Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy
- 2022
- 1 Std. 41 Min.
IMDb-BEWERTUNG
7,0/10
317
IHRE BEWERTUNG
Füge eine Handlung in deiner Sprache hinzuFollows the behind-the-scenes odyssey to get Asphalt-Cowboy (1969) produced, as well as the tumultuous era in which the movie was released and embraced.Follows the behind-the-scenes odyssey to get Asphalt-Cowboy (1969) produced, as well as the tumultuous era in which the movie was released and embraced.Follows the behind-the-scenes odyssey to get Asphalt-Cowboy (1969) produced, as well as the tumultuous era in which the movie was released and embraced.
- Auszeichnungen
- 2 Nominierungen insgesamt
Waldo Salt
- Self
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
- (Synchronisation)
John Schlesinger
- Self
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
Adam Holender
- Self - Cinematographer
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
- (Synchronisation)
Lucy Sante
- Self - Author, 'Low Life'
- (as Luc Sante)
Dustin Hoffman
- Self
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
- (Synchronisation)
Marsha P. Johnson
- Self - Activist, Murdered July 6, 1992
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
- (Nur genannt)
Joseph N. Welch
- Self - U.S. Army Chief Counsel
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
Joseph McCarthy
- Self
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
- (as Sen. Joseph McCarthy)
Roy M. Cohn
- Self
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
Charles Socarides
- Self
- (Archivfilmmaterial)
- (as Dr. Charles Socarides)
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It's unfortunate when a filmmaker sets out to pay tribute to a cinematic classic yet somehow manages to mangle the effort, but, regrettably, that's precisely what happened in writer-director Nancy Buirski's attempted homage to John Schlesinger's "Midnight Cowboy" (1969), the only X-rated release ever to win the Oscar for best picture. The scattered narrative of this poorly constructed documentary seems to focus on virtually everything except the film itself, drawing upon an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink approach to explaining what influenced this screen epic rather than what went into the making of the picture itself. While it's certainly enlightening and helpful to provide viewers with sufficient back story about the timing of a movie's production and the filmmaking influences that helped shape it, these practices nevertheless become a burdensome distraction when they dominate the documentary's content and overshadow what made its supposed subject matter so noteworthy in the first place. As a consequence, the flow of this offering is about as unwieldy as its title, jumping around from ancillary subject to ancillary subject and often providing only the most tangential connections to its alleged core material. Granted, there are a few moderately interesting anecdotes here and there, as well as a few insightful references to how "Midnight Cowboy" went on to influence a number of subsequent film productions. But even the contemporary and archive interviews with director John Schlesinger, screenwriters Waldo Salt and James Leo Herlihy, and cast members Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman, Brenda Vaccaro, Jennifer Salt and Bob Balaban shed little meaningful new light on this highly regarded offering. Perhaps the biggest problem here is that the underlying story of this documentary turned out to be inherently thinner than the filmmaker thought it was and that she chose to pad the material to artificially extend its length (although coming up with an entirely different narrative or editing the current one down to a film short would have been better options). It's too bad this one fared as it has, as it's a release that I truly looked forward to screening. It's indeed one thing to establish a story in the context of its times and influences and to do it correctly (as was very much the case, for example, with the David Bowie documentary "Moonage Daydream" (2022)), but this offering, sadly, is a prime example of how not to do it. "Midnight Cowboy" certainly deserved better than this, and one's time would definitely be better spent watching the original than this failed attempt at honoring it.
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.
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.
Wusstest du schon
- WissenswertesEPILOGUE: "On a budget of $3.6 million, Asphalt-Cowboy (1969) grossed $44.8 million. John Schlesinger won the Academy Award® for Best Director over Costa-Gavras, George Roy Hill, Arthur Penn and Sydney Pollack. Waldo Salt won the Academy Award® for Best Adapted Screenplay. John Schlesinger went on to make films in America and abroad, working again with Dustin Hoffman on the highly successful Der Marathon-Mann (1976). Jon Voight won an Academy Award® for Best Actor in Coming home - Sie kehren heim (1978), written by Waldo Salt. Jennifer Salt retired from acting and became a successful screenwriter like her father. She and Jon Voight bump into each other at the neighborhood Hollywood deli. James Leo Herlihy contracted AIDS in 1992. A year later, at the age of 66, he took his own life. Asphalt-Cowboy (1969)'s X rating was eventually changed to an R without altering any of the films content."
- VerbindungenFeatures Straight Shooting (1917)
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- Erscheinungsdatum
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- Auch bekannt als
- La leyenda del cowboy de medianoche
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Box Office
- Bruttoertrag in den USA und Kanada
- 55.124 $
- Eröffnungswochenende in den USA und in Kanada
- 8.734 $
- 25. Juni 2023
- Weltweiter Bruttoertrag
- 55.124 $
- Laufzeit1 Stunde 41 Minuten
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By what name was Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy (2022) officially released in India in English?
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