Midnight Cowboy - with many spoilers

Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 drama depicting an unlikely friendship. It became the first X-rated movie to be nominated for the Oscar for best picture, and remains the only one to have won it.

Verdict

My movie ratings consist of thumbs up or middle fingers as sometimes one starring something doesn’t shame it enough. 5 thumbs up = an absolute triumph. 5 middle fingers = a complete piece of shit, go fuck yourself.

Midnight Cowboy - 3 thumbs up

True character lead drama never ages. This was a great watch and gets bonus points for featuring “Everybody’s talkin’” from Nillson. It’s only downfall is with the confusing way it uses flashbacks and dream sequences which are never entirely explained.

Favourite quote “Even a faggot undertaker couldn’t get his nails clean, they had to bury him with gloves on” - Rizzo referring to to his father’s dirty hands after spending his life shining shoes in a tube station.

Other gems: “I hope I don’t come back in your body” - Joe says this to Rizzo when talking about Reincarnation.

“Hey! I’m Walkin’ Here!” - Possibly the most famous quote from the film.

Favourite scene

One word. Scribbage. The scene where Joe gets wildly intoxicated at a party and finally finds a client willing to pay him for his services. He falls flat in the bedroom and looks very sorry for himself until she pulls out scribbage which obviously gets him well in the mood. Then she appears to try and break his finger during coitus.I found this scene amusing but it was also a clever way of displaying that Joe had learned to spell from a broken sign he’d seen in central New York.

Best meme from the movie

Analysis “Where’s that Joe Buck?” you may find yourself asking. Well, he’s done washing dishes and he’s off to the big city to bang some tidy cougars for top dollar, or so he thinks. The misadventures of Joe Buck are riveting, humorous and sometimes quite dark as we journey through the story-line of Midnight Cowboy and watch him go from rags to… well, dirtier rags.

John Voight and Dustin Hoffman are an incredible pairing in this production. Both entirely convincing as their deep, well written characters. John’s (Joe’s) sunny disposition as the dumb Southern hunk is endearing throughout and contrasts the bitter cripple (Rizzo) as they struggle to get by together, squatting in the big apple. We do see changes in Joe Buck however, and the film slowly shows him becoming more street-wise and less nice the more he is taken advantage of. He starts the movie with an infectious optimism and is willing to share a chewing gum and a smile with anyone he crosses paths with. By the end of his time in New York he is so desperate to escape that he beats up and robs a man. This is the only time we see him not give in to the angel on his shoulder and not offer some charity to someone who is literally and metaphorically trying to fuck him. We assume this is to help his only friend Ratso realize his dream.

New York is the catalyst for Joe’s change in behavior as it is depicted like in so many other movies, as an unforgiving hell hole. It’s every man for himself and you either sink or swim here. It is, perhaps, a modern day Wild West.

Rizzo, the character I now realize is represented by a stuffed rat in the muppets, is a downright lousy son of a bitch. After shaking hands with this man, you’d have to check to see that none of your fingers were missing. By contrast, his character throughout the film softens slightly as he makes friends with Joe Buck and the pair try to look out for each other.

The climax of the film represents both the beginning and the end of a dream. Joe Buck’s dreams of making it in New York have long died and he even gives up a bit of his identity by throwing away his cowboy attire and planning to get a real job. He’s done hustling. It’s a testament to his endurance that he kept trying for this long - I would have given up long before going Gay for pay. Rizzo’s dream is about to start and he’s anxious and excited to start again somewhere. Joe knows only too well that the grass isn’t always greener yet he still encourages Rizzo to fantasize. Ultimately, Rizzo dies before ever reaching Miami which despite being predictable, is still incredibly sad. We now hope that Rizzo gets to live a real dream of his and is reincarnated as someone who’s fallen on better times, and that Joe Buck isn’t lonely for too long.

I never quite got along with the dream sequences in the movie. A few seemed appropriate, like the flashbacks to Joe’s childhood which served to show how lonely he has been his whole life. No-one ever loved him except for his Grandma who’s funeral he wasn’t able to attend for whatever reason and the only friend he seems to have had was his radio before meeting Rizzo. I still have no real idea what happened between Joe and ‘Crazy Anne’. They were in love? They were both sexually assaulted by a gang? It was all in Anne’s head? Or Johns? The only real clue is in a line from Joe; “Women go crazy for me, dammit! Crazy Anne, they had to send her away.”

The bottom line

Everybody’s talkin’ at him, he don’t hear a word they’re sayin’, which is a huge shame because it’s mainly praise for the film. I liked this a lot, boy.