Midnight Cowboy (M18)
Dustin Hoffman/Jon Voight/113 minutes
This 1969 movie is the only X-rated film to have won the Oscar for best picture.
By today’s standards though, the film is almost sweet and naive, like the character of Joe Buck (Voight), who comes to Manhattan to hustle. Though he is quickly outfoxed by the denizens of the city, he never loses his aura of innocence.
At heart, the film is about the relationship between Buck and Ratso Rizzo(Hoffman), a small-time conman – the friendship and love between two desperate and lonely people.
Hoffman’s transformation from the clean-cut Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate(1967) is impressive and Voight turns on the aw-shucks charm as Buck.
There is also a tender and believable chemistry between the two leads.
Still, there’s no denying that the film has aged. What was technically groundbreaking and thematically provocative is no longer so.
Which is where the DVD extras come in useful by setting the historical context of the picture and giving a sketch of director John Schlesinger, who died in 2003.
But, for a two-disc special edition, the extra garnishings are simply too paltry.
(ST)