Oscar nominees Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman try to make it in the big city in John Schlesinger’s powerful and moving MIDNIGHT COWBOY
MIDNIGHT COWBOY (John Schlesinger, 1969)
BAMcinématek, BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave. between Ashland Pl. & St. Felix St.
Friday, October 7, 2:00 & 7:00
Series runs October 7-9
718-636-4100
www.bam.org
In 1968, John Lennon proclaimed, “Nilsson! Nilsson for president!” The race might have been between Richard M. Nixon and Hubert Humphrey, but the smart Beatle was declaring his support for Brooklyn-born singer-songwriter Harry Nilsson, who had covered the Fab Four’s “You Can’t Do That” on 1967’s Pandemonium Shadow Show, a version that incorporated twenty other Beatles songs in its brief two minutes and sixteen seconds. Nilsson, who died in 1994 at the age of fifty-two, would have turned seventy-five this year, so BAM is celebrating his career as a film composer and sometime actor with the BAMcinématek weekend series “Nilsson Schmilsson,” named after his Grammy-nominated 1971 album. The three-day, five-film fest begins with John Schlesinger’s masterful Midnight Cowboy, which stars Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight as the worst hustlers ever. The only X-rated film to win a Best Picture Oscar, Midnight Cowboy follows the exploits of Joe Buck, a friendly sort of chap who leaves his small Texas town, determined to make it as a male prostitute in Manhattan. Wearing his cowboy gear and clutching his beloved transistor radio, he trolls the streets with little success. Things take a turn when he meets up with Enrico Salvatore “Ratso” Rizzo (Hoffman), an ill, hobbled con man living in a condemned building. The two loners soon develop an unusual relationship as Buck is haunted by nightmares, shown in black-and-white, about his childhood and a tragic event that happened to him and his girlfriend, Crazy Annie (Jennifer Salt), while Rizzo dreams of a beautiful life, depicted in bright color, without sickness or limps on the beach in Miami.
Adapted by Waldo Salt (Serpico, The Day of the Locust) from the novel by James Leo Herlihy, Midnight Cowboy is essentially a string of fascinating and revealing set pieces in which Buck encounters unusual characters as he tries desperately to succeed in the big city; along the way he beds an older, wealthy Park Ave. matron (Sylvia Miles), is asked to get down on his knees by a Bible thumper (John McGiver), gets propositioned in a movie theater by a nerdy college student (Bob Balaban), has a disagreement with a confused older man (Barnard Hughes), and attends a Warholian party (thrown by Viva and Gastone Rosilli and featuring Ultra Violet, Paul Jabara, International Velvet, Taylor Mead, and Paul Morrissey) where he hooks up with an adventurous socialite (Brenda Vaccaro). Photographed by first-time cinematographer Adam Holender (The Panic in Needle Park, Blue in the Face), the film captures the seedy, lurid environment that was Times Square in the late 1960s; when Buck looks out his hotel window, he sees the flashing neon, with a sign for Mutual of New York front and center, the letters “MONY” bouncing across his face with promise. The film is anchored by Nilsson’s Grammy-winning version of “Everybody’s Talkin’,” along with John Barry’s memorable theme. Iconic shots are littered throughout, along with such classic lines as “I’m walkin’ here!” Midnight Cowboy, which was nominated for seven Oscars and won three (Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Director), is screening October 7 at BAM Rose Cinemas; “Nilsson Schmilsson” continues through October 9 with Freddie Francis’s Son of Dracula, starring Nilsson and Ringo Starr, Otto Preminger’s bizarre Skiddoo, Robert Altman’s Popeye, and Fred Wolf’s animated The Point.