8 | / 10 |
Users | 3.1 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A naive hustler travels from Texas to New York to seek personal fortune but, in the process, finds himself a new friend.
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Jon Voight, Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Barnard HughesDrama | 100% |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono (256 kbps)
French: DTS 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Italian: DTS 5.1
German: DTS 5.1
Hungarian: Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish: DTS 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English SDH, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Mandarin (Traditional), Norwegian, Romanian, Swedish
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 3.5 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Most movie fans have heard of Midnight Cowboy, and many recognize its most famous line
("I'm walkin' here!"). But how many have seen it from start to finish? It was a fluke that any
studio made it in 1969, leaving the creative team complete freedom to do as they wished. Today
no studio would touch it. As for commercial success, who knows? On its initial release, the film
had the advantage both of edgy subject matter and of techniques, especially in cinematography
and editing, that were sufficiently new to American audiences that they grabbed you by the
throat. When the lights came up, you knew you'd just seen something unique, and you walked
out dazed. I remember the sensation vividly.
Today, Midnight Cowboy has acquired novelty of a different kind. Its immersive style of
emotional drama has been largely abandoned by Hollywood, while independent film is now
dominated by young filmmakers who have been told to "write what you know", which is why so
many indie films feature sensitive, artistic protagonists coming of age. Rarely does a film focus
on the down-and-out on society's periphery. (Courtney Hunt's Frozen
River and Debra Granik's
Winter's Bone are rare exceptions.) The two
protagonists of Midnight Cowboy are born losers.
One of the film's many achievements is to make audiences care deeply about them.
"I'm walkin' here!"
From the description and screenshots, this appears to be the same transfer and encode featured on
the region-free UK Blu-ray released in May 2011. (The
extras and most of the audio and subtitle
options are also identical.) As noted in the previous review, the source material is far from
pristine, with numerous instances of dust, small scratches and other analogue wear-and-tear.
Some of the worst problems occur during the opening title sequence, because the titles would
have been superimposed by optical printing in that era, thereby locking in any dirt or damage.
Cinematographer Adam Holender reportedly oversaw a restoration for the film's 25th
anniversary, but that was most likely performed photochemically, given the state of digital
imaging at the time. What Midnight Cowboy needs is a digital restoration comparable to the work
done on the Godfather trilogy. Whether MGM's
precarious finances will support such an effort is
doubtful.
Even with digital restoration, however, Midnight Cowboy would remain a grainy film, as it is on
this Blu-ray. As DP Holender notes in the "After Midnight" documentary, much of the film was
shot with deliberate underexposure to obtain a particular pallette. With then-contemporary film
stocks and lenses, underexposure could not help but accentuate the grain, and even with current
digital tools, there is only so much that can be done without altering the intended look. It should
be remembered that in 1969 no one sat in a movie theater complaining about "grainy" images.
You watched what was on the screen and experienced the image that was there. It's only as a
result of high-resolution images on home video that terms like "grainy", "desaturated", "vibrant",
"razor-sharp", etc. have acquired a status as value judgments instead of being purely descriptive.
The AVC-encoded image on the Midnight Cowboy Blu-ray is extremely grainy compared to any
contemporary production, but once your eye adjusts to it, you realize that there is plenty of fine
detail to be observed in the image - detail that wouldn't be there if the grain were recklessly
stripped away with noise-reduction software. Detail is essential here, both for the increasingly
appalling degrees of squalor in which Joe is forced to live and for the bizarre, almost decadent
surroundings into which he gets a peek from time to time, whether uptown at the homes of
prospective clients or downtown at a Warhol-like party.
Some scenes are notably less grainy, especially the scenes in Ratzo's Florida reverie. Holender
notes in the documentary that these scenes used overexposure, which also accounts for their
intense colors. The New York scenes tend to be desaturated and cold, although certain colors
stand out, especially in Joe's inappropriately flamboyant wardrobe.
Black levels are generally good, although some crushing is evident in night scenes. Here again,
underexposure is no doubt the cause.
The 2006 "collector's edition" two-disc DVD set featured a newly created 5.1 track, plus the original mono track. Only the 5.1 track appears on the Blu-ray, in DTS lossless. As 5.1 remixes go, this one is conservative and reasonably effective. It stays in front and does almost nothing with the surrounds. Dialogue occasionally moves left or right, but generally remains in the center. As is often the case, the music is the chief beneficiary of the remix, with the Nilsson rendition of "Everybody's Talkin'" sounding especially vivid and John Barry's haunting ballad for harmonica hovering over the proceedings like both an anthem and a dirge.
As with other recent MGM discs too numerous to list, Fox has mastered this title with no main
menu but with BD-Java, omitting the ability to set bookmarks. No BDJ-encoded disc should ever
lack this capability. BDJ prevents the user from stopping playback and starting from the same
position, and bookmarking is the only workaround. Its omission is inexcusable.
With the exception of a photo gallery, all of the features have been ported over from the 2006
"collector's edition" two-disc DVD set.
Midnight Cowboy is a classic and a masterpiece. Unfortunately, unless someone is willing to
invest significant effort and money in a major restoration, this Blu-ray from Fox/MGM is
probably the best it's going to look. Short of Criterion gaining the rights to undertake a new
version, it seems unlikely that this one will be improved upon anytime soon. I therefore
recommend it, with appropriate caveats, because the film is well worth your time.
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