Midnight Cowboy
Ratso Rizzo: The two basic items necessary to sustain life, are sunshine and coconut milk. Didya know that? That's a fact! In Florida, they got a terrific amount of coconut trees there. In fact, I think they even got 'em in the, eh, gas stations over there.
For such a very well known film I actually knew nearly nothing of it except the famous improv: "I'm WALKIN here!" so I spent a lot of my viewing time a little surprised at all that was going on via disturbing flashbacks and Joe Buck's (Jon Voight) daydreaming of how things were and what they could be presently. A rather tricky technique to pull off, the Director, John Schlesinger does a very commendable job of sliding in and out without confusing us as to what is what.
I did find myself thinking: I'm surprised @
cricket never nominated this film since it seemed right up his alley. And, that I'm glad to have seen this now, having grown to appreciate the craft beneath the "shock" due to the films he has nominated previously.
What, on the surface appears as nothing more than a kind of porn of an uncomfortable nature; every sex scene is committed with some form of degradation or the like,
Midnight Cowboy has something more going on beyond the filthy existence of 42nd Street. That something lies in the incredible talent of its two leading men. Especially Dustin Hoffman who holds nothing back in his performance of a greasy cripple, and the friendship that develops between the two of them.
Though, much like the remainder of the film, it is not something definitive but, like everything else, it just sorta hits you and slips away before you can truly react or fully comprehend how you feel and why.
So much so that when I finished the film, intent on writing my review, I couldn't.
Unlike other similar films that insisted on an unadulterated, instantaneous reaction, even now, I still seem a little. . . off.
Kind of like how Joe's flashbacks shift from his perceptions of what occurred to what truly did, I am in a state of acclimation of what I have viewed and a more fully, complete reaction to it all.
And that is very much a compliment.
So, thank you to whomever nominated this for me.