Midnight Cowboy - discussion thread

[Dominic]

Midnight Cowboy, John Schlesinger, 1969.





okay people, let's talk!

I've always been most impressed by the performances and by Schlesinger's willingness to let the characters be the story, rather than have some inane "plot" thrust upon them.

It's such a "60's" movie, and one that I think is the demarcation film between Old, Classic Hollywood and what would become the New Hollywood of Spielberg, Scorcese and Kubrick. In other words, Midnight Cowboy is the first film of a movement in motion pictures that became the Golden Age of the 1970s. A watershed film. And I think it's also the first mainstream, Hollywood movie that didn't shy away from the homosexuality of it's themes or it's director!

Voight and Hoffman are just incredible together, too. At it's most simple, Midnight Cowboy is a love story between Joe Buck and Ratzo Rizzo.