'Midnight Cowboy'
by David Chou

1969’s Academy Award^® winner for Best Picture is a haunting film with a sense of irrevocable loss. It reminds me of John Steinbeck’s short story "Of Mice and Men," this time set in the urban jungle. It’s a "buddy movie" of two down-and-outers in the big city and their hapless pursuit of The American Dream there. Fine performances all around, and the cinematic style borders on the mildly experimental—this would be fairly avant-garde filmmaking even today (other Oscars^® were won for Best Director and Best Screenplay; best performance nominations went to Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, and Sylvia Miles).

Briefly, the story concerns a naive young small-town lad who dreams of making it big as a hustler in New York. He winds up with a small-time con artist for a "manager," and soon an unlikely bond forms between them.... I’m not very quick when it comes to subtext and things going on underneath the surface, but people who are good with that sort of drama will find lots to mull over here. "Midnight Cowboy" is a sad, depressing film, but not manipulatively so the way melodramas are. Its tragic impact is compounded by the use of understatement, its standing as art is secured through the test of time.

The picture’s crisp, though lines and specs are noticeable in one or two places; the sound is clear, but of course, not much work to be done in that department with dialogue-driven movies like this. Unfortunately, no truly special features other than the usual, like random scene access and the teaser from a theatrical re-release years ago.

Recommendation: very good drama deep enough for a PhD. dissertation.

© David Chou 1998.

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