Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy / Film School Radio interview Director Nancy Buirski

Filmmaker Nancy Buirski (The Loving Story, The Rape of Recy Taylor, By Sidney Lumet) journey through the last 100 years of American cultural, political and artistic touchstones continues with Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy. A half century after its release, John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy remains one of the most original and groundbreaking movies of the modern era. With beguiling performances from Jon Voight (Coming Home) and Dustin Hoffman (The Graduate) as two loners who join forces out of desperation, black list survivor Waldo Salt's brilliant screenplay, and Schlesinger's fearless direction, the 1969 film became the only X- rated film to ever win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Its vivid and compassionate depiction of a more realistic, un-sanitized New York City and its inhabitants paved the way for a generation’s worth of gritty movies with complex characters and adult themes. But this is not a documentary about the making of Midnight Cowboy: it is about the deeply gifted and flawed people behind a dark and difficult masterpiece; New York City in a troubled time of cultural ferment; and the era that made a movie and the movie that made an era. Director and producer Nancy Buirski joins us to talk about gathering the extensive archival material and compelling new interviews, and how this one film, Midnight Cowboy captured the essence of a time and a place, reflecting a rapidly changing society with striking clarity. For more go to: zeitgeistfilms.com/desperate-souls-dark-city-and-the-legend-of-midnight-cowboy