I really do not know what to say about Midnight Cowboy at this point; I suppose 1969 was just a year for horrendously-directed American setting films. Along with Easy Rider, this movie provides an excellent look at a certain archetypal character in a distinct part of America, but has such a weak script that it is impossible to follow along with its narrative. Even though this film is considerably better than the Dennis Hopper joint from the same year, the performances and attempted story were simply not enough to even slightly maintain my interest.
Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman star in this film about a Texas hustler named Joe Buck (Voight) who moves to New York City with aspirations to do... something. Perhaps it's because he wanted to escape the rural hometown that he was living in or perhaps it's because he knew that a hustler could never succeed in Texas. The reason why he left was never made clear and his motivations throughout this movie never changed. Once in New York, he befriends a small-time con man named Rico (Hoffman) who persuades Joe to let him be his manager. The two live together in a small, crusty, apartment with no heat or amenities whatsoever. Some of this film's best dialogue comes from the interactions between these two and them struggling to survive, making not much more than $20 or $30 a week. How they were able to get into New York's hottest clubs and hotels is beyond me, but it was at least interesting to see how they did their business together hustling people.
The crippling problem with this film's script, though. is its lack of explanation for nearly anything: any character introduction, any scene change, or any details in the story. Each time something new was presented for the lead character to overcome, the situation just simply popped up. The writing in this movie is extremely lazy and introduces new elements with no build-up or rising actions at all. Similar to Easy Rider, events just... occur throughout this film. There are no written connections or any parts of the writing that make this plot flow. However, at least all of the random incidents served a single purpose: hustling men and women in order to survive. Often times a film like this with a poor script that makes little sense can be saved by some artful direction to at least make the film enjoyable. That is not the case with John Schlesinger, however, as his directing only confirms my mediocre opinion for this movie. The pacing contains no logical flow, the characters are handled terribly, and a lot of derogatory terms are in poor taste. I was hoping that Schlesinger would not rely too much on poorly-shot visual storytelling, but unfortunately he was not able to overcome the substandard script.
Some parts of this film that I did enjoy were its performances, editing, and soundtrack. Voight and Hoffman stand out the most throughout this movie as their energy is unmatched. Their characters seem to be exclusively written for them and while that can often be bad, it was excellent for this story. The soundtrack of this movie provides a nice blanket for the story to rely on, even though an unusually large amount of time was devoted to city shots and B-roll. The transition from country to more hip music was great to see as Joe moved from city to city. My favorite aspect of this entire film, though, is its editing done by Hugh A. Robertson. His devotion to the different types of scenes and their editing styles was incredible to watch. Particularly as the editing wildly varied between more standard, dramatic style to more colorful and offbeat during the drug scenes.
Despite its overwhelming nostalgia factor and a classic line from Dustin Hoffman, Midnight Cowboy is just not a well-made movie. I enjoyed its editing and the two lead performances, but I was hopelessly lost when it came to the plot. But at least this is watchable, unlike a certain other "classic" movie released around the same time.
My Rating: ★★★
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