Midnight Cowboy | Joe’s Your Own Private Ida-hoe

‘‘Uh, well, sir, I ain't no for real cowboy. But I am one helluva stud!’

Everything about Midnight Cowboy is found in its title. The fables of Western gunslingers lit up old Hollywood, but it was in ‘69 that Schlesinger and Salt took the trope and dunked it into the bubbling sewage of NYC - what emerged was a tale of tragedy, the false warmth of facade, the relationship between man and environment, and a homosexual story for the ages.

Midnight Cowboy’s infamy as a secret part of gay cinema’s long history is an intriguing one, to say the least. Its narrative has never been explicitly stated a queer one, and that makes analysis of it all the more interesting to me. I can’t help but scrutinise every little decision made in the film to support that hypotheses from myself, and many others who’ve watched it over the years - Salt’s dialogue, Voight and Hoffman’s general back and forth, Joe’s tragic flashbacks depicting his struggles with heterosexual romance, Rico’s idealistic dreams with Joe in tow - there’s plenty here to chew on. The 60’s was an era where to be gay was to be ostracised, and, in that sense, Midnight Cowboy is a unique sensation, one that accomplishes its goal as an understated queer character piece, despite the clear cultural roadblocks of the time in making such a film.

Watching Jon Voight’s Joe Buck bumble through Texas on his journey to a freedom that doesn’t quite end up being so is, despite feeling in such opposition to it on my first time round, heartbreaking to see on a re-watch. It’s the way he kicks his own wobbly wooden door wide open - where he’s always had log and timber, he’d rather cold city steel. Accompanied by a Harry Nilsson classic, Midnight Cowboy’s opening credits, in a vacuum, are an absolute delight, gearing you up for a journey to paradise that never arrives. After that title drops, we’re always moving with Joe whenever Everybody’s Talkin’ pops on, the classic track a breezy vehicle driving us from town, to road, to city. Much like Fred Neil’s lyrics, Midnight Cowboy is a film with westward coming-of-age implications, but it rots and dies a Big Apple tragedy - the genre is ultimately a facade, much like Joe Buck’s cowboy getup. He may believe it’s an aesthetic rocked for a thicker payload, but as Rico eventually calls attention to, it may be a sign of something deeper - he’s always talking to him, but he doesn’t hear a word he’s saying.

Certain subtleties in Voight’s, as well as Dustin Hoffman’s performances, elevate a generally brilliant and occasionally hilarious hangout-esque script, but where Midnight Cowboy ultimately excels as a masterpiece to me, is how those personal struggles unknown to both characters, are reflected through the environment. To say it’s a scathing commentary on the American Dream is a given - for a place a Southerner drops his whole life for, you’d assume the born and bred Rico Rizzo would only sing NY’s praises, but he’d be dying in the process if he did - which he already is.

The homelessness, the loneliness, the illnesses, it all catches up to him in the final act, just as he wishes to escape to some place else, a sunny place, just like Buck’s homeland that he left without a care. It’s heartbreakingly ironic - two people wanting so desperately to escape their physical spaces, despite how antithetical they both are. In the same way, they’d do anything to escape themselves, from the personas that they’re either in denial of in the case of Joe, or entirely struggling to maintain in the case of Rico. What you want might not impress when you get it, and in the case of Joe Buck, his big city dreams get shot down, and a heartwarming friendship (and would be relationship) is born instead - not the glamour of hustling, nor the love of a woman or a few, but the appreciation of one man. It’s something Joe only realises during the film’s tear-jerking closing moments, and as the screen fades to black, it terrifies me what might be next for him, and for any weary traveller in our own world. Alone in a new city, with almost nothing to his name, and harbouring the memories of another, who loved him more than anyone ever did.

It’s incredible to watch Midnight Cowboy progress into its third act. You’re getting quite far from the last Nilson needle drop, wondering when itself and the comfort through discovery that it brings will ever return… but it never does. As Rico’s health begins to decline, so too is Joe exposed to New York’s filthy underbelly, private parts and all. It will never not impress me that this film came out in 1969 for a multitude of reasons, but I was entirely flawed by the closing act’s night club scenes. Voight plays Joe with such childlike innocence, with such infantile perspectives on sex and intimacy, to a point where, here, him being swamped by the gothic, artsy side of city loving, makes me want to vomit. David Lynch’s signature avant-guarde style of filmmaking is essentially impossible to replicate, but it speaks to the quality of this side of Midnight Cowboy and its ease at inducing such discomfort through sound and colour that it’s honestly the closest I’ve ever felt to watching a film of his that isn’t his, despite it releasing so many years prior to Eraserhead. I had no clue what on earth was going on during this section of the film, but as a reflection of Joe’s own confused haze about this fabled perfect city reaching a climax, it’s pretty fantastic. There were instant flashbacks for me to Fire Walk With Me’s bar scene… 

… frankly, that’s not something I like being reminded of, and if that speaks to the film’s fittingly jarring tonal shift, and how effectively DoP Adam Holender pulls off the film’s uneasy zenith, then go and give this gem a deserved watch if you haven’t already, if you like your films dark and daring. It’s an immensely sad story, one that seeks to portray the average coming-of-age experience in America, but stripped of the typical gloss and glamour that comes with the genre and setting. It’s earnest to the extent that it almost feels comforting to me, as someone in his early 20’s who’s still figuring the world out - a warning that your greatest dream may just mutate into your worst nightmare. 

Written By Jack Mortimer | IG: @jackcmortimer