Film Listology: #103 - Midnight Cowboy

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After a brief pause to commemorate Special Topics 50th episode, Garret and Scott resume their Film Listology countdown with the second in their "transgressive trilogy" of New Hollywood films, Midnight Cowboy (1969). Directed by John Schlesinger and starring John Voight and Dustin Hoffman, Midnight Cowboy is the first and only film to receive an initial "X" rating and win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Such a nonconformist combination begs the question, "How does a film like Midnight Cowboy straddle the cultural line  between sacred and profane artistic expression?" The dialogic duo sit assess the cultural significance factor of Schlesinger's film and consider the qualities that situate it of its time while also relevant today. 

Hosts: Garret Castleberry, Scott McMurry

Producers: Garret Castleberry, Will McMurry (Audio Engineer), Alli Garner (Cover Art), Austin Foster (Music)

Recommended readings paired with our Film Listology season:
Thomas Elsaesser, Alexander Horwath, & Noel King (Eds.). The Last Great American Picture Show: New Hollywood Cinema in the 1970s. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2004.

Geoff King. New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. New York: Columbia University Press, 2003.

Rick Altman. Film/Genre. British Film Institute, 1999.

Jim Collins, Ada Preacher Collins, Hilary Radner (Eds.). Film Theory Goes to the Movies, 1st Edition. New York: Routledge, 1992.

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