Midnight Cowboy

Midnight Cowboy screenplay by Waldo Salt, 1970 Winner of The Oscar for Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium, it also took the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, and many other trophies, plus, it is included among The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies of All Time – more than five thousand films and books from those lists and others are reviewed on my blogs, if you are interested, here is one link https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html

 

 

 

I have seen a documentary series, called American Cinema, and they were saying that Midnight Cowboy was a surprise at the Oscars, and presumably elsewhere, for this was ‘modern’, and won against the expected favorites

 

-          Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/butch-cassidy-and-sundance-kid-by.html was in competition

 

This is an impressive narrative, with Jon Voigt as the Midnight Cowboy aka Joe Buck and Dustin Hoffman in the role of Ratos, the former travels from Texas all the way to New York to become a…gigolo, or hustler as he calls it

I am biased now, and the fact that Jon Voigt has been an avid supporter of Orange Woland is anathema for me, so much that looking last night at fragments of the motion picture, I found him over the top, if not flawed

 

As for Dustin Hoffman, I can never forget what I have read in Adventures in The Screen Trade https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/adventures-in-screen-trade-by-william.html about him and others

William Goldman wrote the script for the above-mentioned Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid – also an Oscar Winner incidentally, for the screenplay – and quite a few excellent features, including Marathon Man

 

Dustin Hoffman had the leading role, and behaved appallingly, in a scene where Rod Scheider comes at night, Hoffman keeps asking stupid questions and demanding stupid changes, in disregard for the team working

Therefore, I am not ‘crazy’ about either of the thespians in leading roles in this motion picture, although we must admit that it is a good motion picture, we just have to wonder if it is despite of the actors, or in part because of their talent

 

Reading the mesmerizing Intellectuals https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/01/intellectuals-by-paul-johnson.html would explain a lot, nevertheless, the adventures of Joe Buck and Ratso are compelling, if somewhat dated

Joe wants to make money having sex with women, if his first expeeirnce is almost a disater, then he meets Ratso, who takes advantage of the naiveté of the Texan (majorities there have been MAGA and gaga for many years, and then you have Voigt, one of the most prominent supporters of Orange Woland in Hollywood, named ‘ambassador’  for that reason) and sends him to see an evangelists, again, the MAGA camp is very present in this motion picture, at least I see allegories in places, the fanaticism, bible belt and all that

Z was competing in that year https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/z-by-vassilis-vassilikos-95-out-of-10.html and it was better

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/02/is-this-unique-could-it-make-money.html  – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To the Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’