San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Midnight Cowboy
To see this 1969 film with fresh eyes is to get a nagging sense that the art of cinema hasn’t progressed much in 49 years.
Directed with vigor and sensitivity by
John Schlesinger, the film tells the story of a would-be gigolo from Texas (Jon
Voight), who goes to New York determined to have sex with lots of grateful rich ladies. But he gets nowhere and ends up living in a condemned building, trying not to starve or freeze to death during the long New York winter. Along the way, he finds a friend, Ratso Rizzo, played by Dustin Hoffman.
The film is a look at people with no skills and little in the way of intelligence, who have fallen out of society. Their lives have caved in, but we see them from a perspective of understanding and insight. Throughout the movie, for example, Schlesinger and screenwriter Waldo Salt take us into the characters’ fantasies, and we come to understand their dreams and how they see themselves.
The film is full of indelible scenes, with Sylvia Miles and Brenda Vaccaro making memorable appearances. And Voight and Hoffman are brilliant. Both were nominated for Academy Awards — who could choose between them? And so the prize went to John Wayne’s routine work in “True Grit.” “Midnight Cowboy,” however, did win best picture, and it’s one of the rare winners in this category to remain as powerful and moving today as it was when it was released — a sad, beautiful piece of work.
The Criterion release is everything you’d want from a Blu-ray, full of commentaries and interviews with Voight and Schlesinger, among others, a first-rate product. The film is rated R, though it was originally rated X — and thus became the only X-rated film ever to win best picture. — Mick LaSalle