Review of Midnight Cowboy (1969) by Reece L — 08 Jan 2016

Midnight Cowboy is filthy, though not in the way the X rating would suggest. The sex scenes are nothing special, not in any way worthy of such a ridiculous label, the ultimate filth arriving in the form of greasy foreheads, dirty clothing, ramshackle apartments, disease, and death.

What starts out as an idealistic journey towards a new life quickly becomes a demonstration of the cruelty that comes with living, the harshness of the outside world, and the disgusting underbelly of rich, upperclass living.

This is all fine and good until gay men and trans women are implicated in this squalor, their inclusion indicating their oppression but also coming off queasily homophobic, an obviously unintentional effect given that Schlesinger was gay himself.

It's certainly possible that the two lead characters are gay themselves and suffer with some severe self-loathing, but even so, that wouldn't account for the technical issues. It also suffers from Schlesinger's desire to create a film that serves as a catch-all for late 60s underground culture, the flashy, sloppy, gimmicky direction serving to highlight these elements at the expense of the central narrative.

Midnight Cowboy is a mangled work, a film bursting with ideas that nonetheless disappoints due to its refusal to commit being one of the many types of movies it clearly wants to be.