In Midnight Cowboy, amiable Texan country boy Joe Buck (Jon Voight) dreams of making it big in New York. Convinced that he can make his fortune providing sexual favours for wealthy women, he makes the move to the Big Apple. Unfortunately, the first woman he beds down with, Cass (Sylvia Miles), doesn't have any money to speak of, and borrows some of his. At this point, sleazy street-hustler Enrico 'Ratso' Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) enters the frame, offering to become Joe's 'manager'.
The only engagement he can arrange is with a gay Christian (John McGiver), but Joe and Ratso soon become close friends, fantasizing to each other about the millions they are going to make. The film won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay, while Hoffman was nominated for Best Actor. John Barry's score and Harry Nilsson's songs have also enjoyed a successful afterlife that occasionally threatens to eclipse this tender, funny, and ultimately noble film, but the performances of the two leads, and Schlesinger's direction, give it a compassionate humanity rarely seen.
Midnight Cowboy takes a look at the seamier side of life in New York, where exiled Southerner Joe Buck (Voight) is aiming to make his living as a 'stud'. Patently too ... more >
Midnight Cowboy takes a look at the seamier side of life in New York, where exiled Southerner Joe Buck (Voight) is aiming to make his living as a 'stud'. Patently too moral, lacking in self-confidence and burdened by events from his past (seen sporadically in flashback) to make this dream as successful as he would like, he is forced instead to co-habit cheaply with crippled scrounger 'Ratso' Rizzo (Hoffman). Together they plan an eventual relocation to Florida, which inspires one of the film's most memorable scenes, whereby Ratso's sun-kissed thoughts are intercut with Voight bungling an 'assignation' to a musical backdrop of John Barry's evocative Florida Fantasy. Ultimately, events conspire to force this dream to become a reality of sorts...but will they get there?
This was the first X-rated film ever to scoop the Oscar for Best Picture. It has dated in places, but is nonethless an intriguing snapshot of late '60s America and is sensitively acted by Voight and Hoff man, not to mention Barry's brilliant score. < less
