Could "Midnight Cowboy" possibly be the best downer depressing movie ever?

MISSING

A Costa-Gavras film with a great, sad score by Vangelis. Very sad, one of Jack Lemmon's best.

STAR 80

Bob Fosse's last, about doomed Playboy playmate Dorothy Stratten. Unrelentingly bleak; the dark side of the Playboy dream, which is just a more risque variant of the American version.

ED

 

Todd Solondz's entire oeuvre so far (Welcome to the Dollhouse, Happiness, Storytelling) seems pretty dark.

From the silent era, how about King Vidor's The Big Parade and The Crowd?

 

Yeah, sort of like what happened with Princes Bride. Stripped movie only DVD followed by a feature packed DVD a couple years later.

That's why I'm holding off on the Midnight Cowboy DVD for now, but the 30th anniversary has come and gone. The 35th is just around the corner though!

Your LD must be a real treat to watch.

Dan C

 

I like downer movies. They are the antithesis of the usual "Hollywood" ending. I don't like to have the expected uplifting, happy ending.

I guess I don't watch movies to alter my mood.

 

Hey People: check out one called DOWN BY LAW
I't a DOOZIE

Here's a link to the movie on IMDB. Check out some of the comments if you are not familiar with it.

Down By Law on the IMDB

 

Drugstore Cowboy

I also like downer movies. Those are the type of movies that I usually buy or rent. I think that I somehow relate to the feeling or atmosphere of the films.

Easy Rider
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot
Mosquito Coast
Five Easy Pieces

 

It's not exactly a downer movie per se, but Saturday Night Fever certainly isn't the happy-go-lucky film about disco dancing that many expect it would be. I just got the DVD a couple of weeks ago and *really* watched it for the first time.

In fact, on the DVD's interview, Travolta says he signed on because it was a gritty look at a young man's life. The first draft of the film, though, turned it into the more happy-go-lucky film that we all would expect of such a movie, and he revolted, saying it was not the movie he signed up to do. Thankfully it got changed back to the original concept.

I especially like the ending, when you can see character Tony Manero realizes that everything he's touched has turned to sh!t: he tries to "get it on" rather forcibly with his new dance partner and scares her away; his brother gives up the priesthood and lets the family down; his friend falls off a bridge intentionally because he broke his promise to call his friend on the phone; he and his friends mistakenly beat up a gang that another hospitalized friend *thought* beat him up; he realizes the dance contest they supposedly won was fixed, and gives the trophy and prize money to the couple he feels was the winner; he realizes his friends, who more or less raped his former dance partner while he sat in the front seat, are a bunch of losers. Only at the end is there a glimmer of hope...and even then, you are unsure if his new friendship is going to last, given his past behavior.

IMHO, any movie that leaves you *thinking* after its conclusion is a good one. I enjoy a good happy ending also, but it's like two favorite flavors of ice cream--sometimes I need the pick-me-up, and with others, I can use the intellectual and emotional stimulation.

 

Both of these were very good. It's been a long time since I've seen MISSING. STAR 80 was very disturbing.

Lon mentioned MOSQUITO COAST, which I also recommend. It stars Harrison Ford and the late River Phoenix in a story about the American quest for utopia. It misses a key line from the great Paul Theroux novel, something to the effect that "My father came to Paradise, and all he could think to bring was an air-conditioner," but that's the gist of the movie. You finish watching MOSQUITO COAST thinking you've seen and felt something.

I agree with Rudy that SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER is a much better film than people remember. I saw an interview with John Travolta, and he acknowledged he went over the director's head, and had him re-cut some of the dance sequences to feature his dancing, on which the actor had worked for months, rather than his face. One of the more famous dance scenes in the film was more or less edited to Travolta's instructions.

 

While one could argue any number(dozens?)of Hitchcock films are *downers* the prize goes to VERTIGO, the 1958 classic that did poorly(for a Hitchcock film)at the box office, but has since made its money back and is recognized for the brilliant work it is.

The interesting thing is, Hitchcock blamed the film's failure on two factors: Jimmy Stewart was too old for the part, and Kim Novak not accomplished enough an actress. He was wrong on both counts: Stewart's age is irrelevant to the story, while Novak turned out to be perfect for a role I just can't imagine Vera Miles(the original choice--shame she got pregnant just before pre-production began)pulling it off. What really made it a poor box-office draw was its truly downbeat nature, but most of all the ending, where the imposter falls to her death just as(and where)the wife she impersonated was murdered. There's Stewart, at the bell tower precupice, and you wonder if he's going to take a header himself. The film left the viewer no way out--not even a glimmer of hope.

On the DVD, the alternate(or european?)ending is shown, and thankfully was never used for mainstream release. Would have spoiled everything.

ED

 

Kubrick's Barry Lyndon, Ozu's Tokyo Story and Bunuel's Los Olvidados all make me "glad to be unhappy".

 

The most bleak movie I have ever seen in a theater is Ironweed starring Jack Nicholson and I believe Meryl Streep.

This is the movie I saw the night I officially proposed to my wife in NYC. We both thought it would be a good one considering the stars and that it was based on a best selling novel but we didn't realize the depressing story it told.
Luckily we were on cloud nine that night and promptly laughed at the movie and have forgotten it since (as did the public).

JohnG

 

I haven't seen that in years, great film. Another one I need to get on DVD.
Dan C

 

Terry Gilliams' Brazil and Twelve Monkeys are also downbeat good movies. While we've got Nicholson here I'll put in a plug for King of Marvin Gardens, which is a lesser known film than Five Easy Pieces but also has a lot of great scene chewing by all involved. In this case Ellen Burstyn and Bruce Dern are included. My wife would probably say that the ultimate downer film is Herzog's Aguirre, but I might go with one of her favorites, Woody Allen's Stardust Memories. This movie is not only a downer, it made clear Allen's basic contempt for the audience, a quality that is conspicuously absent from most of the other films mentioned in this thread. I know he's just being his own worst critic, but I've had difficulty watching any of his films since, and even the ones I had formerly enjoyed have been sullied by having seen this one.

 

The Mrs. likes Hitchcock, except for this one. She can't comprehend James Stewart in a serious role (especially where he goes crazy halfway through the movie), and doesn't like Kim Novak. Oh well.

It wasn't one of my top favorites, but having watched it a few more times on the DVD, I'm just totally hooked on it. I think that Stewart's age is perfect for the story--he's not a young guy out having a fling with a stranger, but a middle-aged man who never married or settled down, has had an on/off relationship with a girlfriend who also hasn't settled down, and was well established enough in his job to retire after his accident. Kim Novak doesn't strike me right away as being all that good of an actress until, again, you watch the movie several times. A complex character--she's at times moody, mysterious, seductive, cold...a great part.

Where is this alternate ending on the DVD? It's mentioned, but I can't find it.

 

Yep, Stewart could play darker roles with aplomb when called upon to. In a way it's a shame nobody ever had the guts to cast him as a flat-out villain just once in his career, as Sergio Leone did with Fonda.

 

Barry Lyndon is one of my all time favourite movies. I only wish that they would get it right in transferring it to DVD and come out with an anamorphic version. The first DVD transfer was horrid. The second is non-anamorphic and by the time they do it again we will probably be into HDDVD that is if they get over the impending RED vs BLUE laser war.

 

The cinematography is superb. I had the LD but have passed so far on DVD but, I just might pick it up on you're recommendation. How do you identify the latest mastering from the cover?

 

And getting back to downers of the 60's, there is cinematographer Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool starring Robert Forster with music by Mike Bloomfield about a disillusioned cameraman (?stand in for the director himself).

 

And it's a very cool dvd...

 

"In Cold Blood" is sure to get your party going on a Saturday night.....

 

To tie in Fonda and Hitchcock, The Wrong Man is another one of those movies with an unusual ending. The good guy gets off in the end, but his family suffers. IIRC, wasn't the ending of that one altered as well? I haven't seen it in awhile.