The only X-rated movie to win Best Picture Oscar(the rating has since been commuted to an R),
"Midnight Cowboy" is a brutal bummer about loneliness and destitution, a cinematically adroit
"Lower Depths," with a stubbled, greasy Dustin Hoffman shivering in his unheated, condemned
New York tenement as an unsuccessful stud Jon Voight lies depressed and unemployed on the
room's single cot.
But "Midnight Cowboy", rereleased after 25 years, is also a great picture, 113 minutes of
stirring stuff, set to the ironic lilt of Jean "Toots" Thieleman's harmonica and Harry Nilsson's theme
tune, "Everybody's Talkin'."
Remember that Nilsson song? It comes in right after Texas hot-dog Joe Buck(Voight) has
dolled himself up in front of the mirror, admiring his physique and said--in the general direction of
the restaurant he's about to leave forever--"You know what you can do with them dishes."
As he rides the bus to Manhattan, transistor glued to his ear, anticipating those rich, sexually
frustrated Upper West Side matrons desperate for his services, he has no idea what's about to hit
him. After meeting-- and being ripped off by--two-bit hustler Ratzo(Hoffman), he embarks on a
one-way descent into the hustle and bustle of modern Hell.
The datedness factor in this 1969 picture is surprisingly minor. A surrealistically shot party
scene is almost cutely quaint, as kooks, poseurs and hipsters turn on and tune in. Vietnam is
rumbling ominously in the background. Although sex is shown as a grimy, capitalistic commodity,
it's still approved of as safe recreation. Smoking too remains a cool pleasure. As for lighting up a
joint, it's still okay to inhale.
But the fact is, in these unsentimental '90s, the movie's unrelenting grimness holds up very
nicely. Beyond the toils and troubles of Joe Buck and Ratzo(that's Enrico Salvatore Rizzo), the
world itself is lost in hopeless isolation, wallowing in a poverty of money, morality and love.
Yet somehow, it's all wonderful to watch. Director John Schlesinger and screenwriter Waldo
Salt, both of whom took Oscars, cinematographer Adam Holender and editor Hugh A. Robertson
turn abject misery into a funky, visually lively experience. Most importantly, the performances by
Hoffman and Voight are big.
Voight is all good ol'buster, a goofy, Lone Star Candide who whoops and yelps all the way to
Hell. And Ratzo, Hoffman(ably smearing his bright debut in "The Graduate" with grungy bathos)
enters the realm of movie folklore. "Frankly," he tells Buck during a particularly down moment,
"your beginning to smell. And for a stud in New York that's a handicap."
And no one seeing this movie will forget Ratzo crossing a busy street, beating on the taxi that
almost knocks him down and yelling, "I'm walking heeeeeeeere!"
Nilsson--to whom this theatrical rerelease is dedicated--is no longer with us. Nor is Salt, who
adapted the James Leo Herlihy novel. But this "Cowboy" is back in the saddle--and on the big
screen. Don't wait for some cable rerun. Don't rent this thing on videotape. Connect with the
past in the best possible way: Go to the damn movies.
