Midnight Cowboy

MIDNIGHT COWBOY

USA, 1969

Director: John Schlesinger

Production: Jerome Hellman Productions; DeLuxe colour, 35mm; running time: 113 minutes. Filmed in New York, 1968.

Producer: Jerome Hellman; screenplay: Waldo Salt, based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy; photography: Adam Holender; editor: Hugh A. Robertson; assistant director: Michael Childers; production design: John R. Lloyd; music: John Barry; sound: Jack Fizstephens, Vincent Connelly.

Cast: Jon Voight ( Joe Buck ); Dustin Hoffman ( Ratso Rizzo ); Sylvia Miles ( Cass ); Brenda Vaccaro ( Shirley ); John McGiver ( Mr. O'Daniel ); Barnard Hughes ( Towny ); Ruth White ( Sally Buck ); Jennifer Salt ( Annie ).

Awards: Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay, 1969.

Midnight Cowboy

Publications

Books:

Marcus, F. H., editor, Film and Literature: contrasts in media , New York, 1971.

Brooker, Nancy J., editor, John Schlesinger: A Guide to References & Resources , London, 1978.

Phillips, Gene D., John Schlesinger , Boston, 1981.

Kagan, Norman, Greenhorns: Foreign filmmakers interpret America , Ann Arbor, Michigan, 1982.

Brode, Douglas, The Films of Dustin Hoffman , Secaucus, 1988.

Articles:

Variety (New York), 14 May 1969.

Dawson, J., Sight and Sound (London), Autumn 1969.

Gow, Gordon, Films and Filming (London), October 1969.

Wilson, D., Monthly Film Bulletin (London), January 1970.

Fiore, R.L., "The Picaresque Tradition in Midnight Cowboy, " in Literature/Film Quarterly (Berkeley), Summer 1975.

Raman, N.K., "Individualism and the Pseudo-Epic Sensibility," in Deep Focus (Bangalor), vol. 3, no. 2, 1990.

Spotnitz, Frank, "John Schlesinger: A Director with a Blueprint and a 'Pincher' of Ideas," in American Film , vol. 16, no. 1, January 1991.

Moon, M., "Outlaw Sex and the 'Search for America': Representing Male Prostitution and Perverse Desire in Sixties Film ( My Hustler and Midnight Cowboy )," in Quarterly Review of Film and Video (Reading), vol. 15, no. 1, November 1993.

Porton, Richard, and Lee Ellickson, "Reflections of an Englishman Abroad," in Cineaste (New York), vol. 20, no. 4, 1994.

"John Schlesinger, Joe Buck and Ratso," in New Yorker , vol. 70, no. 2, 28 February 1994.

Kort, Michele, "After 'Midnight,"' in The Advocate , no. 651, 22 March 1994.

Biskind, P., "The Other Side of 'Midnight,"' in Premiere (New York), vol. 7, April 1994.

Daly, Steve, " Midnight Cowboy: Everybody's Still Talkin' about It," Entertainment Weekly (New York), March 1995.

Berg, J., " Midnight Cowboy 25th Anniversary Edition," in Film Threat (Beverly Hills), no. 21, April 1995.

Nocenti, A., "My Father, Waldo Salt," "Directing Midnight Cowboy ," and "Producing Midnight Cowboy ," in Scenario (Rockville), vol. 3, no. 4, 1997.

Salt, W., in Scenario (Rockville), vol. 3, no. 4, 1997.

Price, Victoria, "A Life on the Edge," in The Advocate , 28 March 2000.

* * *

John Schlesinger wanted to make a film of James Leo Herlihy's 1965 novel Midnight Cowboy soon after it was published. When he suggested the project to United Artists, however, he found that a reader in their story department had already submitted an unfavourable report on the book. The reader said that the action of the novel went steadily downhill from the outset, and had recommended that the company not acquire the film rights. Schlesinger, on the other hand, saw dramatic possibilities in the story of a Texan named Joe Buck, who comes to New York with illusions that he can make easy money as a male companion to wealthy women. United Artists eventually decided to let him make Midnight Cowboy (1969), and the film won Academy Awards for best director, best adapted screenplay, and best film; and was a huge financial success in both America and England.

Joe (Jon Voight) is himself taken advantage of repeatedly by the assortment of tough and desperate individuals he encounters in the course of his descent into the netherworld of New York's slums, and at one point it looks as if he will become as ruthless as the rest. However, he makes a friend of Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a repulsive-looking bum who needs companionship as much as Joe does; and the two take refuge in each other's friendship. Their relationship is not homosexual; rather, as Schlesinger pointed out to this writer, the story shows "how two men can have a meaningful relationship without being homosexual." The film is faithful to the novel from which it is derived, but Schlesinger and screenwriter Waldo Salt exercised some degree of freedom in adapting it to the screen. The first third of the novel, dealing with Joe's lonely youth, is compressed into a few fragmented flashbacks, as he makes his way cross-country by bus. These flashbacks indicate how unsuccessful Joe's search for friendship and love has been up to this point and explain why Ratso is fulfilling a need in Joe's emotional life.