The Good: Moments of acting
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Lack of plot, Nauseating camera work
The Basics: Drawn out, difficult to watch and largely unlikable, Midnight Cowboy is a character study in misery and not worth the viewer's time or attention.
I watch a lot of movies and in recent years, I have learned to differentiate the difference between great films with disturbing subject matters that are presented well and movies that are just bad. A great example of a film that is disturbing and done well that I would never like to see again, for example, would be Requiem For A Dream; it is populated by characters living in miserable conditions in heartbreaking lives, but the story is told well, despite how troublesome the tale is. I am able to admire the artistry of it without loving the content and the distinction is important. I mention this at the outset of my review of Midnight Cowboy, the 1969 winner of the Best Picture Oscar because I want to establish that I can tell the difference between a well-made movie and one that is not; that films with a disturbing subject or presentation can still make wonderful films.
Midnight Cowboy is not a wonderful film. Among the most overrated films I've ever seen (right up there near the boring Citizen Kane!) , Midnight Cowboy is one of those films that I finished watching and just shook my head and asked aloud, "What was the Academy thinking that year?!" And yeah, I'll ask, "Geez, what is it about movies of that era and anal rape?!" (Deliverance was a nominee for Best Picture three years later and lost to The Godfather.) Is this what truly passed for entertainment in the late 1960s/early 1970s? I'm suddenly quite glad I missed that whole period! Midnight Cowboy is not only populated by unlikable characters making tremendously stupid and annoying-to-watch decisions, but it is filmed erratically. Director John Schlesinger seems happy to "freak out" the viewer with fast camera movements and editing choices that are creative, but put an emphasis on style over substance and that wears thin the longer the film progresses.
In Texas, Joe Buck decides to tell his boss to shove it and he takes a suitcase and heads up North to New York City to be a "hustler" (a gigolo). Once there, he finds it almost impossible to connect with women, especially as he goes everywhere in a cowboy getup and carries a transistor radio. As he wanders around New York City, he tries to get the attention of women who might want to hook up and he largely fails. When he finally does manage to score with a socialite, he ends up paying her money for the experience instead. Vulnerable and alone, Joe falls in with crippled con man Rizzo (derogatively called "Ratso" frequently), who cons him out of some money on the scheme to hook Joe Buck up with a pimp.
As time goes by and Joe Buck recalls traumatic events from his past - most notably being neglected by his grandmother and gang raped with his girlfriend - he finds himself locked out of his hotel room. Joe encounters Enrico again and despite his anger at the con man, he moves in with Enrico and the two begin working the streets together. While the pair struggles to survive into a terrible winter, they go to a party and this changes everything as Joe gets his first legitimate job as a gigolo and Rizzo is wounded.
Right off the bat, the failures of Midnight Cowboy come not in the fact that both of the main protagonists are somewhat dim and difficult to watch, but rather that they have no real redeeming story arcs. I'm happy to watch people who are down who rise above or to watch a film where people try so hard to persevere against the odds, but the world crushes them provided that the story and the characters are interesting. Midnight Cowboy - the cinematic version of it, anyway, is a study of two men making all of the wrong decisions and suffering the consequences of those poor choices. This is hardly entertaining to watch - two people who generally deserve to fail failing - and one has to wonder why so many people would find watching such an unpleasant movie to be such a great use of time. I, for example, had to watch this for my current movie endeavor; but who is expected to watch the failure of miserable people making bad choices time and time again for entertainment purposes?!
Take, for example, Joe Buck. Joe Buck wants to be a slacker and have sex for a living because . . . well, it just appears he's sick of washing dishes. It could be he wants love, but while his backstory indicates he has never truly been loved well before, this is not a love story (though he and Rizzo have a fairly loving relationship, especially comparatively). Joe isn't searching for love, he's searching for a mealticket and surprisingly early in the film, he is offered one; he can take a dishwashing position if he just wants it. This is not like an artist (or reviewer) fighting capitalism for a sense of principles; it is a lazy guy trying to do the one thing he's good at in order to survive and not going about it in any reasonable way.
A great contrast to this would be Hard Eight by P.T. Anderson. In that film, the protagonist is a bit dim, but he is trying to do a good thing when he is taken in by a much smarter man. His lack of wits play into all of the decisions he makes, but he generally has a kind heart. Joe Buck may be a little dim, may be traumatized or he may just be lazy and hoping to get by without having to do anything other than bed rich women. But he doesn't have a plan and he doesn't have a clue and when he falls in with Rizzo, it is hard to care about him. Rizzo, regardless of his physical ailments, is an unlikable con man and if Joe is hapless and generally likable (from a certain point of view), it becomes impossible to like Rizzo from the way he treats Joe from the outset. Rizzo is a classic user and despite his bum leg, he is hard to sympathize with, much less empathize with.
Stylistically, Midnight Cowboy is audacious, but in terribly annoying ways. This is the film we get the classic, oft-parodied man walking through days and nights in New York City montage as well as the cowboy in New York City towering above the crowds. But to get those allusions, one has to sit through innumerable annoying camera whiparounds and zoom in/zoom outs that are stomach-turning. And while I love themes and the recurrence of ideas, the almost constant "Everybody's Talkin'" becomes grating once one decides they do not like the protagonist. Yes, Joe feels like a fish out of water, rightfully so. But he's come to the North on a lark without a clue and it's tough to care about him or his fate. "Everybody's Talking'" at him because he has no clue! Grumble.
As for the acting, here I'm quite split. The direction might be different (if troubling and trippy), but the acting is arguably the closest to redemption this film gets. Jon Voight is good as Joe Buck, at least at portraying a somewhat dim, shell-shocked guy. His costuming, however, has almost more character than he does and while his initial scenes easily draw the viewer into the film, the longer Midnight Cowboy progresses, the more it seems like Voight found a note and is singing the same note the whole film. Even so, his final moments in the movie are extraordinary and he performs well when he is not required to speak.
It is Dustin Hoffman whose acting is the standout in Midnight Cowboy, though. Hoffman plays Rizzo and he sneers through all of his lines with a delivery unlike any in any of the other works he has been in. He is consistent at embodying Rizzo's physical impairment and he plays dark remarkably well. Hoffman has Rizzo constantly thinking and constantly looking for an edge and he does it with a great sense of physical control as well as delivery of his lines. In fact, in some of the film's fantasy sequences where Rizzo is seen running in the sun, it is such a shock in part because of how well Hoffman keeps him crouched over and filthy the rest of the time.
On DVD, the two disc version comes packed with bonus features. In addition to having a commentary track on the disc, there is a second disc which has two documentary featurettes on the impact and filming of Midnight Cowboy. As well, there is a featurette on the films of John Schlesinger and a photo gallery. These do not make the source material any better in my view.
Midnight Cowboy was originally rated X and it is disturbing even though now it is only considered an R-rated film. Cinematically, it may have been a big deal at the time, but now with other works experimenting with camera and lighting, I'd say hold out for something with good characters and a great story as opposed to this. It's just troubling and the lack of catharsis is just the final kick in the teeth to the viewer.
[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, available here! Please check it out!]
For other works that heavily use weird camera movements, please check out my reviews of:
District 9
Firefly
The Blair Witch Project
3/10
For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!
© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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