Criterion Spine #925

What is the ultimate embodiment of masculinity? A cowboy, right?

This is a story about a naive self-indulged Texan cowboy named Joe (Jon Voight). Joe goes to New York City to make his small-town dream come true; Living a life full women and luxury, but instead he finds out about the hard and bitter life of New York. While working as a hustler, to survive, his "cowboy" masculinity is put to test after (homo)sexual encounters. He and his new friend Ratso (Dustin Hoffman) have to earn enough money to escape New York together, to live the good life in Florida instead.

This good movie has all the ingredients for a masterpiece, but what could be told simply is instead made more complex. With a 'former lover' backstory (through flashbacks) that serves no other purpose than making the movie more melodramatic. And scenes like the Andy Warhol party scene, that feels a bit out of place. This movie would still work without the dramatic backstory.

What makes the movie stand out is the excellent acting of Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman. Also important to consider is the explicit subject matter, for the time. Homosexuality and prostitution earned it the famous X-rating (later re-rated to R). This movie made way for future movies that touch on contreversial subject matter.

(Note: I learned more about British New Wave. Fragmented and disoriented flashback were trademarks of the New Wave movies. It would be used to intensify the sense of the characters mental state. At the limit, this flashback might remain tantalizingly obscure to the very end of the film, suggesting how reality and imagination can fuse in human experience. This is not a British New Wave movie, but the director was a New Wave director. I think he still used some New Wave stylistic characteristics in this movie. Maybe this would change my view of the movie on the next watch)