DESPERATE SOULS, DARK CITY AND THE LEGEND OF MIDNIGHT COWBOY

“Burski eloquently conveys the impeccable (but unpredictable) alchemy of the production by underscoring, with frequency, how much of its brilliance was an accidental confluence, how its specific magic was the right combination of people, events, and timing.”

“Perhaps the most explicit and emotionally intense film of the New Hollywood era — and yet in its “Odd Couple” theme and wistful sensibility a profoundly Old Hollywood film, too — “Midnight Cowboy” remains littered with contradictions. Gay and tender, its representation of sex is vile. It’s nostalgic and hopeless; a celebration of the counter-culture and, seemingly, an indictment of its decadence. All that makes Nancy Buirski’s new documentary about its production and legacy more interesting.”

“Still, though, any festival or retrospective event would love to show Desperate Souls to cinephiles and anyone interested in a time — the late 1960s — when a big studio like United Artists would back a bracing, queer—themed, fiercely independent-spirited film written and directed by two closeted gay men (Schlesinger, and the writer of the book in which Midnight Cowboy was based, James Leo Herlihy).”