This movie won Best Picture? Even for 1969, that's hard to believe. There is just absolutely nothing remotely glamorous or enjoyable to watch. It's painful throughout. From the first moment we know Joe Buck is going to ask a woman to pay him for sex through Rico "Ratso" Rizzo's illness, we the viewers are uncomfortable. But it's really good at that. This movie has the causing pain to its viewers thing down. And honestly, I'm glad I watched it. Though it was made immediately after Dustin Hoffman stopped being adorable (he was deliciously disgusting in this movie), it was also made before Jon Voight's skin began to melt off his face, and he was cute in his naive way. Of course, the ideas about loneliness and friendship were really interesting. And Hoffman really did give an unbelievable performance. I mean, I've seen the majority of his Oscar-nominated performances (all but 1974's Lenny) and this one blew the others away.
Various thoughts on things about the movie: The music was...well, I hate "Everybody's Talkin" so I suppose you know how I felt about the music. There were a number of rather obvious but still enjoyable symbolic camera shots--Rizzo's dead face with the reflection of the palm trees he wanted so desperately to experience comes to mind. The drug-induced hallucination scene was cheesy, but every movie to come out in 1968-1969 was obligated to have one scene that would be more enjoyable on LSD. A better/more depressing movie to come out in 1969 that wasn't even nominated for Best Picture is They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I'm still wondering whether the gay thing was an intended subtext or not. Anyway, it's an 8/10.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment