Midnight Cowboy, 51 Years Later

In recent months I've been catching up on films, good and bad, that I missed when they were released but that influenced culture in a variety of ways. Although I never saw Midnight Cowboy until tonight - I was six when it was released - I grew up with an appreciation of its impact on cinema, and with a vague awareness of its plot. I'd forgotten - or maybe I never knew? - it was X-rated on release. I knew   critics applauded Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman for their gritty, pathos-bathed performances. I knew they portrayed hustlers in the flophouse districts of Manhattan, although I'd always thought they were explicitly and solely gay hustlers.

I didn't know how very stark I'd find the film. Having recently watched Joker I can say Cowboy makes Joker seem uplifting. They share themes of lonely misfits trying to forge a humble path in an uncaring and insensitive world, where alienation and survival override abiding by laws and social mores. Unlike Arthur Fleck, Enrico "Ratzo" Rizzo and Joe Buck find friendship and solidarity in each other's company. Their humanity is a jarring contrast to the absence of it in Joker. They're losers, but they're losers who care and sacrifice for each other.

John Schlesinger glamorizes nothing about the film. The marvel of it is how little the characters have to offer in the way of redeeming qualities. Joe Buck isn't a savant; he's a barely-literate mentally-slow dishwasher. There's no hidden genius or talent behind his faux-cowboy visage. He sees the "Mutual of New York" neon sign, the first letters of each word emphasized, and believes it spells "Mony." He writes the letter "e" backwards. He struggles to understand, and he's fool enough to think he's going to make it big in the city.

Ratzo, a tubercular who lives not on the kindness of others but on their turned backs, vacillates between fearfulness and longing. He's neither witty nor charming. Yet despite Rizzo and Buck's character flaws and sleaziness, they're sympathetic beings. They invoke compassion and sadness and an overwhelming urge to wash one's hands in hot water.

Today, such a film would hardly shock, much less be considered for an X rating. The performances hold up after so many years, but seem "stagey" and more theatrical than cinematic. This isn't a criticism; it's refreshing. Perhaps my greatest surprise was the understated homoerotic themes, having grown up hearing references to the film's homosexual story line. Instead, Ratzo and Joe share a loving relationship based on friendship and caring. Of the many sex scenes in the film, the only two characters who truly care for each other do not participate at all.