#925: SCHLESINGER, John: Midnight Cowboy (1969)

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SCHLESINGER, John (United States)
Midnight Cowboy [1969]
Spine #925
Blu-ray


One of the British New Wave's most versatile directors, John Schlesinger came to New York in the late 1960s to make Midnight Cowboy, a picaresque story of friendship that captured a city in crisis and sparked a new era of Hollywood movies. Jon Voight delivers a career-making performance as Joe Buck, a wide-eyed hustler from Texas hoping to score big with wealthy city women, he finds a companion in Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo, an ailing swindler with a bum leg and quixotic fantasy of escaping to Florida, played by Dustin Hoffman in a radical departure from his breakthrough in The Graduate. A critical and commercial success despite controvery over what the MPAA termed its "homosexual frame of reference," Midnight Cowboy became the first X-rated film to receive the best picture Oscar, and decades on, its influence still reverberates through cinema.

113 minutes
Color
Monaural
1:85:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2018
Director/Writers


Based on the novel by James Leo Herlihy.
John Schlesinger was 43 when he directed Midnight Cowboy.

Other Schlesinger films in the Collection:

#121: Billy Liar (1963)
#629: Sunday Bloody Sunday (1971)

The Film

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

 The Booklet

Twelve-page wraparound featuring an essay by critic Mark Harris.

Commentary

From 1991 featuring director Schlesinger and producer Jerome Hellman.

Video essay

With commentary by DP Adam Holender.

Photo gallery

With commentary by photographer Michael Childers.

Short film

The Crowd Around the Cowboy, from 1969 made on location for Midnight Cowboy.

Waldo Salt: A Screenwriter’s Journey

An Academy-award-nominated documentary from 1990 by Eugene Corr and Robert Hillman.

Two short documentaries

From 2004 on the making and release of Midnight Cowboy.

Interview 1

With actor Voight on The David Frost Show from 1970.

Voight’s original screen test

Interview 2

From 2000l with Schlesinger for BAFTA Los Angeles.

Trailer

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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