Midnight Cowboy is a masterpiece of queer filmmaking
TERRY VANDIVORT | Contributing Writer
TV75218@aol.com
It’s 1969, and Midnight Cowboy is the buzz. The unsparing look at New York and its forbidden gay subculture make it irresistible — a must-see film.
Destiny: I see the film three weeks before my first trip to New York. 42nd Street calls me with its jaded hustlers leaning against walls, competing for the passing dollars. Their masculinity mesmerizes me. I need oxygen.
Midnight Cowboy begins with a series of short, active clips: Joe Buck, the uber juicy Jon Voight singing in the shower, zipping up his pants, packing and grabbing his cowhide suitcase. And, as he walks, “Everybody’s Talkin” kicks into gear.
This is my favorite film theme ever. It’s jaunty and full of promise, and it sends Joe onto his bus ride for New York to be a rich lady’s stud. His portable radio, ever at his ear, charts the journey.
Throughout this sequence, glimpses of Joe’s life appear. He was raised by his grandma, and they have an uncomfortably intimate relationship. Shortly before the bus ride, we flash back to a dim black-and-white scene of Joe and his girlfriend, “Crazy Annie,” who was gang-raped by a bunch of thugs.
Midnight Cowboy
This rape underlies Joe’s odyssey to New York, and, when he is eventually forced to hustle, it presents a real dilemma to his means of survival.
New York. Cheap hotel room. Pay TV. But his window overlooks Times Square, and Joe’s inherent optimism brightens at the possibilities.
This is as good as it’s going to get.
Walking the streets of the city, Joe runs across a man who is passed out — or dead — directly in front of Tiffany’s, and everyone just walks past. At first amused, Joe still knows this isn’t right. But, bewildered, he finally gives up and moves on.
I saw this scenario repeatedly on my trip, and I moved on. New York demands it.
On the move, searching, Joe meets the great Sylvia Miles walking her dog, and she invites him upstairs to her apartment. They both expect money. The placement and writing of this scene is creative perfection. After the roll in the hay, when Joe asks her for money, Sylvia becomes undone, goes ballistic and expertly manipulates him into pay her most of his money.
Joe’s fall into desperation and homelessness, and the city begins devouring him, encounter by encounter. Sitting in a diner, he is approached by street smart hustler Ratso Rizzo, who has spied him as a mark. Ratso, coughing almost constantly (eventually it is revealed he has tuberculosis) sets him up with a “pimp” named Daniels for a fee.
Daniels is played by comic actor, John McGiver who could and should have won the Oscar. He’s a terrifying religious fanatic with a lighted Jesus attached to his bathroom door. He tries to force Joe to his knees to worship. Joe escapes, but a series of events overtakes him.
With no money, he is locked out of his hotel room. He makes the decision to hustle on 42nd Street, and a young man follows him into a theater. It’s a doubly tragic scene: When the kid sits down, he puts his arm around Joe, leaning his head on his shoulder. The loneliness, the need to feel the warmth of another man’s body is awkward and heartbreaking, but when he goes down on Joe, our perspective becomes Joe’s reaction during the blowjob.
Cue flashbacks to sexually charged grandma and the gang rape alternating with the pain on Joe’s face, enduring what he must to survive. But the kid has no money, so Joe, furious, storms out with nothing for his trauma.
Wandering aimlessly, he spies Ratso in a diner and confronts him furiously, leading Ratso to insist Joe come stay with him. Reluctantly, Joe agrees. It’s a ramshackle, abandoned building, but here is where the story becomes a gloriously unlikely love affair between two men, love blossoming from their loneliness, homelessness and need for human contact. They work together to survive: stealing, picking pockets, giving blood. There’s typical family squabbling, much of it funny.
While in a diner, a couple (one of whom is Warhol superstar Viva) spot Joe and invite him to a party. He and Ratso attend.
It’s a major set-piece, ala The Factory, with drugs and sex and Warholian oddities are everywhere. Ratso stuffs food in his clothes; Joe is doing drugs and tripping out happily when he sees Shirley (Brenda Vacarro in a juicy role) who teases him but is fascinated by his innocence.
As they leave together, Ratso falls down the stairs, ominously sicker. But the rendezvous with Shirley nets much-needed money.
Joe gets food and medical supplies for Ratso. But when he gets home, Ratso tells him he can’t walk any more. It’s clear that if they’re going to get to Florida for Ratso, they need money now. So Joe goes for one last hustle which ends badly when the man who picks Joe up won’t give him enough money for the bus trip. So Joe assaults him and takes all his money.
Then the film cuts to the two guys on a bus to Miami. Ratso’s in bad shape, and Jon Voight’s face is etched in dread as he tries to make his friend comfortable, joking occasionally to stave off his fear. In Miami, Joe buys them some new tropical clothes and dresses Ratso. Minutes later, Joe says something to Ratso, but there’s no response. He tries to rouse him, but he’s dead.
So close.
Joe wraps his arm around Ratso’s shoulder. As the bus continues, the camera holds on Joe and Ratso, Voight’s face sunken into fear and loss of love. In total silence, Jon Voight shows the entire journey of the film.
The last shot, outside the bus window where Joe is holding Ratso, we see the reflection of Miami buildings and palm trees across the two friends. They make it to Miami, but Joe is once again alone. Full circle.
This masterpiece directed by queer visionary John Schlesinger achieved the almost impossible. It changed my life forever.