The Motion Never Stops

Before I get to my special theme for this month which I'll post in a couple of days, I just wanted to take a quick opportunity to note the passing of Ray Harryhausen, special effects pioneer extraordinaire.

It's a shame we don't have visualists like him around anymore - I have never really liked CGI, I think that 99% of the time that computer graphics will never look as good as a real physical object... even if the computer image is excellent and the physical object is kinda cheesy.  I just don't think that we can make CG that looks real yet.  And I realize when I say this that computer programming and graphics are hard work, but I just don't think that the FX of today can stand up just because it's too *easy*... a director and an effects supervisor can just sit down at a computer and bash out what they want with none of the painstaking labor and craftsmanship that used to be put into movie visuals... by people like Mr. Harryhausen.

His movies occupy a special place in my collection.  I have always enjoyed fantasy and science fiction films (no!) and I remember watching some of Harryhausen's movies like Jason and the Argonauts whenever they would come on TV.  His fantasy movie collection also happens to be one of the oldest DVD boxsets that I own, having got it as a gift close to ten years ago now.  I have had ample to time to enjoy the fruits of his labors, again and again and again and again.

And in this age of home video thankfully everyone can.  So here's to you Mr. Ray Harryhausen.  I would say I hope you go to heaven if there is one, but I don't think they have any cool monsters there.

Ghost Writer In The Sky....

Roger Ebert died today.  It's kind of weird when you think about it.  Sometimes we get so used to certain people being around it's so damn... strange when they no longer inhabit our plane of existence.  I had the same feeling after James Brown died... I suddenly lived in a world without James Brown, and that seemed both bizarre and unacceptable at the same time.  But, you say, James Brown was a creator, an inventor - he basically invented funk music, he was the Godfather of Soul, he influenced whole musical genres in addition to artists with his music.  Roger Ebert was a film critic, his whole job was just to analyze what other people created and tell an audience whether he thought they should see it or not.  How can he be considered special?

Well, Roger Ebert actually worked on a couple of movies himself.  No he wasn't a director or actor but he was a (surprise) writer, writing a couple of movies for Russ Meyer in the 70s, one of which being the infamous Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls.  Both of these movies were very, very bad (but in a laughable, fun kinda way).  But the point is, Ebert *did it*.  He actually participated in filmmaking, understood the process.  When Roger Ebert criticized some movie for being bad, he would know because he wrote some bad movies himself.  This is more than most movie critics could and can do.  Nowadays your average film critic is just some hack who took writing and film courses in college and thinks that they know more than you will ever know about film just because they studied it in school.  The sad truth is that anyone who can pick up a book and read or sit still enough to watch a movie for a couple of hours can write a half-intelligent movie review.  But few can write movies reviews well and with  true knowledge of the craft, and Ebert was one of them.

Even when he was wrong.  I remember reading a negative review of his on the original 1954 Godzilla.  I was nearly foaming at the mouth and proclaiming that Ebert wouldn't know a good movie if it came up and bit him in the ass.  But you know what?  I had that reaction because his opinion *mattered*... because he wrote well.  Most other reviewers (few can actually be called true critics) don't get that kind of response out of me.  I read their shit and say, "Hmm", and forget about it a minute later, even if I find their viewpoint contentious.  Ebert made you care with his opinion, and that is rare in modern film criticism, where most writers are just trying to impress you with their writing "talent."

I actually have no pretenses to Mr. Ebert's job.  I am not a film critic.  I am simply some dude on the internet ejaculating forth his opinions because it gives him an excuse to write, to hone his composition skills.  If someone comes along and engages me on something I wrote, that's great but it's not my purpose.  The point to all this is, Roger Ebert was a true film critic and I am not, but I'm writing this tribute anyway because... I want to.  It's not some gushing from one professional to another but some honest thoughts from someone who enjoyed reading his stuff.  Even if no one else sees this I want to write how much his film reviews and writing in general meant to me.  Even if he was dead wrong sometimes.

And that was the fun part.

Ahh! It's Ishiro Honda!

Today marks the 20th Anniversary of the death of director Ishiro Honda.  It's a sobering thought if you sit back and think about it – twenty years without the father of the Japanese Giant Monster Movie.  Objectively I can say (like most people) that Akira Kurosawa was the greatest Japanese film director of all time (in fact, he was probably the best director ever, period) but if I had to be completely honest with myself I would have to say that after quite a bit of reflection that Honda is my favorite Japanese film director of all time... his movies have resonated with me ever since I was a kid and have been responsible for more joy in my life than any of his countrymen, talented as they are.  Today I thought I would just share why I like Honda's movies so much and why you should check them out too.

Of course Ishiro Honda will always be remembered primarily for unleashing on the world that atomic behemoth, the radioactive flame-shooting grey dinosaur Godzilla.  For this alone he deserves to remembered more than he is... especially since the first Godzilla film – which was released in 1954, not even a decade after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – is such a serious movie.  There is nothing conditional as to why this should be included in "All-Time-Greatest" lists ("Well, you know, it's cheesy but it's *fun*, man" or "Yeah, the story is crap but the special effects are revolutionary!").  This is just a great film, period, and the reason that it is so great is because the story really isn't about Godzilla per se but about the effect that he has on society and everyday people, and the ramifications of trying to destroy such a threat to society and what methods are acceptable in doing so.  The movie does it with great atmosphere, too.  Everything feels so deadly and somber... there is none of the lightheartedness that permeates the later Godzilla movies (and indeed later kaiju films in general) – here Godzilla is a terrifying, primordial force of destruction and anguish.   Is it perfect?  No, of course not.  Some of the acting later on in the film can be a little overwrought and some of the film comes off as a little crude (it's a Japanese film made in the early fifties).  But by the end of the whole thing you will feel like you have seen something special.

It's a testament to Honda's film craft that he could go from this somber type of film to more light fare, especially in the same film series.  While the first Godzilla movie is deadly serious the ones that followed ended up becoming more geared towards children, but that didn't mean that the quality necessarily went down (at least until the seventies under different directors).  Honda managed to keep things entertaining and well-made for the next decade is a testament to his talent (okay, King Kong vs Godzilla wasn't that great but that's mainly because he let things get a little too silly with that shoddy gorilla suit... ugh).  Mothra vs Godzilla is the highlight of the Sixties Godzilla movies, with the big G still being the bad guy and the story going into fantasy territory with the giant lepidopteran and her twin singing fairies (introduced previously in their own movie, directed by... you guessed it) taking up a good chunk of the run-time.  The best Godzilla film of the Seventies, Terror of Mechagodzilla, was also directed by Honda, and while featuring the star mutant lizard as the hero brought back some of the seriousness of the early days while still being a fun movie.  I recommend both movies in addition to the first highly.

But really I can recommend any Ishiro Honda movie, especially if you have children or just want to relive a little part of your childhood yourself.  In addition to his monster movies (he also gave us Rodan) Honda also made general fantasy and adventure films, like Atragon which is about a flying sub that battles the ancient undersea kingdom of Mu.  That's the kind of movie they need more of these days, especially movies aimed at kids - less product placement and overloading of the senses, and more good, old fashioned adventure.

But the final praise that I think I can give the main is that he was capable of more than just harmless fun – he knew how to put real drama on the screen, and he didn't always need a giant black & white reptile to do it.  I mentioned the horror movie Matango in my first Halloween post a while back, and it is still one of the masterpieces of the genre... not because of the titular mushroom monstrosities but because of the effect that the mushroom monstrosities have on the people in the story... and more importantly the effect that those people have on themselves.  Matango is Honda's most adult film – there are undercurrents of power, hate, lust and primal savagery right beneath the exteriors of all of these island castaways... if the fungal menace didn't start getting them they would kill each other.  It really is Gilligan's Island in Hell... or to say Gilligan's Island in Real Life (Hell, Matango came first... Toho could've sued).

The point is that Ishiro Honda was perhaps the most versatile Japanese director of all... he could do just about anything, from serious drama (his first movies before he did Gojira were simple dramas) to action to horror to science fiction to pure fantasy.  It's no wonder Kurosawa had him as his assistant on Kagemusha and Ran.

So here's to you, Mr. Honda.  Hopefully there are still a lot of people who remember you and cherish your contribution to the moving picture, from children who delight in your fantasies to adults who value your dark drama to the children in all adults who just enjoy a good movie and a little fun.

Why Can't All Movies Be This Awesome At Thirty?

It was thirty years ago this month (on the 12th to be precise) that Raiders of the Lost Ark was first released to theatres.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of my favorite movies ever. In fact, if you stuck a gun to my head and made me name my absolute favorite movie of all time, I would waffle between this and Ghostbusters until you blew my brains out. But what is it about this globetrotting adventure film that makes me love it so? What makes it superior to every other action/adventure movie ever made? Well, today I’m going to try and answer those questions while imparting just how much I love this freaking movie.

I’m going to go about this glowing tribute (hey, no one said that this would be an impartial analytical essay) to the Greatest Adventure Movie Ever Made by comparing Raiders to For Your Eyes Only, the twelfth James Bond movie and the fifth starring Roger Moore in the role of the famous secret agent (wait, shouldn’t that be an oxymoron?) 007. Why For Your Eyes Only (FYEO)? Well, to start out it is in the same genre as Raiders (Globetrotting Action/Adventure… a rather specialized category, really). Secondly, it was released at roughly the same time as the first Indiana Jones adventure (roughly two weeks later on June 24th, meaning it also turned 30 this month) making it a good example of a contemporary competing movie. Third, FYEO is a good example of a movie of its type as the Bond movies had been setting the standard for nineteen years prior in the action/adventure genre. And last but most importantly, the James Bond franchise was a major influence on the Indiana Jones franchise (along with all those old adventure serials of the 30s and 40s). In fact, James Bond has been called “the father of Indiana Jones” by Steven Spielberg no less (and in a side note, Sean Connery would of course play Indy’s dad in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). So it is interesting to compare the movies of both the “parent” and “child” franchises back to back and show how Raiders basically blew away the competition back in 1981… and all of the years after, actually.

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Before I begin I want to stress that I am not going to mindlessly bash For Your Eyes Only in order to lionize Raiders and I don’t hate the film. In fact, it’s one of my favorite Bond movies and a vast improvement to the franchise after the horribly goofy, over-the-top MST3K fodder that was Moonraker. Director John Glen really brought the series back to earth (haha) and toned down about 90% of the silliness of the previous Moore outings (it’s still Roger Moore though you are still going to get some stupid moments). FYEO is my favorite Roger Moore Bond movie and one of the best in the Bond series. The fact that Raiders of the Lost Ark is a superior film does not reflect badly on For Your Eyes Only; on the contrary it just goes to show how extraordinary and sublime Spielberg’s magnum opus is.

Oh, and I’m not even going to worry about spoilers with either of these movies. If you haven’t seen For Your Eyes Only, go out and rent it – it’s a good Bond flick. And if you haven’t seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, crawl out from whatever rock you’ve – ah, you know what? If you’re reading this then you are both a member of a sufficiently advanced modern society and above the age of six, in which case you have seen Raiders of the Lost Ark.

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Let’s begin our movie comparison by starting with our main characters: James Bond and Indiana Jones. First up: Roger Moore as James Bond in For Your Eyes Only. Moore really is too old to play Bond even by this point but it *almost* works in this film (it would become ridiculous with the succeeding Octopussy and his last outing A View to a Kill in which he looks positively *mummified*) as he plays 007 as someone who is about one year away from retirement. This reflects in his performance: Moore comes off as an experienced agent with a reservoir of knowledge and wisdom as well as an almost avuncular demeanor. Watch the scene where he persuades Melina Havelock to postpone her vengeance on the killers of her parents so he can find out what’s behind the whole plot and help them both. It just might be Moore’s best bit of acting ever; he comes across not as some playboy secret agent trying to talk his way into a young woman’s bed (like he normally does) but as a concerned man trying to prevent another human being from being hurt.

A lot of people like to hold up Sean Connery as being the greatest Bond ever but I don’t think his 007 could have pulled this scene off; he was too cold, ruthless, and horny (and keep in mind that doesn’t mean that Moore is my favorite Bond, in fact far from it). But, you say, what about badassery? Being nice to grieving girls is nice and all, but James Bond has to kick major ass or he’s just a government employee who gets to travel a lot and eat nice food. Well, Moore gets his biggest badass moment in his entire run as 007 when he kicks a car off a cliff – with a despicable criminal hitman inside.

Badassssss!

So there’s that. Overall a very good movie for Roger Moore, even if he is too old to be playing a British super-spy.

In contrast Harrison Ford in Raiders comes off as having just the right mix of youth and experience as archaeology professor cum globetrotting adventurer Indiana Jones. Even though not a spry young man (Ford was in his late thirties when he made this) he doesn’t seem to be ready for retirement either – remember, “it’s not the years, it’s the mileage.” Ford convincingly displays Indy as a perfect mix of the physical, tenacious, intelligent and academic, as a man who can teach a college class one minute and jump off into the deserts of Egypt to battle Nazis the second (actually, how the hell has he not been fired from his teaching job by now?). He can be both tender and hard, sometimes towards the same person: notice how he’s barely apologetic towards a woman he is implied to have deflowered while she was still underage.

Even after she hits him.

Even though one of the “good guys” his whole career revolves around robbing the sacred treasures of multiple groups of people for the intellectual profit of the Western World (although this admittedly is what archaeology basically was back in the 1930s). He kicks major ass like Bond but messes up too. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Indiana Jones is portrayed as a fleshed out, flawed human being in contrast to the nearly perfect invincible superhuman James Bond (who really has no foibles except indulging in too much casual sex, which is not portrayed as negative by the movies and actually shown as a positive thing). In addition, Harrison Ford has a screen presence that Roger Moore doesn’t have. Now, it’s nowhere near the level of Toshiro Mifune or Klaus Kinski (oh god, no) but it is there. You can see why he went on to stardom.

"Trust me."  Wouldn't you trust him?

Howsabout the leading ladies? Well, FYEO's Carole Bouquet is certainly lovely as Melina Havelock, and has a great combination of intensity and lethal determination to kill the murderers of her parents: just look at the look on her face right after their assassination scene. Electric! However, she can be a little stilted at times and she doesn’t have much of a personality outside of the whole “rampaging revenge” thing. She only smiles genuinely twice in the entire movie. She has some chemistry with Roger Moore, although with his age and more avuncular personality in this installment it comes off as more (haha) of a platonic friendship, which is nice… until the very end where they’re kissing each other and skinny dipping with it being suggested that sex is going to happen later. Argh! They had a chance to do something different with a Bond movie and they fell back on “Bond has sex with the lead Bond Girl at the end” crap. Was it that imperative to keep up tradition (TRADITION! Uh, sorry, although Topol *is* in this movie, people. Had to be done!)? It really does make the woman a reward for Bond saving the day, which is just outdated and sexist and… screw it. If I start to talk about sexism in James Bond movies I’m gonna be here forever. Speaking of which Bond of course beds more than just Carole Bouquet in this movie, although it is only one and someone is closer to his age. Oh, and I can’t talk about For Your Eyes Only without pointing out that James Bond is sexually assaulted by a fifteen year old girl. Which is freakin’ hilarious.

I love the look on his face too.

Awww.

Raiders of the Lost Ark, of course has Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood who sizzles in her scenes with Harrison Ford. Allen does a better acting job than Bouquet (although it could help that she’s a native English speaker) even if she does get whiny at a few points (although nowhere near as bad as Kate Capshaw in the next Indy movie, Temple of Doom… uuuugh I’m getting shivers just thinking about it right now). Although Marion doesn’t have the driving motivation that Melina does, she makes up for it with more personality. And she’s cute too! Karen Allen is my favorite Indy woman (and a lot of other people’s too, which is why she returned for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, in which she is still cute).

A hero is only as good as the villains he faces, and – ah, you know what? Screw it. No analysis is needed. Raiders wins hands down. It’s the Nazis. It’s the fuckin’ Nazis. You can’t do any better when it comes to movie villains than the Nazis. Greek smugglers/Soviet agents don’t even compare to the Nazis. You could make the protagonist of a movie a baby-raping, cross-burning, puppy-decapitating cannibal lawyer and the audience would still root for them if they were beating the crap out of Nazis. On an interesting side note, Julian Glover who is the main baddie in FYEO went on to play the main baddie (who like Kristatos in FYEO starts out seeming like a good guy oddly enough) in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, who collaborates with...

Nazis!

Visual effects, too, is a no-brainer. You have Richard Edlund melting the heads off of, you guessed it,

Nazis!

Music… screw it, I don’t want to write about this either. John Williams’ score for Raiders is one of the greatest ever written, a timeless rousing piece of music you want to listen to over and over again. Bill Conti’s “score” for FYEO is a piece of dated disco dreck.

Which leads me to the biggest reason that Raiders of the Lost Ark is a superior film to For Your Eyes Only, and every other adventure movie for that matter… it’s timeless. When you watch FYEO you can tell when it’s been made – it is obviously a product of the early eighties. In fact it practically screams this at you from the get-go, with Sheena Easton wailing the title song over the by now standard credits (I think Maurice Binder gave up on actual creativity after the sixties – “Okay… naked babes, and guns, more naked babes, more guns… shimmery things, more babes… aaaand done.”). This is actually a fallacy of nearly all Bond movies, actually. Using popular singers of the day will inevitably date your movie (except of course for Thunderball, Live and Let Die and Goooooldfingaaaaaaaah!). The opening to Raiders by contrast is, well, timeless… simple and effective. It doesn’t stop the movie for three minutes to force you to read credits (and look at naked chicks)… it plays the credits while already getting you into the story. And that leads me into the next biggest thing that makes Raiders superior… it’s not forced. It feels very organic, very natural… it flows well, from one situation to the next.

FYEO feels like a series of set pieces strung together with plot, each talky story portion serving to link each stunt and action sequence to the next. Not that this is a horrible thing, after all the stunts and action scenes in Bond movies are usually very, very awesome (and there is no exception here). And admittedly FYEO’s plot is a very good one, involving intertwining themes of vengeance, betrayal and deception. But the execution just seems to be a little… choppy compared to Raiders.

Although it does have a really cool Citroen car chase.

And maybe this is what also what helps make Raiders timeless… there’s no dated style of filmmaking here. Yes, it followed from the blockbuster style of the seventies (which Spielberg helped to invent) and itself influenced the action movies of the eighties… but the final product is one that is hard to pin down to one time period, at least for me. And this isn’t just nostalgia talking, because I can look to some of my other favorite movies from the time period and point out how dated they are. Ghostbusters (which I mentioned earlier) was obviously made in the eighties. Ben-Hur is very obviously a fifties film. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of a handful of movies (a couple of other examples being The Empire Strikes Back and Alien) that are truly non-dated and timeless.

So, with all of the trumpeting of how superior Raiders of the Lost Ark is over For Your Eyes Only, does the Cold War adventure of Agent 007 manage to do anything better than the classic tale of the search for the lost Ark of the Covenant? Well, yes. I have to admit that the stunts in Raiders, while very, very good aren't quite as good as the ones in FYEO. Look, the stunts in Raiders are awesome – the shots of Indy crawling under the truck and being dragged behind the truck are classic and makes me say, “Woo! This is awesome! I’m having so much fun watching this!” But the first time I watched the part of FYEO when Bond is climbing up the side of Kristatos’ mountain fortress the palms of my hands literally sweated and I had a death grip on my chair. When Bond is kicked off the cliff by a henchman and falls about two hundred feet on his rope, I think I forgot to breathe.

I also winced in pain during the “keelhauling” sequence where Bond and Melina are dragged on a rope by the villain’s boat through shark infested waters (this sequence is actually from the book Live and Let Die). Every time Bond broke off a piece of razor-sharp coral with his body – ouch.

Well, anyways, happy birthday, Raiders of the Lost Ark (and you too, For Your Eyes Only!)… you are truly one of the greatest films ever made and one of my absolute favorites. I will always thrill to your spectacular action scenes, boo your despicable Nazi villains, marvel at your awesome special effects and laugh whenever Indy shoots that Arab swordsman guy.

Hahahahaha!

Next Week: Something different.

Hey, I'm Writin' Here!

It has been a long time since my last post.  I’ve been focusing on looking for a job after quitting my crappy retail job (which in retrospect was a stupid, stupid move), and then my grandmother died at the end of last month. She was my favorite grandparent, and my very good friend to boot. She was the one I could go to and vent at whenever life got me down – she was there to talk to me and sympathize with me, listen to and gently criticize me. She was never judgmental or condescending or unkind. She could be really stubborn though – and I think she had an unhealthy addiction to QVC (I shudder to think about what would have happened had she been let loose on Amazon; thankfully she was never interested in learning about computers). The weird thing about her death is that I have been pretty calm about it all. I didn’t cry when I found out that she was dead and I only came close to tears once during the funeral; the only time I cried my eyes out was when I visited her in the hospital and saw her near the end, barely conscious and hooked up to a ventilator. Maybe I was forlorn to see her in such a state; maybe I could sense her impending death and let my grief out then. I don’t know. I do know that she wasn’t very happy for a few years leading up to her death because it got so difficult and painful to move around and do stuff sometimes(she could not and did not drive, so I got to drive her around some). So maybe I’m not so torn up now that she’s dead because I know that she’s not in pain anymore. Or maybe I’m just numb and the momentousness of her passing hasn’t hit me yet. I don’t know. I do know that my life is going to be very different from now on. I’m going to miss my Nana. So why do I bring this up now when I said in my first post on this site that I wouldn’t write about Real Life in a fluffy blog about movies? Well, in addition to needing the opportunity to get some things off my chest (therapy is expensive), I thought I would do a blog post today (after such a long time) in memory of my recently departed Nana. You see, today I’m going to review her favorite movie.  Here’s to you, Nana, because in your honor today on the Pharonic Fantasy Theatre I’m going to review

Film, 1969

Director: John Schlesinger

You know, it’s funny. Whenever I tell people that this was my grandmother’s favorite movie of all time, they look at me with a funny expression and say, “Oh, my God. Really?” I guess they figure it weird that someone with no predilection towards such things would pick an X rated film as her favorite. Well, first of all I don’t think she was as straitlaced as others thought she was and secondly, Midnight Cowboy isn’t even really an X movie; it’s really an R movie that got rated X unfairly back when it was released. In fact, it got re-rated only a few years later and now says “R” on the back of the DVD box. So there.

In truth, there’s very little material in this film that is truly X worthy. There’s no full frontal nudity or graphic violence (if you want that in a mainstream X-Rated movie, go watch A Clockwork Orange). I would guess that Midnight Cowboy probably got slapped with an X originally because it actually dared to portray homosexual characters in a *gasp* somewhat sympathetic light. The plight of gays in the sixties is actually portrayed very sympathetically here. Most of the supporting homosexual characters in the film are in the closet and very self-loathing. There wasn’t the same degree of tolerance for homosexuals back in 1969 as there is today, and that’s saying something as gays are still discriminated against even in this day and age. John Schlesinger, the Director was actually gay so that might explain a lot of the content of this movie (not just the homosexuality itself but the overall story of two outcasts living outside of normal society). Apparently having a compassionate view towards homosexuals or even just not portraying them as harmful, predatory monsters back in the sixties was too much for the film ratings board.

Oh, yeah and there’s drug use (hey, it’s the 60s).

Every 60s movie is required by Federal Law to have at least one tripping scene.

Oh, a quick diversionary note before I proceed any further: I’m not going to do a standard review with plot synopsis, pictures section, etc. For this little review/essay I’m going to assume that you’ve seen the movie and therefore must warn SPOILERS AHOY!

Okay, back to my rambling.

I can see what my grandmother liked in this movie. It’s a dark but very funny look at a very unorthodox friendship between two very different men. Joe Buck is a *very* naïve but very charismatic and handsome Texan “cowboy” who moves to New York City

while Rico “Ratso” Rizzo is a grimy and crippled conman who is sleazy and dishonest but a hell of a lot smarter than Joe.

Together they manage to survive with little money at the bottom rung of society’s ladder in a city that doesn’t care. Each has his own dream: Joe wants make a living whoring himself to rich, lonely women while Rico wants to move to Florida to …hang out? I don’t know. The goals of the main characters in this movie are vague and rather fantastical, which is one of the points of the whole thing.

And… shit. I realize that I just basically gave a plot synopsis when I said I wouldn’t. Oh well. I lied. I deliberately lied to you. Get over it. Moving on.

"My God, I'm in Black and White.  How did that happen?"

Yes, their goals are rather far-fetched and flimsy. Joe’s whole dream is to be a prostitute – what the hell? Who *chooses* a life like that? “Well, let’s see – looking at all of my job skills and taking into consideration where I am in my life right now and where I want to be, I think I’ll pursue a career in whoring.” Although I guess he does say at various points in the film that “loving” is all he’s ever been good at so…? Rico’s dream is purely hedonistic and lazy: hang out in the Florida sunshine all day and not work. In the end Rico refuses to see a doctor about the ailment afflicting him through the whole picture and dies on the bus on the way down to Florida – his stubborn pursuit of his shallow dream is what kills him. Joe in contrast gives up his goal of “hustling” while stuffing his cowboy outfit in the garbage during a rest stop in Florida and looks to get an honest job; he lives to the end of the movie. So maybe there’s a lesson here about pursuing goals here, eh? Don’t stubbornly pursue hollow dreams. It’ll kill you.

I remember Nana telling me that what she liked the most about Midnight Cowboy was the friendship between the two leads. “Some people see Dustin Hoffman as just exploiting Jon Voight but I saw him as his friend who was trying to help him.” Well, yes and no, Nana. Rico does con Joe in the beginning and uses his talents for his own ends, but Joe needs him for his skills just as much. It is a symbiotic relationship, and one that turns into genuine friendship.

I know it sounds funny, but the relationship between these two characters actually reminds me of the relationship between the two leads from The Producers (made the previous year, in fact). In that movie, Zero Mostel’s washed up Broadway producer character convinces Gene Wilder’s timid accountant character to launch a scheme: produce a sure flop of a musical to make a shitload of money (since then there would be no profits from the sales to give back to the backers. Just watch the movie to see what I mean, it’s hilarious). In the end, Gene Wilder gives a speech about how his relationship with Mostel’s conman has given him actual confidence and his first true friend. The end of Midnight Cowboy kind of reminded me of this – Joe ends up a better person because of his relationship with Rico (although at a horrible price). So I guess you can really say that Midnight Cowboy is the serious version of The Producers.

"I'm telling you, Springtime For Hitler just might work!"

Yes, I just went there.

Well, I’m going to stop now before I ramble to much more. Watching this movie clued me into what kind of person my Nana was. The fact that her favorite movie ever was about the close friendship between two people and the fact that she saw good in that friendship that others would dismiss as exploitative shows me that she was at heart an optimistic woman who saw good in most people.

I’m sorry I wasn’t that coherent. I guess I’ve been sort of knocked off my stride. This probably isn’t the best tribute I could give to my Nana, but oh well. It’s what I have on my mind at the moment and that’s what’s going down   Next time I will hopefully be in a better state of mind and do something a little more upbeat.

Pictured: Something Not Upbeat.