Midnight Cowboy
MIDNIGHT COWBOY (18)
D: John Schlesinger
United Artists (Jerome Hellman)
US 1969
113 mins
Drama
W: Waldo Salt [based on the novel by
James Leo Herlihy]
DP: Adam Holender
Ed: Hugh A. Robertson
Mus: John Barry
Jon Voight (Joe Buck), Dustin
Hoffman (Enrico 'Ratso' Rizzo), Brenda Vaccaro (Shirley), Sylvia Miles (Cass), John McGiver (Mr. O'Daniel)
A frank & seedy look at New York City at the tail end
of the swinging sixties. A rather dim-witted Texan "stud" journeys into the Big Apple hoping to earn a fortune seducing older ladies. His plan doesn't go as expected and he forms a bond with
a degenerate Italian grifter.
The contrast between Jon Voight & Dustin Hoffman's
characters makes them a classic film double act.
Despite not being too risqué (at least by modern day
standards) it became the first X-rated film to win a Best Picture Oscar, although this may more to do with that fact that the entire plot is a metaphor for repressed homosexuality, a hugely
taboo subject for its time.
9/10
