A naive Texas dishwasher arrives in New York City expecting to make easy money as a male escort. Instead, he falls into a friendship with a crippled street hustler named Ratso Rizzo. The 2 of them survive on the city's margins while their plans fall apart and their bond deepens. It's the only X-rated film to win Best Picture.
Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 drama film directed by John Schlesinger. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (1 narrative, 2 cinematography and 1 editing), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, Aftersun uses several of the same techniques.
Pairing characters from opposite social worlds who find each other strange. Their friction produces the comedy, and what they learn from each other produces the emotion.
How this film uses it
Joe Buck is a naive, romantic cowboy and Ratso is a cynical city survivor. They fail in opposite ways. One is too innocent for the city and the other is too damaged to leave it. That is, they depend on each other because neither can cope alone. Being a good match has nothing to do with it.
Where to see it
Joe and Ratso's first shared night in the condemned building. The 2 of them are cold and broke. The cowboy and the rat discover they need each other because no one else will have them.
Shooting with a handheld camera so the frame shakes and moves with the action. This documentary-style look, called cinema vérité, puts you uncomfortably close to the character.
How this film uses it
Adam Holender's handheld photography puts the camera at street level in actual New York locations. You get the grime, the indifferent crowds and the neon. The film ends up feeling like documentary evidence of how easily the city abandons people.
Where to see it
Joe Buck walking down 42nd Street. The handheld camera is in the crowd with him, and the real New Yorkers around him don't care. The cowboy suit looks absurd in a way only a real location could produce.
Cutting between the present and scattered, out-of-order flashbacks, the way a painful memory comes back in pieces. You put the backstory together as the character remembers it.
How this film uses it
Schlesinger cuts between Joe's present in New York and broken pieces of memory from Texas: sexual violence, religious shame, a girl named Annie. The memories arrive without warning. The trauma that made him run now shows up inside the hostile city that replaced his home.
Where to see it
Joe's flashback sequences. Texas cuts into New York without warning, so the past and the present share the same screen. The trauma of where he came from follows him out of order, into every step he takes.
Filming city crowds as they keep moving around one person's tragedy without noticing. The scale of the city makes private disaster invisible and shows how alienated people have become.
How this film uses it
Schlesinger films New York's crowds as the environment that defines the story. The city is famous for ignoring suffering, and the film treats that as part of how the place is built. Joe thought being anonymous was freedom. It turns out to be what makes it possible to exploit him.
Where to see it
Joe and Ratso crossing a Manhattan street as a cab nearly hits them and Ratso shouts 'I'm walkin' here!' The traffic and the crowd carry on without a glance. Because nobody cares, the 2 men's attachment to each other is the only warmth in the frame.
Questions
Midnight Cowboy: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Midnight Cowboy use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Midnight Cowboy (1969): Odd Couple Class Structure, Handheld Cinema Vérité, Fractured Memory Editing and Urban Crowd Indifference.
Who directed Midnight Cowboy?
John Schlesinger directed Midnight Cowboy, released in 1969. CineCode also covers Marathon Man (1976).
What films are similar to Midnight Cowboy?
Films that share techniques with Midnight Cowboy include Aftersun (2022), Manchester by the Sea (2016), Y Tu Mamá También (2001), Duck, You Sucker (1971).
