#Ratso rizzo movie#

#Ratso rizzo movie#

What is unbearable is a movie that could have been great, that could have touched us, and lost courage. We have been to hundreds of movies, and we hardly care anymore that most of them are lousy. But this movie gives us so much that we want it all. If 'Midnight Cowboy' were not potentialy such a good movie, we would care a great deal less. That would not be an objection under ordinary circumstances. The form that has been imposed on this story simply will not fit. And who can really believe they would ever find themselves on that bus to Florida? It is cruel to take the reality of Times Square - the existence of the real people like Ratso and Joe - and tell their story as if it were a soap opera. Their real lives have nothing to do with Andy Warhol parties, or escort services, or hard Park Avenue dames. They exist apart from the movie, outside of it. They go their own way, live their own lives, become two of the permanent inhabitants of our imagination, like Bonnie and Clyde. Joe Buck and Ratso are castaways in 'Midnight Cowboy.' They go their own way, cold and wet, thrown out with the garbage, sharing their dreams of Florida or the ultimate rich broad. It is there - the greatness is there - but unworthy hands have meddled with it almost beyond repair. Trying to get the good out of 'Midnight Cowboy' is like looking at a great painting through six inches of Jell-O.

He has taken these magnificent performances, and his own careful perception of American society, and dropped them into an offensively trendy, gimmick-ridden, tarted-up, vulgar exercise in fashionable cinema.

John Schlesinger has not been brave enough to tell his story and draw his characters with the simplicity they require. There has been a failure somewhere in the director's faith in his materials. And seeing these things and reaching to them, we are ready to praise the movie where we found them. Here is America's underbelly and it even smells that way. The world of Times Square, a world of people without hope and esteem, seems terribly real. The performances have a flat, painful accuracy. 'Midnight Cowboy' comes heartbreakingly close to being the movie we want it to be.