Nancy Buirski
Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy
Edition 2023
101'
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2022
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Documentary
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Dialogue:
English
When Martin Scorsese provides some advice on a documentary, you can count on it to be fascinating. Find out what strings Midnight Cowboy touched with American audiences in the 1970s and what was at stake for director John Schlesinger.
At the 1970 Oscars, Midnight Cowboy won three of its seven nominations after being a bonafide box office success in US cinemas, despite its infamous X rating, low budget and the depiction of an intimate friendship between a sex worker and a third-rate criminal. Following the book Shooting Midnight Cowboy (2021), the kaleidoscopic Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy explores not only how the New Hollywood classic reflected the zeitgeist on several fronts, but also how the gay filmmaker John Schlesinger managed to find and safeguard tenderness among male characters against the backdrop of a decaying metropolis full of homophobia. Documentary filmmaker Nancy Buirski delivers another impeccable film-about-film after By Sidney Lumet (FFG2015), nominated in Venice for a Queer Lion.
“A documentary about what made a New Hollywood classic indelible. Nancy Buirski's rapt, incisive, and beautifully exploratory making-of-a-movie documentary, channels how Midnight Cowboy channeled the world around it.” - Variety
Image gallery
Credits
Directors
Nancy Buirski
Cast
Bob Balaban, Ian Buruma, Michael Childers, Brian De Palma
Scenario
Nancy Buirski
Director of Photography
Rex Miller
Editors
Anthony Ripoli
Producers
Nancy Buirski, Simon Kilmurry, Susan Margolin
More info
Dialogue
English
Countries of production
United States of America
Year
2022
Filmography
Nancy Buirski
The Loving Story (2011), Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq (2013), By Sidney Lumet (2015), The Rape of Recy Taylor (2017), A Crime on the Bayou (2020), Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy (2022)
