Distant Relatives: Midnight Cowboy and The Fighter

Robert here, with my series Distant Relatives, where we look at two films, (one classic, one modern) related through a common theme and ask what their similarities and differences can tell us about the evolution of cinema.  This week there are definitely SPOILERS AHEAD, not necessarily specifics but revelations in terms of happy ending or sad ending. Be forewarned.

Two men looking for the American Dream

In the 1960's Easy Rider, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Midnight Cowboy and other films followed an emerging theme, two brethren on a quest for success, triumph, togetherness, the American Dream. It may seem odd to consider The Fighter a descendant of this type of film. Indeed The Fighter (2010) and Midnight Cowboy (1969) come to drastically different conclusions about how attainable the dream is, but their journies to that concusion are consipuciously similar, especially in terms of the relationship between the two men at the center of the stories.

In Midnight Cowboy, Joe Buck (Jon Voight) has dreams of making it big in the male prostitution business, but can't seem to get out of small time transactions. "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), the untrustworthy but sympathetic loser who eventually takes him under his wing, has no hope in life without Joe. When Joe makes Rizzo his manager of sorts it's a move that he needs and yet one that keeps him teetering on the edge of success and failure. Eventually the men will become brothers in their quest for a better life. So it is with real life Mickie Ward (Mark Wahlberg), the underachieving boxer who needs his actual brother Dickie (Christian Bale), a drug addict and perpetual screw-up, but the only man who can lead him to a world championship.

The Adonis and the Scofflaw

The two man story structure isn't anything new, nor was it anything new when our earlier film was made in the 1960's. In fact, in the world of comedy, the straight man/comic relief duo has always been standard. And it's that structure that both of our stories share in common. Not to suggest Ratso or Dickie are "comic relief." They're definitely the more animated character who stands in direct contrast to their straight man. This is what makes Midnight Cowboy the more significant cousin to The Fighter. Butch and Sundance don't have this dramatic a dynamic, nor do Billy and Wyatt.

While The Fighter asks us to make comparisons between Dickie's past failure and Micky's impending failure that Midnight Cowboy does not, both present a picture of men on different sides of their hopes and dreams, one beyond hope, and one filled with it. They are a contrast of sickness and health.

A man's got to make a living

Consider also the similarities between the jobs of Joe Buck and Micky Ward. I don't mean to suggest that the legitimate pursuit of boxing is equal to prostitution, however both present opportunities for the film to comment on the projection of the protagonist's success, one opponent/clinet at a time. Something between luck and talent lead to whether the next opponent/client will be an improvement over the last, a step in the right direction. So it is with the American Dream, half luck, half talent. But in these cases, all the more apparent when noticed one job at a time.

Inevitably Midnight Cowboy ends by declaring the death of the dream, and finishes off with an actual death to symbolize this. For The Fighter the dream is achieved, renewed even through the symbolic renewal of a character. Is the fact that the modern film ends happily a sign that audiences reject the suggestion that the dream is dead? Not necessarily. The truth is far more complex than that. Plenty of films with harshly realistic endings these days find success on their own level. Suggestions about the declining taste or tolerance of the modern moviegoer need not be marked against a film as lauded as The Fighter. What is telling about the film is, considering just how many inspirational sports films, even boxing films, there are, filmmakers wanted to tell this story. It is perhaps because it presents something new to the feel-good genre: the idea of opposites, but brothers, playing off each other in their quest for something great.

David O. Russell ♥ "The Royal Tenenbaums". Rosie Perez ♥ "The Fighter"

When I lived in the northern Brooklyn, I used to hop on the G Train to visit the Museum of Moving Images in Queens with some regularity. I haven't been in years but they've redone the museum and they're holding special events and courting press. A few days back Spike Jonze interviewed David O. Russell about The Fighter. You can listen to the whole hour long event if you've got the time. But I thought I'd share two weird bits and two interesting anecdotes if you don't have the full hour.

David O. Russell and Spike Jonze discuss filmmaking

Two weird things

1. Spike Jonze's laugh is strange and delightful and just as weird as Natalie Portman's. 

2. About 34 minutes into the conversation Rosie Perez interrupts the interview because she has to leave the event early but doesn't want to leave without telling Russell how much she loved The Fighter "I laughed. I cried". There's just no mistaking that voice! (And there's one Oscar ballot to consider.)

Two anecdotes of interest

1. David O. Russell really really really loves Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). He claims to have seen it over 50 times. He talks about his change of heart with the movie.

When it first came out -- we were a little bit of group with Wes and Sofia [Coppola]. Wes shared the script with me and I didn't really get it. I was like 'Wes, I don't know if you know this but there's no 375th street in New York. He says "No, I'm making up New York."


When I saw the film I still didn't get it, still didn't really get it and I was a huge fan of Rushmore. The funny thing is how your feelings can change about cinema. So if you don't like any of my movies just give it ten years. [Laughter] Ten years later my son he loves The Royal Tenenbaums and I gotta tell you I just fell in love with it. I see so much brilliance in it. I think it's Gene Hackman's greatest performance and it plays constantly in my car.

He goes on to explain that he has a tv in his car and that he watches the movie while driving "Well, there's a lot of traffic" he says getting a big laugh from the room.

2. The second bit that stuck out for me is obvious but I had never really processed it. Originally Darren Aronofsky (who we were just discussing) was attached and Russell, in explaining what he was drawn to in the material, reveals just how different that film would have been. That's a big "duh" but it struck me nonetheless.

Right now what interests me most is something that's very real and emotional and raw and fascinating in a way that certain characters or people can be. Like, that's an amazing character. That's someone i could watch or look at or listen to for a long time. That's what interests me the most, characters that make my mouth hang open like "WHO ARE YOU?"

When I saw this family in their photo album the mother, you know, with the sisters. Darren's script didn't really have the mother and the sisters as much or the girlfriend. The women were much smaller and it was much more dark about Dicky's dark crime stuff.

David O. Russell with "the sisters"

Now.

Just try and imagine The Fighter without Melissa Leo's energy-sucking presence or Amy Adams' softbodied but hard living bartender. Try to imagine it without the sisters???. I mean, that film... NO! Russell returns to this line of thought much later in the interview when he reveals what a godsend the movie was for him; Mark Wahlberg was returning the favor bringing this to him since he brought Three Kings and Huckabees to Mark.

I had had a bumpy few years of writing many things and tying myself up in knots. That's hard. That can happen. I was happy to have a simple thing that I saw how it could be done, I had a clear take on it. Mark is very loyal to me and very much a protector of me so I knew I wasn't coming in somewhere where I was not going to be able to do what I wanted to do. That's the only way i know how to do things. So I came in and said this is how i see it, this is how I want to do it. They cleared the way and let me do that, the sisters and the mom and the girlfriend being more prominent. They were there in the earlier versions but barely there. They weren't pivotal.

I'm so glad Aronofsky departed. We got this movie instead AND we got Black Swan. It was literally a win/win for moviegoers.

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Director ≠ Picture. (And Other Theories)

One of the things that's most bothersome during awards season is the persistent notion that Best Direction must = Best Picture. There's a healthy bit of correlation of course but this is not how I view film so it's different for my own awardage. All of the top 24 films I covered in my year end review have have strong direction of course. But Direction, like acting or writing or editing or whatnot is not always the most important element, auteur theory be damned. Some films achieve greatness through a consistent cumulation of "good" efforts across the board, others through one or two specific "Great" elements, some through strength of story, theme and plotting.

Other times the director is the principle reason that a movie is great and the auteur theory works just fine. Two examples this year: David O. Russell (The Fighter) and Jacques Audiard (Un Prophete) are both working in excessively familiar genres yet they're finding fresh new pockets of life. They have such great eyes and formidable guiding visions. So I compose my directorial list each year separate from my Best Picture list and though there's a healthy bit of correlation (7/10) the order is definitely different and these would be my top ten players (alpha order)

• Andrea Arnold for Fish Tank
• Darren Aronofsky for Black Swan
• Jacques Audiard for Un Prophete
• David Fincher for The Social Network
• Luca Guadagnino for I Am Love
• Bong Joon-Ho for Mother
• David Michôd for Animal Kingdom 
• Roman Polanski for The Ghost Writer
• David O. Russell for The Fighter
• Lee Unkrich for Toy Story 3

So here's my nominees!

I've also posted my Screenplay choices. I was torn as to what to do with Toy Story 3. I don't really think of sequels as  adapted despite the trending and campaigning that way with Oscars. If sequels are adapted than aren't all original screenplays that are inspired by true stories or real life characters or that riff on other stories adapted? I considered letting it slide since Toy Story 3 needs the other two films to exist. It's not really a stand-alone. But then that we be true of all sequels and all movies based on true stories or inspired by actual characters and so on and, well, it's a slippery slope and virtually 85%-90% of movies become "adapted". So I've stuck to the original definition. Adapted meaning based on previously published work

Director's Guild Big 5. Plus Trivia!

If you click on over to the Best Director page that we've had up for awhile, you'll see this Oscar prediction awaiting you.

It's the exact DGA nominee list for Best Director (just announced). This isn't The Film Experience blowing its own horn so much as the obvious: This is the shortlist. In order for anyone else to pull an Oscar nomination on January 25th for Achievement in Direction, they'll have to either: K.O. David O. Russell as he floats like a butterfly and stings like a bee; cut those thespian marionette strings that Tom Hooper is gracefully pulling; sue David Fincher for capturing zeitgeist in a bottle before they could; break the legs of Darren Aronofsky's ballerinas; or invade Chris Nolan's Oscar dream. Before it even happens!

Any one of those things will be very difficult to do.

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