While Ratso is constantly spewing self-deflecting homosexual slurs, his sensual attachment to Joe keeps rising to the surface. There is this incredibly touching moment where Hoffman buries his face in Voight’s bare torso while sweat is being wiped off his forehead. The screenplay by the blacklisted writer subtly crafts a bond similar to a longtime married couple, even if the times didn’t allow it to be fully consummated. Both actors should have received Oscars but probably split the vote as they were both nominated as leads.
Midnight Cowboy still has a lot of the cinematic power it had when it won Best Picture along with Best Director and Adapted Screenplay. It has aged well as it was ahead of its time in ’69. The then-radical editing style of flashback montages and in-frame jumps are now standard screen tools for story flow. The characters’ dreams and memories intermingle with their daily actions, sometimes combining in surreal ways. The camerawork is amazing, capturing vistas of glory and grime from the dawn of 1970s New York.
“…has aged well as it was ahead of its time…”
The documentation of subterranean street culture here is both complete and historic, as decades of Manhattan gentrification has almost obliterated it. The images of marginalized citizens whose sexual preference or marijuana consumption made them criminals may be startling to today’s audiences. The party hosted by Warhol superstar Ultra Violet in the third act shows how the NYC scene, with the help of illegal drugs, was able to harness the energy of America’s unwanted to create unreal havens and groundbreaking art.
Midnight Cowboy itself was an outsider in society due to its X-rating. Those looking for a barrel of Voight sodomy will have to be satisfied with the couple of teaspoons they get, as this was X before the rating was synonymous with pornography. The content here would now barely trigger a TV-MA, but back then, it was seen as lethal. However, in the year of the rubber rat, Midnight Cowboy and its salute to the weird culture of the unheard beat-out favorite Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Strange was allowed to compete with the mainstream that shunned it and won.
"…weird won big, showing that it was now ingrained in pop culture..."
