The first person who gets the correct answer to the following riddle has completed her weekly assignment to post. The rest of you -- we'll call you the 'losers' for lack of a better term, still have to post. Good luck.
This "thing" is a central part, or at least an ancillary part of 99% of all films.
Films that don't have it organically almost always have it added somehow.
Midnight Cowboy does not have it.
And yet, it does have it, just in modified form.
And it is much more satisfyingly portrayed here than in 99% of the other 99%.
Its unique handling is what makes this a timeless film and a great film, in 1969 or anytime.
It's not a sled.
What is it?
Is it a sort of love story? Midnight Cowboy does not have a traditional love story, but it does have a very powerful one. The relationship between Joe and Ratso continued to grow. Their friendship was one that is rarely seen in movies. Although it sounds weird, it felt as though they were in love. Hopefully i explained the idea well enough and you understand my point...
ReplyDeleteThe winner is declared. Congratulations to everyone else for being smart enough to agree with you.
DeleteI agree with Enzo. I think its the traditional love story. Every movie has some sort of attraction between two characters may it be passionate or friendly and simply innocent. Midnight Cowboy portrays the friendship more as a huge hidden love between the two characters that it is not noticable because they never actually profess their love towards one another but by Joe's action you can tell the love he has for Ratso epecially at towards the end of the film. They created a bond that really wasn't expected at first when Ratso conned him. But at the end when he held Ratso's or "Rico's" dead body it showed his compassion towards his friend who through our eyes became his family.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Enzo and Tiffany. Some sort of love, or bond formed attempting to be formed. You see in Midnight Cowboy and in All Quiet on the Western Front the obvious brotherly bond formed between Joe and Ratso, and Paul and Kat respectively, while in Citizen Kane Kane's goal is to make everyone love him. Each great movie tells a story of a lost created or lost, a bond that can never be replaced by something else.
ReplyDeleteI say its more than love that's in all movies. Its some sort of companionship or relationship between either characters or things. Here, in Midnight Cowboy, the relationship between Joe and Ratso is very intense. We get a feeling as if they are just two parts of a whole. They really do complete each other here, which is sad because Joe has lost his a part of him. This is now, and probably will be my favorite movie. Not only in film class, but just overall.
ReplyDeleteRatso and Joe's relationship grows and matures throughout the movie to a brotherly love. Although some of the scenes may come off as homoerotic, we know that is not the type of relationship the two characters have because we have watched them progress and grow close. They started off as two strangers but their circumstances led them to share intimate and compelling moments together that most friends would never experience. The directors purposefully showed this "romance" to signify that love can be found in all situations whether they are actually romantic or just between two people that share a close bond.
ReplyDeleteOk. Contest over. Vince wins. But, rather than kicking this up again, please comment on Midnight Cowboy in some intelligent way based upon what you saw or what we spoke about in class. Extra credit for original thought and thoughtful disagreement
ReplyDeleteI thought Midnight Cowboy was a pretty good movie, it had a pretty good story, unusual and different, but good. My favorite part of the movie was the end when Joe Buck throws away all of his cowboy clothes, it just shows how some experiences in a short period of time could change a person and make them completely different than the person they knew their whole life. The movie was good, however the ending was extremely sad, and now the song that plays throughout the movie, is my ringtone.
ReplyDeleteI thought midnight cowboy is a perfect portrayal of prostitution from a negative perspective. However, it does have something very unique that I never saw before. So far, I read a lot of works on why prostitution is bad, and what it could lead to. However, I still felt like I got something new from midnight cowboy that I never saw before. After giving it some thought, I realized it's that the movie makes shows us the characters (by showing their facial expressions and their moods), which makes us relate to them in a different way than in books. Because of this, I felt like I bonded much more with the characters, which made the lesson of the movie seem far more powerful. The other movies I saw about this topic didn't make me bond to the characters as well, so the overall message of these movies didn't influence me as well as midnight cowboy did. I could be wrong however, maybe I just didn't watch the right movies. In essence, I think midnight cowboy made me feel something about prostitution that I never saw before.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe Midnight Cowboy.
ReplyDeleteEverybody's Talkin' at me,
I don't hear a word they're saying,
Only the echos of my mind....
Alright, this movie was interesting enough. It came out in 1969, but the Original Post mentions that... This movie, besides having the underlying theme of fraternity, as previously mentioned, Is all about personas, how we make ourselves out to be, and thus, how others perceive us. The film opens of a Drive-in Theater's white screen and zooms out. It makes the viewer feel like they are leaving the movies, making the movie itself seem more realistic. Jon Voight opens the next scene where her proceeds to drop the soap, alluding to the homoerotic.This is probably one reason why the film was X-rated. Joe Buck (Voight) proceeds to walk in his small town, passing a closed theatre that was showing John Wayne in The Alamo. This represents that Western flicks are dead. further confirmation of this is that Joe Buck travels east to New York.
Buck takes on the persona of a cowboy hustler. In his travels in New York, he meets Ratso who plays the persona of a conman and thief. The two are an odd pair, a Cowboy and a Conman. Both Buck and Ratso look back on their past, which leads them to play into their persona more. The height of this is when they both decide to go to the party. Buck spend his time taking drugs and playing his role as a stud, while Ratso robs the doped up populace blind. Ratso develops a cough through the progression of the film, and it also leads to his death. before he dies, Buck shows his disapproval of being a conman thief by taking care of Ratso wit his gigolo money.Buck also grows out of his role as a Cowboy gigolo by throwing away his outfit and commenting that he wasn't much of a stud. Though Ratso dies, his time with Ratso helped Buck grow from a kid travelling to New York expecting to live the life, to a more experienced kid in Florida.
On Homosexuality, this movie seems to condemn homosexual relations, aka gay sex,(such as when Towny gets beat up) but reaffirm the idea of fraternity for your fellow man, which Buck shares with Ratso. The Homoerotic images should provoke the audience's mind to the hidden meaning. Buck had a moment of impotence once, and when asked if he was gay, that got him going. Homosexuality is defiantly a motif, along with the acquirement of mony and isolation which is reflected upon in the (awesome) song "Everyone's Talkin'". Dustin Hoffman did a good job as Ratso.
INteresting commentary. I don't think the film is anti-gay, however. The message seems to be that people are influenced by what societry tells them are positive or negative roles. The older gay man hates himself because his religion tells him it is wrong to be gay. The condemnation appears to be more on his religion than on him.
DeleteI really enjoyed midnight cowboy because seeing Jon voight and dustin hoffman at their young career really allowed me to see the the diversity each actor presents in the industry. Speaking about the movie, i agree with richie because Joe did change over a short period of time through his experience with Ratso and the ending really surprised me because i thought ratso would at least be able to enjoy florida but obviously not. he was only able to view it through the bus ride. My favorite part was the scene with the Christian fanatic trying to convert him because basically everyone in the class thought he was a gay guy trying to have sex with Joe after Ratso deceived him.
ReplyDeleteI quite enjoyed Midnight Cowboy because it was a creative film in many areas such as characters, plot, and resolution. Additionally, I thought the acting was good because I was absorbed the movie and actually believed the characters. I didn't think Jon Voight was playing Joe Buck and Dustin Hoffman was playing Ratso, I thought Joe Buck was Joe Buck and Ratso was Ratso. The plot of Midnight Cowboy was pretty interesting because it was original; there aren't many movies out there about gigolos. Finally, I kind of liked the ending, although Ratso dies, because it shows Joe maturing as a character.
ReplyDeleteDeuce Bigilo European Gigolo-great movie
DeleteYeah, that's true...
DeleteThe themes of delusion and isolation in Midnight Cowboy were present throughout the film. Joe Buck constantly deludes himself to be a "stud" and a "hustler" that he believes would get many women in New York. With only a suitcase and matching cowboy getup, Joe takes a bus from Texas to NYC with great expectations. Ratso has this delusion of Florida to be a place of beaches, women, and sunshine; most likely caused by the poster of Florida he had that hung on the wall of his dirty apartment. Accompanying this ongoing theme of delusion are a few elder women that put on more makeup than they should, deluding themselves to believe they are younger. Examples of isolation, or even alienation, is also present in this film, where Joe is wandering alone on the crowded streets of NYC. A part of the film that caught my attention would be the parallelism between the beginning and the end where Joe is taking a bus to a new destination. In both situations, he arrives alone. By the end of the film, Joe drops his delusions, but still ends up alienated. The ending dialogue, being similar to the one in All Quiet on the Western Front when Kat dies, had caught my interest. In both, the directors showed one of the men talking about their future plans together, unaware that their companion had just passed away. Answering "no" to the question of being kin to the deceased really breaks the viewer's heart, but contributes to the quality of raw companionship between two men.
ReplyDeleteI think Midnight Cowboy is a great look into our society, and how we change with the "new". The idea of the western cowboy is an old-fashioned idea today. You won't see anyone, with the exception of the naked cowboys in Greenwich village, walking around in a cowboy uniform. Joe bucks clothes are a delineation of society. When he threw them out, society threw the idea of the west out. This is proven in the begingin of the film, when he walks by the broken down theatre playing a john wayne movie. I believe this is an amazing movie, if you ignore the horribly concocted sex scenes.
ReplyDeletePosting about Citizen Kane because I posted about MC last week:
ReplyDeleteTo me, Citizen Kane was not the movie I believed it was going to be. The movie didn't truly engage me, and it didn't connect me with the characters I thought it would. At times, I felt bad for Kane, but right after I began to feel this way he would do something and I would be completely severed from any emotion again. The same thing happened with the side characters. I thought that Kane's second wife was going to evoke some sort of emotion from me, and although at times I did feel bad for her, she just seemed annoying. I thought that Citizen Kane was going to be a powerful movie, that would make me nearly cry for all the hardship the characters went through, and the downfall of its main character, but it really did nothing for me. I didn't enjoy the plot line much either. It seemed very mundane and ordinary.
I was going to say that the story did not have that traditional love story, but it seems like everyone else already beat me to it LOL. As you said in class, it didn't have that traditional love story every movie seems to have, but you could say it did portray Ratso as some sort of 'love interest'. Ratso and Joe had developed such a close relationship that, heck, it as if they were in love. Joe's actions toward Ratso did not seem homosexual, though there are hints throughout the movie of Joe's confusion, but rather brotherly and they did not make you uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteIn Midnight Cowboys, the theme delusion was present through the film. Joe is an eager youth moving from the country to the city, where he carries the simplicities about the urban world; he thinks New York is filled with rich women and he is able to make a as a hustler. He deludes himself when says “I'm not a real cowboy, but I'm one hell of a stud!” Ratso also deludes himself with the dreams with the vision of going to Florida where the beaches are filled with women and sunshine unlike the cold New York. In the film, New York is painted as an uncomfortable society of ladies, city covered with advertising, money and cheap hustlers. Throughout the film, we are offered some clues about the root of Joe’s loneliness and despair through his memories of growing up as an ignored child and being raped, but we never seem to learn much about Ratso. All we know is that he grew up in the slums with a limp and a terrible cough and later dies of sickness; we never really understand Ratso as a character and what makes him tick, except for going to Florida.
ReplyDeleteGood comments. I agree that we know a lot more about Joe, and he is the title character, of course. But, Ratso does give us some background, particularly about his father. So, he is not without pathos, I'd say.
Deletei really enjoyed the movie a major topic that is being discussed is if joe is gay or not. I believe he is gay i might be wrong here but i believe it was a gay bar that Joe and Ratso met at.Also the fact that joe would run away with this man show's that they would have something more than being best friends. It show's that he was gay or at least bisexual. also the not so hidden gay image's kinda suggests it.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Midnight Cowboy was a really good and fun movie to watch. I really enjoyed both Joe and Ratso because of their unique personalities. When Ratso died on the bus, I was deeply saddened because I thought that he was a wonderful person with a really likable personality. What saddened me even more was the fact that Ratso never really got to experience Florida for himself. It was his dream to go to Florida. He heard all sorts of great things on the radio and always fantasized. This is a theme in the whole movie: thinking that you are something that you really aren't, or deluding yourself. Throughout the whole film, I was trying to catch every sexual reference for the fun of it and I thought that some very very clever. Overall, I really enjoyed this film because of the characteristics of Joe and Ratso.
ReplyDeleteMidnight Cowboy was unlike any other movie I'd seen in the sense that the theme of the movie is love and lust, yet there is no true relationship. Joe and Ratso share somewhat of a sentimental relationship, but there seems to be no physical attraction. The director adds small hints and innuendos to imply a physical relationship, and to make the audience think. Joe is continually struggling with memories from his past, and is motivated by his past. There is also the underlying theme of deception. Throughout the film various characters lie about themselves, and portray themselves as someone that they clearly are not.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed Midnight Cowboy more than I had the other film. It is more relevant to our time especially today when homoeroticism is a theme in our culture. I never saw John Voight and Dustin Hoffman in their younger days so it was nice to see that. The big themes in the movie such as uncleanliness, redemption, and fellowship all were things that reached out to me. Coming from Texas, Joe deluded himself that he was a ladies man who happened to be a cowboy as well. Ratso told himself his name was Rico and that he would eventually make it to Miami and live it up. In reality both of these characters were far from their own imaginations, with Joe being a broke wannabe cowboy and Ratso being a broke street urchin. While the film may not shy away from controversial topics such as the gay scene in New York, the director preserves the purity of Joe throughout all the adversity he faces, despite more than a few bad choices. Above all was the camaraderie that Joe and Ratso shared with one another, a theme that left a lasting imprint on viewers.
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed Midnight Cowboys. I thought it had many interesting themes that are still very prevalent in society. One theme that I recognized is delusion. The art of deluding oneself is portrayed throughout the movie. At first, Joe deludes himself that he is a stud and that he is going to get all the women in Manhattan. In addition, he looks at himself as a cowboy even though he is clearly not and now lives in an urban environment. Ratso is another character to constantly deludes himself. He thinks that moving to Florida will solve all his problems and has a naive assumption that Florida will make him happy. Minor characters such as the women Joe fantasized himself with who stated she was 28 when he clearly was much older and the women on the bus who was putting on makeup help convey the theme of delusion. However at the end of the film, we see Joe finally giving up lying to himself by throwing out his cowboy outfit and stating to the waiter that he is from New York. These events are symbolic because he accepts who he is and does not want to live a lie anymore. Another theme I would like to comment on is brotherly love. Ratso and Joe have a very superficial relationship at first. Joe has a very hard time trusting Ratso and it just does not seem like a real relationship. However, as time goes by, there is a special bond that develops between them. Such a bond is displayed in small, minor events such as when Joe zips up Ratso's zipper. This scene was not meant to portray homoeroticism, but rather to emphasize how great their friendship has become. Of course, the fact that Joe takes Ratso to Florida shows just how much he cares for him and how much their relationship grew . Sad that Ratso never made it though....
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