Shooting Midnight Cowboy review: the decade's first essential cultural history

Glenn Frankel’s book examines much more than the making of a film – it paints a portrait of an era

This tremendous volume offers the most detailed explication of how a movie is made that I have ever read. But Glenn Frankel’s book is much more than the story of a landmark film from 1969. Its many pleasures include a splendid cultural history of mid-20th-century Britain and New York, a concise account of the Hollywood blacklist and a brilliant double biography of the two closeted gay men most responsible for the creative energy of the movie, which is not just Frankel’s subject, but his inspiration.

James Herlihy wrote the 1965 novel, which created two memorable characters. Joe Buck, a “handsome but not overly bright dishwasher from Texas”, buys a cowboy costume and boards a bus to Manhattan, filled with dreams of fancy women on Park Avenue he’s sure will pay for his body. Rico “Ratso” Rizzo is a conman from the Bronx who becomes Joe’s only reliable companion in the twisted canyons of late-60s Manhattan.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/2QsK0KT