Midnight Cowboy

"Midnight Cowboy" (1969)

Directed by John Schlesinger

Midnight Cowboy was the first and only X-rated film to receive an Academy Award for best picture. The sex scenes are tame by today's standards, but the film's exploration of a character who tries – and fails – to overcome New York City's seedy urban environment makes it a difficult, albeit fascinating, watch.

Joe Buck (Jon Voight), who dresses up and acts like a cowboy, is a transient, aspiring hustler who moves from Texas to New York City in search of something different. What exactly he seeks, or tries to escape from, is never clarified; we only see glimpses of his childhood that reveal that his grandmother, who took care of him during his childhood, had many boyfriends in-and-out of the house. Midnight Cowboy succeeds because of, not in spite of, this ambiguity; we want to find out more about this interesting character who naturally and without question feels that his proper “job” is to be a hustler.

Of course, having a passion for this line of work doesn't necessarily mean he is all that good at it. Buck is too nice to be financially successful as he initially fails to press his “customers” for money if they refuse to pay him. In the midst of his struggles, Buck runs into a con-man nick-named “Ratso”, who is played by an outstanding Dustin Hoffman, and the two eventually join together and share a dilapidated apartment. They form a team not because they truly enjoy each other's company – Ratso cons Buck during their first encounter - but out of necessity. Ratso is a sickly cripple who can barely walk on his own while Buck is a clutz who can't cook his own meals. These are friendless, atomized individuals who can only trust themselves and try to survive on a few dollars a day.

Despite this partnership, there is still a sense, particularly by the end of the movie, that the seedy side of New York completely engulfs Buck and Ratso. They inhabit an environment that is filled with impenetrable shadows, which are penetrated only by the glare of neon signs and the flares of other hustlers' lit cigarettes along 42nd Street. In spite of the grittiness of this environment, Midnight Cowboy has some surprisingly artistic qualities. In a move that successfully reveals the interiority of these characters, the film frequently cuts to disturbing montage-like sequences – for instance, Buck gets high at a party and views his environment and the partying New Yorkers as strange and alien-like - that fit in surprisingly well with the realist aesthetics of the rest of the film.

Buck and Ratso are both hurt, emotionally and health-wise, by their experience in New York. They end up having a despondent and disillusioned outlook on their condition that is identical to that of one of Buck's customers, a closeted, gay businessman who cries, out of frustration with his own unfulfilled sex life, “... I loathe life, I loathe it.”

Rating: 9

First Viewed: 5/28/08
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