Midnight Cowboy

John Schlesinger, 1969 (suom. "Keskiyön cowboy")

This film hit me on second watching, on the first the characters were too odd to get inside their minds. The second view made it obvious that this is a true masterpiece and hits hard on many levels.

This film is a very dark yet comical depiction of the American dream. The boyish dreams of a small-town (barely literate) man with unfortunate background disintegrate in his efforts for reaching success--through the one thing he knows he's good at (lovin')--failing one by one. The cause of these dying dreams is the sea of vicious and twisted people, the real scum of the Earth, that produce the harsh reality behind the promising image of NY city. An honest and good natured man with shiny blue eyes gets a kick in the groin one after another, with small glimpses of potential success flashing here and there just to make the degradation more painful to watch.

The man befriends another: a rat-like and sickly veteran small-time thief ("Ratso"), and a deep friendship is formed over just simply the reality that both of them have nobody except each other. And we find out that even Ratso in his scummy life style shares dreams of successful life in some other place, and is hurt every time he is called by his degrading nickname.

The great story can only be conveyed by two amazing performances by Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffmann. In my experience the performance by Voight is simply surreal.