Shooting Midnight Cowboy: The Controversial Classic That Transformed American Cinema
In Shooting Midnight Cowboy: Art, Sex, Loneliness, Liberation, and the Making of a Dark Classic, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times-bestselling author Glenn Frankel reveals the captivating history behind the groundbreaking 1969 Oscar-winning film that signaled a dramatic shift in American popular culture.
Director John Schlesinger's daring adaptation of James Leo Herlihy's transgressive novel, Midnight Cowboy, earned an X rating for its boundary-pushing depictions of homosexuality, prostitution, and sexual assault. Schlesinger enlisted producer Jerome Hellman and formerly blacklisted screenwriter Waldo Salt, and together they navigated a troubled New York City to create a cinematic masterpiece.
More than just a film history, Shooting Midnight Cowboy is an arresting glimpse into the world from which it emerged. From the pioneering cinematographer Adam Holender to legendary casting director Marion Dougherty, who discovered Dustin Hoffman and Jon Voight, Frankel weaves together the stories of the talented individuals who brought Herlihy's vision to life on screen.
Enriched by interviews with Hoffman, Voight, and others, this definitive account explores how Midnight Cowboy unleashed a new wave of innovation in American cinema and reflects a country on the brink of liberation from decades of cultural and sexual repression.