"Midnight Cowboy"

“Midnight Cowboy,” based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy, was a big deal back in 1969, when it claimed three Oscars and an impressive box office gross. Yet finding it in a video rental store nowadays is even more rare than having a discussion about it. Exactly why this is so is hard to say, but it’s a shame because it’s a wonderfully complex film about loneliness and identity with astounding acting and direction.

Joe Buck (Jon Voight) is bright-eyed Texan who decides to ditch his dish-washing job for life as a “hustler” in New York City. Joe’s naďveté does not serve him well in this unfamiliar new setting and he is soon conned out of some of his meager funds by Enrico Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) – known appropriately as Ratso. After a continuing lack of success as a male prostitute, Joe sees Ratso again days later and violently demands his money back. As payment, Ratso offers to share his apartment (in a condemned building) with the now homeless Joe. Joe reluctantly agrees, and the two form an unusual but strong friendship as they struggle to make it in NYC.

While Voight makes a good debut performance, the movie indisputably, undeniably and irrefutably belongs to Hoffman. His Ratso is both a vile, sleazy pickpocket and a heartbreakingly tragic crippled lower-class man without any family or friends, apart from Joe. Many have called Hoffman’s performance one of the greatest of all time, and, as bombastic as that may sound, it’s completely true.

The fantastic character development also deserves credit for creating two very memorable fictional friends. Joe and Ratzo’s backstories build proportionally throughout the movie, providing fascinating insights into their troubled pasts that are never too much at once, and always welcome. The chaotic, muddled flashbacks of Joe’s childhood and adolescence, which significantly contributed to the film’s X-rating upon release, are particularly haunting and disturbing. They’re never discussed though, for Joe believes he has come to a city where he can be anyone he wants to, and where the past need no longer follow him. True as this may be, as Ratso already knows and Joe comes to discover, this anonymity isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

“Midnight Cowboy” may be somewhat forgotten today, but it’s an impressive film that boasts an absolutely brilliant performance by Hoffman, the oft-quoted line “I’m walking here!” and racy material that paved the way for provocative present-day movies.

Written by: Kristin Hunt

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