Midnight Movie

I recently watched Midnight Cowboy (1969).  Hadn't seen it in years.  It brought back memories.

It's still the only X-rated film to win the Best Picture Oscar.  The system was new then and X was still allowable, rather than a commercial kiss of death.  Looked at today, it's fairly open about sex, but the content isn't that shocking, much less pornographic, and the language is fairly clean.

I'd forgotten how many arty affectations the film has.  There are flashbacks (in black and white), dreams, fantasies and a freaky Warholian party (peopled by actual Warhol celebrities).  Hardly ten minutes go by without some reminder that the film is an artifact of the late 60s.  But what works is the relationship between Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman, played realistically.  It's what the film's about, and hardly anything else matters (though Voight dealing with some of his "tricks" is fascinating, and in some cases, quite funny).

Voight and Hoffman are both second-rate hustlers, but they manage to build a trust, even love, that allows them to rise above the grimy life of Times Square.  At the time, Hoffman was a big star, having done The Graduate in 1967. The role of low-life Ratso Rizzo, unkempt, sweaty, lame, was perhaps an attempt to show his range--it's about as far as you can get from the young, clean-cut Benjamin Braddock.  Voight, who has the bigger role, if second billing, was essentially unknown at the time, and playing naive-verging-on-stupid Joe Buck made him a star.  Both Hoffman and Voight were nominated for Best Actor.  Maybe they canceled each other out, because John Wayne (who's referenced in the movie) won for True Grit.

When I was a kid I borrowed the movie's soundtrack from the library.  It went gold in its day, helped by Harry Nilsson's hit "Everybody's Talkin'" as well as the famous theme.  But other stuff came back to me.  For instance, the bouncy "Florida Fantasy," which I taught myself on guitar.



Or the trippy "Old Man Willow" from the Warholian party, sung by Elephant's Memory.



I love films shot on the streets of New York.  Whether planned or not, they're time capsules.  Though it does make me wonder how, centuries hence, people will view Times Square after watching Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver.

I've met Voight.  A very nice guy.  He's also managed something tricky. He was a top leading man in the 70s, even winning an Oscar for Coming Home.  But when his career didn't go as well in the 80s, he was able to reinvent himself as a top character actor, with memorable work in films such as Mission: Impossible, The Rainmaker, Anaconda, The General, Ali (Oscar nomination for portraying Howard Cosell) and National Treasure.  He got a second act.

Hoffman went on to win two Oscars (Kramer vs. Kramer, Rain Man) and still works regularly.  I've never met him, but have seen him on the street.  Once he was with his family, coming out of Mel Brooks' Dracula: Dead And Loving It. (How did I know what film he'd seen?  He was talking about it.) There are legendary stories about how hard he is to work with from William Goldman, Larry Gelbart, Richard Matheson...heck, Elmore Leonard wrote a book about it, Get Shorty.  Even if they're true, however, at least the guy's got a lot of great performances to show for it.