Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy

Nancy Buirski's documentary recounts the society, making, and impact of John Schlesinger's movie.

Because it begins by assuming that the audience watching this movie has no idea that the 1960s happened, let alone what went on, I found myself annoyed at first. Yes, I remember the uproar about the the Viet Nam War. Yes, I knew that the New York City I visited once or twice a week was not the one seen in Hollywood musicals of the 1940s. So that was wasted time for me. Yet, in making this documentary, I believe Ms Buirski made a good choice. Every year, new audiences come up, more and more divorced from the 1960s.

Otherwise, it's good to put faces to names, like Jon Voigt more than half a century later, and Lucy Sante, who wrote Low Life, a great book about the City's lower classes. I don't think this is of much utility to me or people like me, but to a younger audience, or one less versed in film history, it will prove invaluable.

Using the currency of the moment to tie in other trendy things.. A stockbroker mentality. Where was the "Midnight Cowboy" stuff? They took a short interview with Jon Voigt and spliced it up and inserted a bit every 15 minutes.. And there's one old Dustin Hoffman audio they used.. I'm a left-winger, and this trendy justice whorior thing just bugged me. They are just making money off the latest thing that makes money. Nothing else.

It's a great movie, but I would have loved to have heard more interviews, more archives.. I don't need some 24-year old to explain the movie to me. It was nice to have some audio from the writer, who has been forgotten in cinema.

Immense insights into the filmmaking world as it turned on a fulcrum in the heavy and turbulent days of the making of Midnight Cowboy (1969) and an explanation of how a gay British filmmaker could make a wildly successful and popular X-rated film about a bisexual cowboy hustler and his tramp friend as they battled to survive on the dirty streets of New York City. Jon Voight provides essential commentary and the chaotic zeitgeist of the late 60s is carefully explored.

Film lovers will appreciate the insider's perspective and the tales about the production and others will gain a keen sense of the volatility of American culture during those years.

The stuff about John Schlesinger was interesting and I like how director Nancy Buirski connected this great film of his with the transformation of homosexuality into gay that was occurring in western society in the 60s. I also like how she placed "Cowboy" in the underground NYC tradition of Warhol and Scorsese (although a nod to previous such works like "Shadows" and "Sweet Smell Of Success" would have been nice). However, I cannot go along with Buirski in what I take to be her belief that this film is somehow unique in its expression of 60s edginess and rebellion. I can easily think of several works with an equal claim to 60s envelope pushing personification, such as "Wild Bunch", "Easy Rider" and, especially, "Bonnie And Clyde", which goes strangely unmentioned. I also could have done with more Dustin Hoffman and less Jon Voight. That MAGA maniac from Yonkers is never more off putting than when putting on a Texas charm offensive, as he does here.

So, a mixed bag. Ultimately, my biggest positive takeaway was being introduced to the work of documentarian Buirski who I was sorry to hear had died recently, only in her late 50s. TCM's showing two of her other docs and I look forward to seeing them. B minus.

Right up top we are told "This is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy." OK, I'm down with that. But what it IS about is never totally clear. I think the filmmaker had some ideas, but never really figured it out. So it comes off as disorganized and uncertain, and therefore ultimately, fan service.

Particularly effective was a montage near the beginning intercutting shots from the movie with shots of New York streets in the same era. It is quite effective, as often the only way we can tell is the clarity of the footage itself. Really brings home that this movie was bringing to life a real time and place. And Jon Voight comes off really well in his interview snippets.

But the big problem here is a lack of organization and a clear point. The sprawling and ambiguous title itself should tell you something.

About half the movie is spent talking about homosexuality, ostensibly because there were a couple inferences to it in the movie. But it's WAY out of proportion, going into early portrayals of gay life in many other movies. Huh? Get back to the point, or rather, find one. My wife and I are big fans of Midnight Cowboy, seen it multiple times, and neither of us came away with anything overtly gay about it. Yet to watch this movie one would think they're talking about Brokeback Mountain. One interviewee who gets a lot of screen time (much more than Voight) is a transexual whose relation to Midnight Cowboy is never clear. While this person is a good interview and has a lot of interesting observations, his inclusion in the movie implies there is another motivation at play by the filmmaker. Who was that guy and why is he so central? Not clear.

Like so many low budget documentaries, this one suffers from their not having enough material and/or enough research to make a satisfying movie out of. So they took what they had, and what results is rather incoherent.

This is a nitpick, but the last few moments of the movie bring us to the most heart-wrenching scenes from the movie, interspersed with gruesome shots from the Vietnam War, and the music underscoring it is not Everybody's Talkin', not the soaring John Barry score (which we never hear except in a brief cover, they didn't get the rights to use it obviously) but "A Lover's Concerto" by the Toys, completely out of character, not to mention being from years before Midnight Cowboy or Vietnam and entirely out of character. It's really strange and totally undercuts the end of the documentary.