# Midnight Cowboy: WTF? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 22, 2011, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544 "2011-03-22T01:06:44Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/21 "2011-03-22T04:51:54Z")
> [@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”. :eek::eek::eek: THAT was truly shocking! ---
**Author:** ![Equipoise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/equipoise/32/151_2.png) [@Equipoise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Equipoise)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/22 "2011-03-22T05:02:09Z")
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. 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. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/23 "2011-03-22T05:12:25Z")
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._ ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/24 "2011-03-22T05:32:43Z")
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. > **[Hays Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_Picture_Production_Code)** > > The Motion Picture Production Code was a set of industry guidelines for the self-censorship of content that was applied to most motion pictures released by major studios in the United States from 1934 to 1968. It is also popularly known as the Hays Code, after Will H. Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America (MPPDA) from 1922 to 1945. Under Hays's leadership, the MPPDA, later the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and the Motion Picture Association... > **[Will H. Hays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Will_H._Hays)** > > William Harrison Hays Sr. (/heɪz/; November 5, 1879 – March 7, 1954) was an American politician, and member of the Republican Party. As chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1918–1921, Hays managed the successful 1920 presidential campaign of Warren G. Harding. Harding then appointed Hays to his cabinet as his first Postmaster General. He resigned from the cabinet in 1922 to become the first chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America. As chairman, Hays ove... ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/25 "2011-03-22T05:44:29Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/26 "2011-03-22T06:15:27Z")
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](http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.burning-cigarette.jpg). Munch was a dark, depressed man (he’s the person who painted [The Scream](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_piQwNuyuMYc/TQTdmI3iMnI/AAAAAAAAAD4/co9nIzDA894/s1600/1893_Edvard_Munch_The_Scream-WR400.jpg) 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. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/27 "2011-03-22T11:51:16Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/28 "2011-03-22T12:16:41Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![Cayuga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/3e96dc/32.png) [@Cayuga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cayuga)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/29 "2011-03-22T12:21:23Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/30 "2011-03-22T12:25:49Z")
> [@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](http://www.fredneil.com/) 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.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/31 "2011-03-22T12:28:16Z")
> [@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! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/32 "2011-03-22T12:33:37Z")
> [@](#): > > 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. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/33 "2011-03-22T12:47:21Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/34 "2011-03-22T13:38:05Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![joebuck20](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/74df32/32.png) [@joebuck20](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/joebuck20)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/35 "2011-03-22T13:55:28Z")
> [@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](http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/munch/munch.burning-cigarette.jpg). Munch was a dark, depressed man (he’s the person who painted [The Scream](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_piQwNuyuMYc/TQTdmI3iMnI/AAAAAAAAAD4/co9nIzDA894/s1600/1893_Edvard_Munch_The_Scream-WR400.jpg) 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. ---
**Author:** ![NAF1138](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naf1138/32/3245_2.png) [@NAF1138](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NAF1138)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/36 "2011-03-22T14:18:54Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/37 "2011-03-22T15:37:12Z")
(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.) ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/38 "2011-03-22T16:03:30Z")
> [@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. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/39 "2011-03-22T16:28:34Z")
> [@](#): > > (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. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2011, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544/40 "2011-03-22T16:37:39Z")
> [@salinqmind](#): > > It was playing on a double bill with “Fortune and Mens Eyes”. > > :eek::eek::eek: > > 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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/midnight-cowboy-wtf/575544.md?page=3)