene is the utterly non-convincing ape man suits. It's not just 2001 either-- it seems like a lot of older films with otherwise convincing effects use cheezy ape suits.

[An Gadaí]

I loved Midnight Cowboy when I saw it as a teenager. I haven't seen it since. When my brother and I visited NYC in '99, he said "I'm walkin' here!" every time we crossed a road.

[NAF1138]

Originally Posted by CalMeacham

There's no "right" answer -- de gustibus and all. I was just protesting the absolutism of the "it doesn't work now/on a small screen."

This is a total hijack, but I think that there are many movies that only work on a big screen in a theater and it's not only older movies. 2001 is one of them, but I think There Will Be Blood and Children of Men are more recent examples of movies that are mesmerizing in a theater and don't translate nearly as well to the home theater. I think part of it is the lack of distraction of seeing a slower paced movie in a theater in addition to the larger screen.

[Musicat]

Originally Posted by GreasyJack

My only real problem with the scene is the utterly non-convincing ape man suits. It's not just 2001 either-- it seems like a lot of older films with otherwise convincing effects use cheezy ape suits.

Are you aware that the ape babies were real apes, not humans in suits?

[Soul Brother Number Two]

Originally Posted by Nava

Most Americans and most every-fuckin'-body, that movie was the biggest scandal in Spain since Gilda - and it didn't even get shown!

Why was Gilda a scandal? (Love that movie...)

[ralph124c]

MC was a movie of its time.
Yes, things have changed-but the scene (where Ratzo hooks up the kid with that insane evangelist guy was hilarious!).
The final bus trip to Florida was kinda sad-Ratzo never got to live his dream.