How Midnight Cowboy became the only X-rate winner of the best painting Oscar

When Midnight Cowboy came out 56 years ago this week, I instantly defeated the idea of ​​a mainstream Hollywood hit. The dark tales of loneliness, sexuality and survival in New York promoted career-defining performances from its lead roles.

“I was watching a film right now so there was a problem,” actor Dustin Hoffman confessed to the BBC in 1970. “You can see where the characters are inconsistent.”

Released in cinemas on May 25, 1969, the film received Oscar nominations for both Hoffman and his co-star John Voight.

Based on James Leo Herlich’s 1965 novel, the dark tale of the loneliness, sexuality and survival of the Midnight Cowboy in New York was very different from the film in which Hoffman had his groundbreaking role, the alumni. Playing a fresh, clean middle-class young man who graduated from college, Hoffman didn’t attack director John Schlesinger as the obvious choice to play the old street-wise conman of the story.

“Jerry Hermann [the film’s producer] He saw him in a play off of Broadway’s off-Henry Livings and said, “He’s not just an actor with great characters, alumni, but it’s better to meet him who is better to go.” He was completely blended into the background, so by the end of the evening there was absolutely no doubt that he had the role. ”

However, in order to play the sick Rizzo, who suffers from disabled legs and tuberculosis, Hoffman felt he needed to keep checking out the film’s rush while filming. “I had to follow my posture, walk, walk, dialect, and I was very concerned about the fluctuations,” he said during a 1970 BBC film night when interviewed on the set of the Revisionist West, Little Big Man. The actor said later Vanity Fair In 2000 he put stones in his shoes and assured him that he would limp the camera without thinking about it.

“The average person would see such a job and think it’s very difficult,” Hoffman said. “But my own feelings are that the John Voight part was a much more difficult role on the Midnight Cowboy because somehow it was a bit more misty.

Voight was also far from Shoo-In due to the rich hustler roles that have broken and desperate in New York and are forming an unlikely bond with Rizzo. The actor was initially fired by Schlesinger. “Marion Dorgerty, the great casting director of New York at the time, said, “Are you missing something, why don’t you see John Voight?” We said, “That’s not what we were thinking,” and she said, “I met him, read one scene to him,” so we agreed, and he looked so extraordinary to us that we added to the list of people trying to test him. ”

However, the director chose Canadian actor Michael Salazine instead. Luckily, Sarazin had a contract with Universal Pictures. Schlesinger saw the screen test again when they tripled his price. Then Voight was cast, who was willing to pay the minimum wage of the Screen Actors Guild. “He had a certain belligerence in his personality and the complete sweetness and innocence I needed,” Schlesinger said.

The Midnight Cowboy was not an obvious candidate for box office success. Schlesinger’s regular producer Joe Janni turned down the project and warned the director that the film could ruin his career. But Schlesinger, who was gay himself, told the BBC in 1994 that the story of an outsider struggling to survive on the margins of society could be identified. “I don’t think it’s true, so I’m not that interested in the pseudo-happy endings of people walking hand in hand in the sunset, so most of the films I made have a question mark at the end,” he said.

Midnight Cowboy, which suggests the motivation to drive the protagonist by lining up flashbacks, reality and fantasy, has been edited into a cover version of Harry Nilsson Everyone’s story. The song becomes synonymous with the film and appears to encapsulate the longing, lack of purpose and desire for a better future for the injured character.

“I always pretend to be music very early in the cut,” Schlesinger said. “I took an early cut because it’s not only musically and rhythmically correct, but also lyrically correct, and it has great appropriate lyrics, so I went to the music head of United artists and said, ‘This is what we want.’ ”

However, the United Artist executive didn’t want to use songs that were already released. Believing that feeling could be easily replicated, he instructed the filmmakers to work with the songwriter to come up with something new. “We went to different people from [Bob] Dylan wrote a song from Joni Mitchell that had too many words,” Schlesinger said. Dylan would eventually write Ray Ray Ray for the film, but submitted that it was too late for it to be used.

“When we first showed the film to the distributors, Schlesinger went on. And we said, “Well, we played it to you a few months ago, and you said that anyone can recreate it.” So he said, “Well, we have to have it.”

Midnight cowboys were destined to be confined to adult audiences at the time of release, as they had explicit portrayals of gang rape, prostitution and drug use. And when it was reviewed by the American Film Institute, it was officially given a limited rating. In other words, in 1969, no one under the age of 16 could see it without an adult that accompanied it.

But the boss in the studio Arthur Krimtense: he consulted a psychiatrist who condemned the film’s “gay reference framework” and its “possible impact on youth.” It was Krim who then ordered that a limited rating alone was not enough. Midnight Cowboys should X-rate instead.

A rating of X, a category related to porn, is usually a confession of the commercial death of mainstream films. Many cinemas refused to display X-rated movies, but many newspapers and television stations refused to run their ads. However, Universal Studios has made the rating a selling point, saying, “Everything I’ve heard about midnight Cowboys is true!”

When it was released, the film became a surprise hit. It reverted its modest $4 million (£3 million) budget tenfold, making it the third highest-grossing film of 1969. “We had an extraordinary reception.” “We didn’t realize we were sitting on top of being that successful.”

The Midnight Cowboy was also highly praised, and the following year received seven Oscar nominations. It won three Academy Awards, Schlesinger won Best Director award, and Wald Salt won Best Adapted Screenplay. The film also became the first and only X-rate film, scooping up the Oscars and sought the best picture. (The MPAA replaced the X rating with an NC-17 rating in 1990.) Along with other films such as alumni and easy riders, Bonnie and Clyde, Midnight Cowboys sparked a new Hollywood movement. In 1994 it was chosen by the Library of Congress for its “cultural, historical or aesthetic importance.”

Despite midnight Cowboy box office revenue and critical acclaim, Schlesinger told the BBC that it would be “too bad” in 1994. Recently I was having dinner. [Pictures] And I just tried out the dramatic points of the story. And I said, “If I bring it to you, will you do it?” And he said, “There’s absolutely no way, I’ll show you the door.” ”

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