DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY begins and ends with a lot of archival film of New York at the time of MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Throughout there are copious examples of the media of the day and they really brings back the spirit of the late 1960s.

But the director of MIDNIGHT COWBOY, John Schlesinger, began his career in documentaries, and gives an almost documentary effect to MIDNIGHT COWBOY itself.

Schlesinger was both gay and Jewish, and both aspects showed up in MIDNIGHT COWBOY. The former is more obvious, with fairly obvious coded gay characters and open homosexuality. But Schlesinger also drew heavily on the Western genre, which was just beginning to fade in the wake of Vietnam. (The 1964 Presidential election was basically between two cowboys, and the question of the day was, "Whose finger is on the trigger?" Other cinematic influences were Tony Richardson and John Osborne.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY followed FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD, a notable bomb for Schlesinger. So Hoffman didn't want to test for THE GRADUATE, and then when he changed his mind, it turned out that Schlesinger didn't want Hoffman.

DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY becomes a chronicle of the period of the 1950s and 1960s and is a history of that period by clips from films, discussion of film makers, and Warhol-esque art. But it centers on what the period meant to Schlesinger. There is some discussion of the effect MIDNIGHT COWBOY had going forward, but writer/director/producer Nancy Biurski primarily looks at how the film came to be at all. [-mrl/ecl]

Released theatrically 23 April 2023. Rating: high +2 (-4 to +4), or 8/10.

Film Credits: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt21372066/reference

What others are saying: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/desperate_souls_dark_city_and_the_legend_of_midnight_cowboy

					Mark R. Leeper
					Copyright 2023 Mark R. Leeper