Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy

This is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy. It is about a dark and difficult masterpiece and the deeply gifted and flawed people who made it. It is about New York in a troubled era of cultural ferment and social change. It is about an era that made a movie and a movie that made an era. The 1969 movie tells the story of two homeless loners who join forces out of desperation and struggle to survive. It features superb performances by Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, spirited direction by John Schlesinger, a brilliant screenplay by blacklist survivor Waldo Salt, and a memorable musical soundtrack. It is the only X-rated film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Midnight Cowboy remains one of the most original, groundbreaking movies of the modern era. It is set in a New York besieged by economic collapse in the midst of Black, gay and women’s liberation movements. It heralded the coming of age of Hollywood – a time when risk-taking movies flourished, old rules were shattered, and a new breed of filmmakers took on adult themes and troubled characters. We look at Midnight Cowboy’s moment and why this movie resonates so powerfully more than fifty years later.

Today, as political and cultural wars paralyze the country causing chaos in a city known for unrest, we face painful reminders of our 1960s past. We see lost souls, much like Joe and Ratso, left behind by the elite one percent. This is our real story. Midnight Cowboy is a tale of a city, of broken dreams and strivers, then and now. The film lives on not through its collapsing of social and cultural norms but through our everlasting potential for love and salvation, offering grace to even the most desperate. In Midnight Cowboy, one desperate soul tends to another out of compassion and their shared humanity. Only then do we know we are all savable, that even the most unworthy are worthy of love.

PRODUCTION: Nancy Buirski, Susan Margolin, Simon Kilmurry – Augusta Films
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info@augustafilms.com
http://www.augustafilms.com

WORLD SALES: Jessica Lacy – Range Select
thejessicalacy@gmail.com

PRESS OFFICE: Claudia Tomassini – claudiatomassini associates
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