Midnight Cowboy at 50

[Crunchy Col]

But yes to your assessment of Halliwell!

[fange]

Fabulous film - emotionally wrenching and so visually stunning at times, and the music is often as perfect as a soundtrack can be.

[Crunchy Col]

[lokie]

John Barry was a god.

[Deleted]

i'd go as far as to say it's my favourite film soundtrack.

[Sneelock]

I love it. one for the time capsule. people who need people aren't necessarily the luckiest people in the world.
I'd like to say a word about Jon Voight. There is no doubt that as a politicized celebrity that few are as unbearable as Jon Voight. However, I think, as an actor, that he is uniformly excellent. I don't think you'll find the guy slumming no matter how unenlightened the project might be. I think he always gives 110% and is easily one of the very best movie actors of his generation. He can do one dimensional bad guys and kindly dad figures and everything in between. he is always engaged. I think he's terrific... as an actor.

when he talks about Obama founding ISIS and such - I find him much less convincing.

[loveless]

I love it to bits.

The era in which I was a young child was one of "excessive permissiveness", so I remember watching this with my folks when it came on television WELL before I was 10. I mean, the bit about the remote control changing the channels during a sex scene seemed funny to me in exactly the way you'd expect it to amuse a young child.

It's grim and bleak and so on, but...there is something about the way that Ratso and Joe are thrown (and stick) together that strikes me as, I dunno, "prominent humanity".

[tory]

I was at a party in Australia once where Jon Voight turned up. He was shooting some Noah or Moses miniseries apparently. He was a bit rancid looking IIRC

[Deleted]

Oct 3, 2019 11:05:13 GMT tory said:

I was at a party in Australia once where Jon Voight turned up. He was shooting some Noah or Moses miniseries apparently. He was a bit rancid looking IIRC

There was quite a long period when he seemed to disappear off our screens, I think he might have had problems with the booze. I remember being surprised when he turned up in Heat out of the blue and being somewhat shocked by his appearance.

[tory]

He displays a truly awful mullet in that film.

[Sneelock]

I know people who volunteer to be "seat fillers" at the Emmy broadcast. when the cameras look out over the auditorium they want no empty seats to show so when people are presenting or having a tinkle they make sure all the seats are filled. their reward for doing this is to go to the official party after the show where they can enjoy the buffet and open bar.

anyway, nowadays since "selfies" are so common and so requested. the celebrities do very little hob nobbing with the great unwashed and manage to keep to themselves. Jon Voight is apparently quite the exception. I've heard a few stories of him not only stopping for selfies but making small talk and thanking people for their interest.

I'd love to say bad things about him but I've heard from several people that he's a prince of a guy.

[Deleted]

Sept 28, 2019 19:15:42 GMT Crunchy Col said:

Among other things he documents Ratso's decline and eventual death coldly, and at times almost graphically. And pretty much every figure in the film is lost and lonely.

There really is no heart in the film and I'd be surprised if you see it differently.

I never replied to this at the time, and it's been many years since I've watched the film, but surely the "heart" in the film is in the way these two oddball, initially very opposed,  characters manage to develop a friendship that is genuinely heartfelt and caring.

[Crunchy Col]

Well, that's what Loveless said too. But what stops me getting behind that idea completely is the fact that it's mutually dependent in all the wrong ways. I don't see a great deal of love between them. Some, maybe. It's more about Ratso exploiting his new buddy - and that isn't hidden.

Joe Buck develops an affection for Ratso by the end, for sure.

[daveythefatboy]

Apr 14, 2021 11:33:11 GMT Crunchy Col said:

Well, that's what Loveless said too. But what stops me getting behind that idea completely is the fact that it's mutually dependent in all the wrong ways. I don't see a great deal of love between them. Some, maybe. It's more about Ratso exploiting his new buddy - and that isn't hidden.

Joe Buck develops an affection for Ratso by the end, for sure.

Its a movie about love, but with these men, “healthy love” isn’t really a possibility. These characters have been warped by their environment and lack of love so long, that neither is capable of functioning in any way we would recognize as normal.

But it is a real love on both sides. Mostly animated by shared delusion. These guys live in cartoon delusions about themselves: That Joe Buck is some kind of elite male escort stud, and that Ratso is a business savvy operator. Nobody else in the world sees either of them that way. Only in each other’s eyes does the other find validation. That’s heady stuff.

[bungo the mungo]

has anyone else read the book? i loved it. buck's earlier years, which are only hinted at briefly in the film, are much more vivid in the book.