2023 FAREWELLS: behind the camera

Gene Hackman in the car chase in William Friedkin’s THE FRENCH CONNECTION.

Director William Friedkin, one of the most significant filmmakers of the past 50 years, has died at 87. Friedkin is best known for his two great films, The French Connection and The Exorcist, each groundbreaking in its own way. The French Connection, despite an anti-hero with off-putting characteristics and a setting in NYC at its grimiest, had audiences on the the edge of their seats, and its car chase (before CGI) is still the gold standard. The Exorcist was the first horror movie to be nominated for Oscar (a recognition previously unthinkable).

Robbie Robertson (front center) in THE LAST WATZ.

Robbie Robertson was justifiably famous as a musician and a songwriter, fronting The Band with its many hits and backing Bob Dylan’s transition from acoustic to electric. In fact, I was introduced to Robertson on-screen as a subject of Martin Scorsese’s documentary The Last Waltz, still one of the greatest concert films. But Robertson also became a significant force in the music of cinema, amassing almost 300 screen credits on IMDb as a composer, music supervisor or contributor to the soundtrack. Robertson’s behind the screen work included many collaborations with Scorsese, the last being the heralded Killers of the Flower Moon. Robertson identified as an indigenous Canadian, whose mother was Cayuga and Mohawk from the Six Nations Reserve. 

Director Hugh Hudson’s FIRST FEATURE won the Best Picture Oscar – Chariots of Fire. He never approached that level of achievement with feature films again, although he had a successful career directing commercials. He was one of the very few directors to attempt to make a movie about the American Revolution, Revolution.

Writer Bo Goldman won an adapted screenplay Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and an original screenplay Oscar for Melvin and Howard.

Documentarian Nancy Buirski directed The Loving Story in 2011 and Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy in 2023.

DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY: a movie and its time

Jon Voight in his screen test for Midnight Cowboy from DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Courtesy of Kino Lorber.

The remarkably insightful documentary Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy explores the making of Midnight Cowboy and its place both in cinema and in American culture. 

Midnight Cowboy won Oscars for Best Picture, Director and Adapted Screenplay, all with an X-rating. Sure, we know Midnight Cowboy as a groundbreaking film, but Desperate Souls argues that it both reflected the zeitgeist of the moment and opened new possibilities in American filmmaking.

This was a transitional period in Hollywood and in the culture. Midnight Cowboy won its Oscars at the same Academy Award ceremony that honored John Wayne as Best Actor. Midnight Cowboy’s protagonists were completely unDukelike, one a would-be gigolo and the other an almost homeless conman.

So, we have two marginal anti-heroes and their unconventional bond, along with, shockingly, incidents of gay sex, heterosexual impotence and incontinence. The director John Schlesinger himself was a closeted gay man. Anyone who was alive in 1969 can tell you that this was extraordinarily transgressive content to penetrate the cultural mainstream.

Besides the unsettling themes, Midnight Cowboy, along with The Graduate (1967) and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) pioneered the effective use of popular music on the soundtrack. Midnight Cowboy is notable for both John Barry’s Emmy-winning score and for the use of Fred Niel’s Everybody’s Talkin’, which Schlesinger used as the theme.

Filmmaker Nancy Buirski, who died in September, builds her case with superb sourcing. She hit gold with the unique perspective of Jennifer Salt, who observed her father, screenwriter Waldo Salt, and the director John Schlesinger birth the film; she also acted in the movie and came to date its star, Jon Voight. Voight himself bookends the film with emotionally powerful reflections.

Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy also includes Voight’s screen test, and I dare you to explain why the filmmakers, after watching it, said THAT’S THE GUY.

As I write, Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy is number 21 on my carefully curated list of Longest Movie Titles.

This is a strong film, and a Must See for cinephiles, especially Jon Voight’s intro and outro. saw Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy, Midnight Cowboy at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, and you can stream it now on Amazon, AppleTV, Vudu and YouTube.