PIC of the Week - Midnight Cowboy

PIC of the Week – Midnight Cowboy

Article series by Ray Schillaci

So many bad, fun titles out there; Monster Shark (aka Devil Fish), Call Girl Cthulhu, Bad Stepmother, Toxic Shark, Another Wolfcop, Eruption L.A. and (believe it or not) Bazookas: The Movie. One guess as to what that last sophomoric title is referring to. Not exactly friendly to the #MeToo movement.

With so much bad out there this week, I have no choice but to step back a couple weeks and pick a ‘60s jewel in the crown. The first and only X-rated film to be nominated and win Best Picture, 1969’s Midnight Cowboy. The film also garnered Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay while Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight were both nominated along with Supporting Actress Sylvia Miles and Hugh A. Robertson for Best Film Editing.

Criterion gives us a Blu that is worth our collection. The pedigree of talent behind this film is jaw-dropping. Director John Schlesinger gave us some of the greatest dramas in the ’60s and ’70s with Darling, Marathon Man, Sunday Bloody Sunday and The Day of the Locust. His stars, the legendary Dustin Hoffman and the powerhouse actor Jon Voight are a dynamic duo. Hoffman, who’s wowed us in countless films such as The Graduate, Papilion (a previous PIC of the Week!), Rain Man, and Lenny, delivers one of his grittiest performances as Ratso, the low-life conman. Pretty boy Voight, who would later become a pugilist tough guy in Runaway Train (for which he would also receive a Best Actor nomination) and Ray Donovan is heartbreaking as Joe Buck, the young naive Texan hustler with dreams of success that lead him to New York to become a prostitute. The unusual bond these two men form is mesmerizing.

Then there’s the writers, the movie is taken from the book by James Leo Herlihy, who had also written films starring James Dean and Warren Beatty. Waldo Salt would go on to write Serpico, starring Al Pacino, and Coming Home, starring Voight and Jane Fonda. The man with over 200 music credits to his name, John Barry, went uncredited as the composer. But, this wasn’t the first time for Barry, he also went uncredited on three other films including the first James Bond flick, Dr. No. Midnight Cowboy also reintroduced the Harry Nilsson version of “Everybody’s Talkin’”, which would become a huge hit and would go on to win a Grammy.

The film is on the AFI list of the 100 Greatest American Films and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. Schlesinger’s film is an engrossing character study of two broken men. The ’60s is captured magnificently in black & white by Adam Holender, director of photography. And, the film is best summed up by Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly who had written, ”Midnight Cowboy‘s peep-show vision of Manhattan lowlife may no longer be shocking, but what is shocking, in 1994, is to see a major studio film linger this lovingly on characters who have nothing to offer the audience but their own lost souls.” The whole production’s passion for the project is a testament to film as an art form, and is sorely missed in this day and age.

With Criterion giving us a print sourced from a 4K master, both daylight and nighttime scenes have improved over previous versions of this film. It is important to note that the hallucination and flashback sequences have been augmented on purpose to differentiate from the present day. Although a minor alteration, this only adds to Criterion’s presentation.

Criterion has also provided two audio tracks, English LPCM 1.0 and English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1. Now let me say this, for purists you’re going to want the original monaural soundtrack provided especially since the previous Blu delivered a different feeling from the original film. This new and improved track dates us back to its origins. For those who want a bit more ambience, it is provided in the 5.1 mix, and does not take anything away from the presentation, only providing a slightly different feel for the curious.

Extras include:
¥ 1991 audio commentary with director John Schlesinger and producer Jerome Hellman
¥ New selected-scene commentary by cinematographer Adam Holender
¥ The Crowd Around the Cowboy, a 1969 short film made on location for Midnight Cowboy
¥ Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey, a 1990 Academy Award–nominated documentary
¥ Two short 2004 documentaries on the making and release of Midnight Cowboy
¥ Interview with actor Jon Voight on The David Frost Show from 1970
¥ Interview from 2000 with Schlesinger for BAFTA Los Angeles
¥ Excerpts from the 2002 BAFTA LA Tribute to Schlesinger, featuring Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman
¥ Trailer
¥ PLUS: An essay by critic Mark Harris