The 1969 Best Picture winner ‘Midnight Cowboy’
screened to a legion of new fans and old alike for New York
audiences as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and
Sciences' ‘Monday Nights with Oscar®’ series last
week.
Academy Award®-winning producer Jerome Hellman joined Academy
Award- nominated actress Sylvia Miles in a post-screening
discussion. David V. Picker, the executive-in-charge at United
Artist during the film's development, moderated the onstage
conversation, which also included actor Bob Balaban,
cinematographer Adam Holender, composer John Barry and costumer
designer Ann Roth.
The film earned seven Oscar nominations: Actor (Hoffman, Voight),
Actress in a Supporting Role (Miles), Directing (John
Schlesinger), Film Editing (Hugh A. Robertson), Best Picture
(Hellman, producer) and Writing – Screenplay based on
material from another medium (Waldo Salt), based on the book of
the same title (novel by James Leo Herlihy). It went on to win in
the Best Picture, Directing and Writing categories.
Long before the film ‘Milk’ tackled its gay theme,
‘Midnight Cowboy’ stars Dustin Hoffman (as crippled
conman Ratso Rizzo) and Jon Voight (a bisexual male prostitute)
as two rebels who forge an unlikely friendship on the cold and
harsh streets of New York City. The film endures as a powerful
story of friendship, compassion and redemption.
At the time of release, the film’s portrayal of its
characters’ bleak lives was considered suitable only for
mature audiences, and the censoring body, the Motion Picture
Association of America, which had recently introduced its ratings
system, gave it an X rating, on the foolish advice of then United
Artist co-chairman Arthur Krim, per council from a shrink who
thought its neutral handling of homosexuality was promoting a so
called mental illness. ‘Midnight Cowboy’ holds the
distinction of being the only X-rated film to win the Best
Picture Oscar. It was later wisely re-rated R in 1971.
© 2009, AMPAS,
©The Hollywood Sentinel.