Directed by:
John SchlesingerScreenplay:
Waldo SaltCinematography:
Adam HolenderComposer:
John BarryCast:
Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro, Barnard Hughes, Ruth White, Jennifer Salt, Bob Balaban, Paul Morrissey, Taylor Mead (more)VOD (2)
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One of the British New Wave’s most versatile directors, John Schlesinger came to New York in the late 1960s to make Midnight Cowboy, a picaresque story of friendship that captured a city in crisis and sparked a new era of Hollywood movies. Jon Voight delivers a career-making performance as Joe Buck, a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy city women; he finds a companion in Enrico “Ratso” Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and a quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida, played by Dustin Hoffman in a radical departure from his breakthrough in The Graduate. A critical and commercial success despite controversy over what the MPAA termed its “homosexual frame of reference”, Midnight Cowboy became the first X-rated film to receive the best picture Oscar, and decades on, its influence still reverberates through cinema. (Criterion)
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Reviews (7)
The acclaimed Oscar-winning masterpiece about the power of friendship and the unfulfilled dream of a better life. If I had to pick a single film that best depicts the atmosphere of American society in the late 1960s, its depression, the subconscious trauma of the Vietnam War, religious frenzy, social divisions, the rise of the hippies and the psychedelic music era, I'd pick this one. In no other film has New York been such a filthy sewer, where social outcasts dream of a sunny Florida. And Dustin Hoffman should have won an Oscar for his brilliantly acted (and written) role.
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Naivety and honesty hurt. The viewer and Joe. And sometimes it hurts to leave a familiar place and go somewhere where everything is supposed to be better, and in the end, nothing is better. In the wrong places, honesty and trust will simply destroy you. But this whole interpretation of mine would only be a simplified message of the story if Hoffman's Rico did not appear in it. With him, a biting, evoking absolute melancholy came to the cowboy campaign. Awakening of the former generation, a warning for the present.
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Once again, I created a picture in my head about a movie that was different from what the movie actually is. However, that doesn't change the fact that it is an excellent film, which is brilliantly acted. Both Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman deliver great performances in a story that is at times unnecessarily psychedelic, but overall easily understandable and impactful.
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I’m glad that Czech Television has recently enabled me to see some old American Oscar classics. This is how I stumbled upon this absolutely amazing drama, whose quality made it timeless. I don’t even know where to begin describing how great this film is. Maybe I could start with editing, which shows a great precision and it’s evident that a lot of work was put into it. Thanks to this geniusediting and the shots of New York of that era you will get an incredible feeling of emptiness, gloom and despair. Maybe it’s exactly this depressing New York that makes this part of American cinematography so appealing. Other films in a similar vein, like Taxi Driver or Nolan’s Batman trilogy (even though it takes place in pseudo-New York) make use of a similar atmosphere. Then I have to praise the premise. Jon Voight plays an incredibly naïve guy who thinks the world is lying at his feet, until New York shows him otherwise, and he moreover meets the notorious conman played by Dustin Hoffman. Then we witness a truly brilliant acting performance. And it’s not just “in his head”; Dustin Hoffman also had to go through immense physical pain to deliver it. Meanwhile, the film transforms into a powerful story about male friendship. So it definitely deserves the full rating. It is also a testimony of the Hippie era, especially thanks to that incredible scene at the apartment of some local Yoko Ono. I was completely shocked. This piece is full of surprises, mainly regarding its quality filmmaking.
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An increasingly interesting in today’s terms (and, from my point of view, far dreamier) look at the New York streets of the late 60s and early 70s as a melting pot of ethnicities, subcultures, and social classes. It's the realistically unembellished depiction of the lower castes of a vibrant big city that is the most interesting element of the film. Then Jon Voight himself had such a terrifying effect on me that I watched most of it with bulging eyes and my comforter pulled up under my nose. I’ve seen puppets that looked more human than he did.
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