***Out In Those Mean Urban Neon Wilderness Streets- “Midnight Cowboy”- A Film Review
Recently in a review of Bonnie and Clyde, a film that also deals tragic-comically with lumpen life, in that case the mock heroics of bank robbery in the popular imaginations of an earlier generation, that of the Great Depression, I noted that I was familiar, too familiar with that place where the lumpenproletariat, the dregs of society, intersects and intermingles with the working poor. And also of the dreams, sometimes the plain, old ordinary get-rich-quick dreams to get out from under that inflame those who have nothing and have no way of getting more than nothing.
In Midnight Cowboy we get a very solid sense of the convergence of those two sets of social interactions. Jon Voight’s Joe Buck, small town Texas twisted, second-hand dreams of making it in big time, big apple, New York as a hustler out in the neon wilderness of Times Square. And, Dustin Hoffman’s Ratzo Rizzo, home-grown boy, already on those mean streets scratching for nickels and dimes to keep body and soul together. And to get out the hell out of killer New York, as long as he does not have work to do so. Work, in real life, is the curse of this segment of society. I have known more than my fair share, and have had more than my fill of real Ratzos, including in my own extended family, complete with that bizarre logic that says black is white, as matter of course, and visa versa that drives their skimpy lives.
That said, this is a buddy story, in this case a male buddy film, that was a cinematic trend back in the late 1960s and early 1970s and at that level the movie works as old Joe Buck is ready to go to the mat, in the end, to get old Ratzo out of cold-hearted New York. But here is the “skinny” from personal experience, it is usually too little too late. And so it proved here. This film, moreover, despite my “high sociology” screed above is worth seeing for the outstanding performances of these two actors early on in their careers.
Midnight Cowboy, starring Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, 1969
Recently in a review of Bonnie and Clyde, a film that also deals tragic-comically with lumpen life, in that case the mock heroics of bank robbery in the popular imaginations of an earlier generation, that of the Great Depression, I noted that I was familiar, too familiar with that place where the lumpenproletariat, the dregs of society, intersects and intermingles with the working poor. And also of the dreams, sometimes the plain, old ordinary get-rich-quick dreams to get out from under that inflame those who have nothing and have no way of getting more than nothing.
In Midnight Cowboy we get a very solid sense of the convergence of those two sets of social interactions. Jon Voight’s Joe Buck, small town Texas twisted, second-hand dreams of making it in big time, big apple, New York as a hustler out in the neon wilderness of Times Square. And, Dustin Hoffman’s Ratzo Rizzo, home-grown boy, already on those mean streets scratching for nickels and dimes to keep body and soul together. And to get out the hell out of killer New York, as long as he does not have work to do so. Work, in real life, is the curse of this segment of society. I have known more than my fair share, and have had more than my fill of real Ratzos, including in my own extended family, complete with that bizarre logic that says black is white, as matter of course, and visa versa that drives their skimpy lives.
That said, this is a buddy story, in this case a male buddy film, that was a cinematic trend back in the late 1960s and early 1970s and at that level the movie works as old Joe Buck is ready to go to the mat, in the end, to get old Ratzo out of cold-hearted New York. But here is the “skinny” from personal experience, it is usually too little too late. And so it proved here. This film, moreover, despite my “high sociology” screed above is worth seeing for the outstanding performances of these two actors early on in their careers.
No comments:
Post a Comment