Asphalt cowboy

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Movie
German title Asphalt cowboy
Original title Midnight cowboy
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1969
length 108 minutes
Age rating FSK 16 (previously: 18)
Rod
Director John Schlesinger
script Waldo Salt
production Jerome Hellman
music John Barry
camera Adam Holender
cut Hugh A. Robertson
occupation
synchronization

Asphalt-Cowboy (Original title: Midnight Cowboy ) is an American drama film from 1969 directed by John Schlesinger with Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight in the leading roles. The model was the novel Midnight Cowboy (German book title: Mitternachts-Cowboy or Rodeo der Nacht) from 1965 by James Leo Herlihy . The Oscar-winning film deliberately focuses on anti-heroes and is considered a classic of " New Hollywood ".

action

Joe Buck is 28, lives in a small town in Texas and works as a dishwasher there. One day he packs his suitcase, disguises himself as a cowboy, and quits his job to take the Greyhound bus to New York . There, the naive sun boy believes , he can be successful as a gigolo by combining the pleasant with the useful and offering his services to bored New York ladies for money. The inexperienced and gullible Texan, however, loses his money in New York instead of making it. Attempts to initiate with women fail. He ends up in bed with one of them, but the woman assumes that she will get money for it herself. When she bursts into tears, he gives the aging prostitute twenty dollars. In a pub, Joe meets the shabby, limping crook Rizzo (called "Ratso"). He claims to know a man who could help Joe get into the sex business. Joe is worth twenty dollars for this tip, but the supposed insider turns out to be a crazy religious fanatic. Meanwhile, Rizzo has disappeared with Joe's last money. Joe then has to leave his hotel room, which he can no longer afford. In his need he tries homosexual services, which also fails in the beginning; a first young customer cannot pay.

One day, Joe, who is now quite torn down and plagued by hunger, meets Rizzo again, but instead of beating him up as he intended, he accepts his help and, since he no longer has a place to stay, moves to his cold, dirty dwelling in a dilapidated house.

In flashbacks, Joe's memories of his past in Texas can be seen over and over again. He grew up with his grandmother Sally, who died while he was in the military. As a child he was baptized Christian in a river, but he has no good feelings about religion. For a while he had a friend named Annie, who was also called Crazy Annie. One day he and Annie were raped by a group of young men, causing Annie to go "crazy" and later to be admitted to a mental institution.

Joe and Rizzo have some big city adventures in New York. The situation seems to brighten when Joe meets a woman at a party who pays him for his love service and even arranges a follow-up job, which, however, fails. Joe and Rizzo dream of Florida . Joe would certainly be more successful with women there, as they believe, and the warm climate could also provide relief for the now seriously ill Rizzo, who now wants to go to Florida as soon as possible. To raise the necessary money, Joe robbed a Chicago agent who had taken him to his hotel room and knocked him down. Eventually the two of them take a bus to Miami . During a stopover, Joe buys new clothes and throws his cowboy outfit in the trash. But a few minutes before arriving at the desired destination, Rizzo dies in the bus.

background

  • The film is known for the scene in which Rizzo is almost hit by a taxi while crossing a street and then yells at the driver, “ I'm walking here! I'm walking here! ”(Actually“ I'm going here! I'm going here! ”, But in the German dubbing you can hear“ When I go, you have a break! ”). The American Film Institute voted this line 27th in a 2005 list of the 100 best movie quotes from US films . Dustin Hoffman claimed in interviews that the scene was a spontaneous improvisation, but on the audio commentary on the DVD producer Jerome Hellman makes it clear that the taxi driver was an extra , the scene was written in the script and rehearsed several times.
  • The American Film Institute placed Asphalt Cowboy in a list of the 100 best US films published in 2007 at number 43. In 1994 the film was included in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress .
  • The film was X-rated on its first theatrical release in 1969 . This makes Asphalt-Cowboy the first (and last) film that had the same age rating as a pornographic film and received an Oscar in the category of best film. In 1971, the age rating was changed to the newly introduced R-rated category , which requires minors to be accompanied by an adult.
  • The German video first edition was around 108 minutes long and was approved by the FSK from the age of 18; today's PAL - DVD , also with about 108 minutes of run length is released as early as 16 years.
  • The song Everybody's Talkin ' by Harry Nilsson , which is heard several times in the film, became famous.
  • In the party scene, Viva and Ultra Violet , so-called " Andy Warhol superstars ", play among others . According to producer Jerome Hellman, large amounts of marijuana were actually consumed during the filming of the psychedelic party .
  • Jennifer Salt , who plays Annie, is the daughter of screenwriter Waldo Salt , who himself made a brief guest appearance in the film as Joe Pyne on a television show; he is also the voice on the phone when Cass is on the phone in the presence of Joe.
  • For Jon Voight, the film was the breakthrough as a film actor. The role also had an impact on his personal life as he fell in love with colleague Jennifer Salt while filming and had a relationship with her afterwards.
  • The film was released in theaters in the Federal Republic of Germany on July 18, 1969, and it was first broadcast on television on June 17, 1974 at 9:15 p.m. on ZDF .

Reviews

“With his multiple Oscar-winning drama, director John Schlesinger succeeded in critiquing the American way of life and the indifference of society. His stars Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman also set monuments in the leading roles and were nominated for Oscars. Courageous, as Schlesinger even dared to tackle the subject of homosexuality at the time. The first film to receive the then newly introduced X-Rating. "

- Video Week

“John Schlesinger uses this conversion story to criticize the American way of life, the indifference of mass society. The film, which is blatant in dialogue, creates a credible atmosphere and milieu, but is less convincing in psychological drawing.

- Lexicon of international film

"The film is not free of sentimentalities in the script and in the presentation, but the feeling of love - in the Christian sense - between these two social outsiders was poignantly portrayed."

- The time of September 5, 1969

"Brilliant film by John Schlesinger, which mixes social criticism with elements of entertainment and is recommended to open-minded viewers from 18 despite internal contradictions."

- Protestant film observer

Awards

At the 1970 Academy Awards , the film won awards in the categories of Best Film , Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay . Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight received four other nominations for Best Actor, Sylvia Miles for Best Supporting Actress and Hugh A. Robertson for Best Editing. At the 1970 Golden Globes award , Jon Voight won the award for “ Most Promising Newcomer - Male ”. The film was nominated in six other categories.

The film took part in the competition at the Berlinale in 1969 , where it became a crowd favorite. He was nominated for a Golden Bear and won an "OCIC Award". The film also won a Laurel Award in 1970 in the categories of Best Drama, Best Actor in a Drama (Dustin Hoffman), and Best Young Actor (Jon Voight) .

synchronization

The dubbed version was created on the occasion of the German cinema premiere of the film. A German audio description of the film was made in 2001. It was spoken by Doris Wolters and produced by Arte .

role actor Voice actor
"Ratso" Rizzo Dustin Hoffman Herbert Stass
Joe Buck Jon Voight Uwe Friedrichsen
Shirley Brenda Vaccaro Beate Hasenau
Mr. O'Daniel John McGiver Klaus Miedel
Cass Sylvia Miles Friedel Schuster
Operation in Florida Joan Murphy Hallgard Bruckhaus
Cass's man on the phone (voice) Waldo Salt Friedrich Schoenfelder

literature

  • James Leo Herlihy : Midnight Cowboy , New York: Simon & Schuster 1965
    • Rodeo of the night , German by Walter Hasenclever , Bern a. a .: Joke 1968, then under the title Mitternachts-Cowboy , Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1971 and Frankfurt a. a .: Ullstein 1979, ISBN 3-548-20019-2
  • Hans-Jürgen Kubiak: The Oscar Films. The best films from 1927/28 to 2004. The best non-English language films from 1947 to 2004. The best animated films from 2001 to 2004 . Marburg: Schüren 2005, ISBN 3-89472-386-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Vanityfair.com
  2. ↑ newwavefilm.com
  3. ↑ a b c d Audio commentary on the DVD
  4. ^ Warhol Superstar in the English language Wikipedia
  5. ^ Filmdienst.de and Spiegel.de .
  6. ↑ Asphalt Cowboy. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. ^ Stanley Kauffmann: New York - America's cinema is rejuvenating . In: Die Zeit , 36/1969.
  8. ↑ Evangelischer Filmbeobachter , Review No. 303/1969.
  9. ↑ Asphalt Cowboy in the audio film database of Hörfilm e. V.