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.