Midnight Cowboy: FILM SUMMARY

Dir. John Schlesinger, 1969

Resources for Teaching Film

Characters:

Joe Buck . . . Jon Voight

Ratso Rizzo . . . Dustin Hoffman

ONE. THE BANISHING

1. “Old west” gunshots are heard as we are looking at an anomalous blinding white screen. The camera pulls back to reveal an abandoned drive-in movie screen. The howling wind is accompanied by the squeaky sounds of an old rocking horse. Finally a voice is heard underneath, singing. Cut to a man's feet as he is singing in the shower. A tilt up reveals a large, strong man singing "New York will be your new home, whoopy-tee-I-ohh, get along little doggies". Next we hear "where's that Joe Buck" several times from different people with southern accents. Joe Buck says, "You know what you can do with those dishes". He turns to look in the mirror behind him. Music starts.

2. Title sequence. We hear the song, “Everybody's talkin' at me". Joe Buck is seen walking through town.

3. Joe arrives at work. He's a bit flustered as he tries to talk to his boss. We see how disgusting a restaurant can be when your behind the kitchen doors. Joe Buck explains to his work friend that he's leaving town. According to Joe, he's going to score big with the women back east. He seems confident that he's going to make it in New York.

4. (5:05). Joe buck's first remembrance. Flashback: outside of Sally Buck's old salon parlor, Joe remembers his upbringing. Sally is a pseudo debutante, asking a young Joe for attention. Montage continues. We see Joe on a bus trying to make conversation with the driver, patrons and even trying to flirt with the young women. As the bus moves on, we hear more asynchronous sound from his grandmother. Why? His conversations are vapid and infertile with the passengers. He tries to play peek-a-boo with a young girl; Joe seems starved for attention himself. Flashbacks continue: multiple exposed images of the baron landscape overlap the road Joe travels on. We see a flashback with asynchronous sound about Joe's younger days, with him trying to pick up a pretty young woman. Joe and his gang look like piranhas in search of some fresh meat as they whistle at and cajole Annie. "You're the only one Joe" accompanies these images. More audio underlies the flashback "Do you love me Joe?" "You're the best Joe". Fond images are intertwined with disturbing images as Joe falls in and out of his memory. As the bus ride continues Joe's conversations are less and less substantial. Another Flashback: We learn more about Joe's haunting past with the song "Hush little baby". Joe definitely has horrific memories of his grandmother and her improprieties. We see him brought home by two young women (prostitutes?)—one of them his mother? And Grandma stands on her porch and shakes her head but welcomes him. Other shots show him in bed with Sally Buck and her excessive embraces of the boy. The future catches up with Joe. He hears on his small transistor radio that he's made it to New York. And coincidentally the commercial he "hears" on the radio is about what women want in a man. We see Joe's projected idea of what these women look like—filmed like person-on-the-street interviews Note: All the women are middle-aged or older. Back on the bus, Joe whoops with joy!

TWO. NEW YORK, NEW YORK

5. (13.35) Joe's new home—an average hotel room in a seedy area of town. A porter shows him in his room as Joe tries to figure out the technology in his room. Joe has a poster of Paul Newman and various pictures of naked women on the wall. Joe marvels at his own physique in the mirror. Instead of sending a postcard back to his friend at the diner back in Texas, he decides to leave his past behind him by tearing up the card and throwing it to the city.

6. (15.19) Main title music starts again. Joe is seen walking down the crowded city streets, he stands out among the entire city. POV shots focus our attention to what he has in mind, older rich women. He follows close behind them on the sidewalks. But they ignore him. Joe comes upon a desolate man seemingly unconscious on the sidewalk. Joe looks around, as if wondering why no one is there to help. Joe finally gets the courage to approach one of the women. His pick-up line: How do I get to the Statue of Liberty? The woman he asks doesn’t think he means it. Then she changes her mind (surprised at his naivete), and she begins to give directions. “Sure are a pretty lady,” she says. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself,” she says. As the woman walks away from him, Joe imagines himself getting into an apartment with her.

7. (18.15) Joe comes upon another older woman. “Do it for Mama,” she tells her dog. Joe bends down to pet the dog. She reacts with perfect irony. “It’s taking a leak up in Central Park.” She walks away, then turns back and gives him a come-on.” They quickly understand what each other want. Joe and Cass begin petting and necking. Cass is talking to her husband on the phone as the two play a kinky and salacious game before hitting the bed. The television humorously helps us understand the affair. In fact, the director sets up a fantastic montage that moves through 34 shots in 3 seconds. Most of the shots are repeated ones—the payoff is a slot machine spewing out a jackpot. That’s not hard to figure out! Afterwards, Joe cordially asks Cass for some money, because he's a hustler of course. Cass plays it tough. “Who the hell do you think you’re dealing with? Some old slut on 42^nd street?” She continues to rage at him, and then just as suddenly begins to cry and turns the tables on him. She makes him feel sorry for her and he ends up paying for a cab ride for her.

THREE. TWO’S COMPANY

8. (24.40) Cut to the tiny, vulnerable Joe as he walks out of Cass' apartment. Joe happens into a coffee shop filled with an eclectic mix of people. A greasy looking man named Enrico Salvatore Rizzo starts a conversation with Joe. Immediately Joe believes Ratso is his key to the city, after all, he knows "the ropes". Joe confides in Ratso, and tells him he's a hustler. Ratso says coyly, "How am I supposed to know that? You gotta tell a person these things." Ratso convinces Joe rather easily that he needs a manager. A transgender person harasses Ratso and we find out that he may not be so reliable after all. After she insults him and walks away, Ratso tries to get in the last word as they trade more insults.

9. (27.28) Great shot of the two walking toward the camera—walking on the sidewalk. Ratso talks nonstop and Joe listens. What a pair they make—Joe in his fancy get-up and Ratso in his sleazy white coat and slacks. As they cross the street, Ratso yells, “I’m walkin’ here!” to a cab that beeps at them. Then he flips the cabbie “the bird.” Joe is completely dazzled by Ratso and his "smooth talking". Ratso keeps working him, and Joe finally offers him money to prove his good faith. Of course, Ratso takes it. Ratso calls his contact. They end up in a shady apartment complex where Joe is to meet O'Daniel. But Ratso seems most interested in getting away. He takes another ten from Joe and splits.

10. (40.38) Inside O'Daniel's room Joe is inspected rather eerily by the buyer. What does O'Daniel want? Eventually the conversation digresses from questions to brainwashing tactics by the perverse and religiously fundamental O'Daniel. Joe is getting juiced up by the rallying cry he think O’Daniel is making. But when the latter says, “Why don’t we get down on our knees right now?” Joe looks scared. Instead of sex, this man seems to want to convert Joe. This obsession triggers a horrible flashback, which is parallel cut with the scene in the seedy hotel room. Joe remembers a terrifying moment of river baptism. Everyone around him looks happy, but the experience horrified him. He bolts from the room and runs down the sidewalk.

11. (34.20). A fast-paced montage begins. We see a barrage of images that range from projections to reality to remembrance. At first black and white, grainy images are fused to create a dizzying sense of abnormality with Joe. Almost every image shows Ratso trying to escape from Joe. But then the images change, and we are seeing images from Joe’s past—in color—focusing on disturbing images: men chase a naked woman into a building, men drag a naked Joe Buck and push him over a fence (to rape him), men hold the woman down nearby (to force her to watch the scene?). All of these images suggest Joe has certain unresolved issues that serve a s triggers to his unconscious.

12. (35.00) Joe tries to locate Ratso back at the bar where they met. He is growing frustrated. The transgender woman who insulted Ratso earlier mocks Joe. Frustrated, he grabs a bottle of beer. But then a cut to a strange editing track: a) Little Joe is reflected in a broken, blood-spattered mirror—and we watch him hurl something against the mirror and shatter it—as Sally Buck moves into view in the reflection / b) cut to ECU of Joe’s eyes—in the present / c) cut to shot a) again / d) cut to man at the bar / e) cut to wide shot of Joe holding the bottle. He puts it back on the counter.

FOUR. ONE IS THE LONELIEST NUMBER

13. (35.30) Joe returns to his hotel room. He lays in the bath and looks lonely. Suddenly we see Little Joe watching TV back in his childhood. We hear Sally Buck’s voice-over again. “I’ll leave a TV dinner in the fridge.” She is dressed to kill. Off to work for Sally. Camera in on an image of Christ, the good shepherd, rescuing the lost sheep. All of these images fuse the contradictory and disturbing feelings he has towards sex, religion, money, and his grandmother. Back to the New York City apartment. Joe watches a dog on the television. The dog is dressed with a wig and eyelashes. Someone squirts breath freshener into its mouth. The poor dog struggles to get away. Reaction shot of Joe—he understands that feeling. A new musical theme begins at this point—a sad harmonica playing melody with a guitar accompaniment.

14. (36.47). Transition to Joe on the streets at night as this new theme continues to play. He sees 2-3 other midnight cowboys standing around and waiting for something to happen. The montage continues. Joe wanders the streets. We see him walk in the day, and walk at night with the same results. Notice how the director is using the advertising, technology and hustle-bustle of New York to comment on Joe's situation and show to what extent he is feeling so overwhelmed.

15. (37.35). Joe finds out he's locked out of his room. The manager says he can get his things back when he pays the bill. Joe doesn’t know how to handle this conflict. We see his hollow image looking at a nice breakfast meal being cooked. The man cooking looks very much like Joe—just the way Joe looked when he was back at the diner in Texas. Joe sits down with a vagrant woman and her son. Their relationship peeks Joe's interest. But the more he looks at them, the more bizarre they seem. The mother and son seem to enjoy one moving a stuffed mouse toy over the other’s body—when the boy moves the toy mouse over his mother’s face she looks orgasmic. Joe tries to pay attention to putting catsup on a cracker, but he makes a mess of himself. Cut to a lonely subway platform. Joe walks past a policeman, and then he stops at a candy machine. He looks in the mirror and says with his old bravado: "You know what you have to do cowboy.

16. (40.50). Cut to a young man standing on the street. The stakes of the game have changed. Now Joe joins the gay men standing around, looking for dates. A geeky-looking young man comes up to him—interested. Joe agrees to meet in a movie theater with a young man. The science fiction film serves as a backdrop for Joe's unconscious state. He's uncomfortable, he feels alone, belittled, and this experience is literally like being in space for him. The young man sitting next to him slips down onto the floor so that he can touch Joe below the belt. This awful moment prompts yet another flashback for Joe. He's confusing the present and the past again. Thoughts of his lost love Annie are revealed. Images of gang rape and stalking accompany the audio of Annie that we heard earlier. In one shot we see Joe standing in line, waiting his turn to have sexual intercourse with Annie. Meanwhile, she lies on her back under another man, and she looks remote, removed from the moment. But when Joe and her are having sex, she whispers in his ear, “You’re the only one, Joe!” After the sex in the movie theater, the geeky young man throws up in the bathroom and then confesses that he doesn’t have any money. “My mother would die. I can’t go home. She would die!” Joe walks away.

FIVE. HELLO AGAIN

17. (47.37). Joe wanders the theaters and the streets. He happens upon a coffee shop. There's Ratso! Cut to Ratso smiling / then to Joe smiling / then to Ratso looking uneasy, then smiling / then to Joe wiping that smile off his face / then to Ratso looking even more uneasy / then to Joe looking furious / then to a wide shot of Ratso at a counter stool. He is terrified. Joe enters the frame and attacks him. Note how all of the action occurs within that last shot—and the actors move within the frame to stage it. Ratso pleads for Joe to not hurt him because he's "a cripple". Joe once again feels compassion for Ratso's groveling. Ratso has a change of heart also, and he invites him back to his house because Joe has no where to live.

18. (46.45) Ratso's pad. We hear how Ratso maintains his condemned apartment. He hustles Joe into carrying up an old icebox up several flights of stairs for him. Ratso tries to be accommodating and polite to Joe, offering him a place to lie down and a cup of coffee. Note the “Florida” poster in Ratso’s room. Exhausted, Joe falls asleep.

19. (49.40). Nightmare or flashback? We hear Annie's voice say "Joe…Do you love me Joe". Black and white images are accompanied by disturbing drones, screams, and sirens. Each image revealing another harrowing moment of Joe's mind and his past. We see more clearly now the gang of men who find Joe and Annie making out in his car. They pull both of them out of the vehicle, chase down Annie, and bring her back to watch Joe being raped by some of the men. This scene is intercut with a scene from Joe’s childhood, where his Mother is giving him an old-fashioned enema—another horrifying moment. Even Ratso shows up in this black and white dream world—as if with the cops coming to take Joe away. Annie, weakened (probably by being raped herself) points at Joe—“He’s the one, he’s the only one.” Then shots of Joe trapped behind a chain link fence vs. shots of a building collapsing. Then another parallel track—this one shots of Annie being taken away in an ambulance (she looks out the back toward Joe) vs. shots of Joe running to catch up vs. shots of Ratso pushing a broken beer bottle threateningly toward Joe, who is in bed.

20. (51.30) Suddenly Joe wakes up in Ratso’s room. The blurring of past and present create a sense of discontinuity in Joe. He wakes up in a daze. "Where's my boots?" he cries to Ratso as he looks for the one item that represents the only possession of his. Ratso tries to calm Joe down and asks him to stay. Joe warns Ratso that he better not try anything funny or Joe will extremely angry. Ratso tells Joe that his name is actually Enrico Salvatore Rizzo, or Ricco for short. The two work out an extemporaneous agreement to put up with one another. Note the low-key lighting throughout this scene—suddenly the grimy background disappears ,and the two exist in an intimate world—just the two of them.

SIX: TEAMWORK

21. (54.45). Ratso is at a sidewalk grocer's vegetable stand, stuffing various items in his jacket; he is confronted by the owner, but then Joe steps in to distract him. Ratso makes his escape with the vegetables. Back in the apartment for dinner. Ratso is preparing a meal for the two in a saucepan; he tells Joe stories of Florida. They bicker to each other as roommates do about cooking the meals. Ratso insists that they need to go to Florida and that Joe needs to change his image because people are looking at him and that "nobody buys that cowboy crap anymore".

(57.30) The conversation turns scathing as both men are belittled by the other’s comments on hygiene and sexuality. "Frankly you're beginning to smell, and for a stud in New York, that's a handicap". Ratso protests Joe's image again by saying that his outfit appeals to the "fags"--and by Joe's reaction, Ratso has definitely hit a nerve with him. Joe says, “The only thing I’m good for is lovin’.” After adamantly explaining to Ratso that he needs better management so he can "score", Joe takes Ratso's coconut and pushes it out the window.

22. (59.10). Ratso at a coin laundry shows his talents. Ratso is good with words, he's able to talk his way to get Joe's clothes clean, a new hat for him, and breaks his way into a shoe shiner's locker to perform what his father did for so many years. When a police officer sits next to Joe, Ratso takes care of him too. He even shows that he's a barber back in his apartment. Joe seems pleased with his own image as he looks in the mirror. Joe puts on his hat and poses, as if in front of a mirror. Then he whips around to the right and looks in the mirror. “There you, you handsome devil, you.” Reaction, close shot of Ratso: “You’re okay,” he says wistfully. Back to Joe reacting to his image in the mirror.

23. (1.02.40). Ratso as a pickpocket. Outside the Perfect Gentleman Escort Service, Ratso spies on a would-be male escort, as he gets in to the cab; Ratso swipes an address from the man's pocket. Joe and Ratso discuss the plan to get at the awaiting women in the ritzy hotel. As Joe goes into the hotel, Ratso waits for him outside, alone. Ratso seems like an expectant father sending his wife off to the delivery room. This is the moment he has been waiting for. Wealth is right around the corner.

24. (1.04.38) Ratso stands outside on the street. He is waiting for Joe Buck to come out with the big bucks. Ratso's dream. Caribbean music is heard underneath as we get a cut to a sandy beach with Ratso and Joe running and frolicking at high speeds—no more gimpiness in his leg. Cuts back to Ratso waiting—and then back to the dream images. We see Joe Buck and Ratso in Florida. Now everyone knows Ratso—women lean out of balconies and wave down to him: "Rico!…Rico!" But Ratso's dream begins to sour as we see shots, from Ratso’s POV, of Joe not making much progress with a woman in the lobby. She has a fearful look on her face. Then shots of Ratso leading a Bingo game in Florida. He’s the star of the show. Back to the night scene—and Joe strikes out with the young woman, who slaps him violently and runs away. The editing becomes parallel in a too-obvious way—shots of Joe being thrown bodily out of the lobby are intercut with shots of angry matrons rolling their wheelchairs right at Ratso in the Florida scene. They push him over, and he lands on his back in the swimming pool, and cut to Joe rolling down the stairs on his back and landing on the sidewalk. Ratso helps him to his feet. Sounds of police sirens. A neon sun fades to black.

SEVEN: “X” MARKS THE SPOT

25. (7.15). From black we get a fade in to the emblem of a condemned building: an X on a window. Joe and Ratso look defeated. They eat quietly Shots of Joe and Ratso outside waiting allows us to get an idea of the cold surrounding the area. Inside, Joe and Ratso try to stay warm by dancing to a "Florida Orange Juice" radio commercial. Ratso is coughing more and more. Next we see them at a pawnshop selling Joe's radio. As Joe signs it away, Ratso practices his Caribbean xylophone music.

26. (9.40) Where do they go? By the looks and the sounds of it, Ratso is getting sicker. The camera pans over to reveal another poster of an orange grove on the wall.

The melancholy harmonica theme music accompanies another montage—this time a night scene of Joe standing on the sidewalk and watching the people walk by. Close shots of his scared face. The montage ends with Joe at the blood bank—so he can earn a few bucks.

27. (11.35). Joe has cash. Inside the apartment, Ratso is coughing his lungs out. Joe shows Ratso what he earned, but the two men seem distant and defeated again. Ratso tells Joe that he stole a jacket for him, but the two are not agreeing with the way they are getting things done. Again the lighting is low-key, and the mood is somber. Outside, Joe and Ratso watch their building getting ripped apart again by a demolition crew. Montage music is heard: Midnight Cowboy. We see a few images of them wandering the city. It begins with a great close shot of their shoes moving toward the camera in close-up—Dustin Hoffman’s gimpy walk is perfect. Then cut to a wide shot, silhouetted, of the two walking across a bridge. The camera pans right to show a billboard of a smiling man’s face, and next to it text in large letters: “Steak for everybody every lunch and dinner: Northeast Yellowbirds to Florida.”

28. (14.00) The Graveyard. The brief montage ends as the two end up in a cemetery where Ratso's father is buried. He reveals his sorrowful feelings he had for his father, first by stealing someone else's flowers to put on the headstone. “He was even dumber than me,” Ratso says. Joe reveals that his grandma, who we saw earlier, died without letting him know she was sick. Quick cut to Joe Buck, back from the Army, and sitting on his grandmother’s porch.

EIGHT. LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL

29. (15.21). The invitation. Joe and Ratso talk about reincarnation in a café as two Warhol drones take pictures of them and invite them to a Warhol party. (Andy Warhol was the pop-art maven in New York City in the 1960s.) Ratso is upset that they didn't give him a flyer, but Joe assures Ratso that he won't go without him.

30. (18.05). The Party. An angry dog greets them as Joe and Ratso enter the building. Joe notices that Ratso isn't feeling well. He can barely climb the stairs. Joe tries to help out by giving a comb so he can comb his hair. Inside the party, we see lust, libations, narcissism, and typical late sixties Warhol children. “Whackos! They’re all whackos!” Ratso says. People are stoned, smoking joints, saying nihilistic nonsense. A woman shares her joint with Joe, and he mistakes it for a cigarette. Meanwhile, Ratso has discovered the food table. (22.46) The more Joe smokes the higher he gets. He begins to notice some downright bizarre actions of some of these people. The woman who gave him the joint begins to notice him. Suddenly Joe begins to hallucinate—and we see his hallucinations. Ratso begins to stick food down his pants and pick pockets. Suddenly Ratso begins to become fearful, paranoid, as some of the party animals try to interact with him. Then the woman who passed Joe the joint shows up again—and there is a quick two-second montage of sexual images, from whose point of view? And then Joe follows the woman into a darkroom (lit with red light) and they kiss and play finger games and seem interested in each other.

31. (26.05). Outside the darkroom, the party rages on and nudity increases. Ratso becomes Joe’s manager again and tries to bargain with the dark-haired woman Joe just encountered. Meanwhile, Joe is surrounded by the lascivious crowd. He crows, “I ain’t a cowboy, but I’m one hell of a stud.” “—and a very expensive stud,” Ratso adds. Later, on the stairs at the entrance to the club, Ratso continues his negotiations with the woman, who wears a rich fur coat. She gives him cab fare, and then Joe and the woman walk down the stairs. Both are stoned and semi-articulate. Suddenly Ratso falls down the stairs. Joe leaves, but after asking, “Are you sure you’re all right?” Outside in the car, Joe leans out the window and whoops like a cowboy: Joe Buck rides again.

32. (28.30). Joe Buck and the woman lying in the bed in her apartment. She consoles him for failing to perform, “Maybe if you don’t call me Ma’m?” she suggests. So their smoking cigarettes is not the typical post-coital scene. They talk quietly and the woman shows affection in her patience. Then she comes up with the idea of playing “scribbage,” a dice-word game. He makes the word “MONY,” based on the Mutual of New York logo he saw on a building across from his room. She can’t believe this character. Then she begins to tease him about sex. We see a great shot of her “under his leg”—here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson. “Gay ends in y,” she says. “Cut that out!” But she keeps teasing him. That’s all he needs. He overpowers the woman with his "masculinity". The music supports the fact that Joe is "performing”—note the full orchestration, the crescendo, the tympani, the violins, the horns, even the good old harmonica. Success! (33.18).Afterwards, she is dressed to kill and talking to a friend on the phone. She is actually making a call to a woman friend and offering Joe’s services to her. He hesitantly begins to ask her for money—she shrugs and gives him a $20. He shakes her hand.

33. (34.40). Back to the apartment. Joe shows up bearing gifts for Ratso: Medicine. Joe helps Ratso with some soup. Ratso is falling apart. Ratso tells Joe that he can't walk anymore. Ratso is distraught and scared. Joe insists that Ratso needs a doctor. Ratso denies it, but tells Joe that he needs to go to Florida instead; there he'll get better. Joe puts him in bed and puts a coat over him. Ratso thinks if he goes to a doctor he'll be put in Bellevue (an institution for the indigent). “Just get me on a bus!” Joe gets upset and comes up with a plan.

NINE. THE FINAL VOYAGE

34. (38.10). The sacrifice. Joe fails at trying to reach the woman he spent the night with before. So he goes to an arcade to find a man. They go back to the man's hotel room to work out a "deal" for Joe to get some money to go to Florida. The benign man talks on the phone. Joe has a conversation with his own image in the mirror again. “I’ve got me a sick kid on my hands. And I’ve got to get him south as quick as I can. Do you understand me?” Cut to shots of Joe pulling Ratso out of the condemned building—as if to fulfill his words. Cut to Joe with the man. Joe is contentious with the man, as the man states how he "loathes life". The man is clearly trying to deny his sexuality. The scene become increasingly uncomfortable because of the tension it creates. The man is commenting on the same reasons Joe hates life, yet Joe is in another place right now, and he does not hear the cry for help. Intercut with this action are cuts to Joe holding Ratso up as he almost carries him through a bus station toward the bus. “I’ve got to have money,” Joe insists. He gives Joe $10. “I’ve got family!” Joe says, and demands more money. The man tries to stop Joe from getting at the rest of his money in a drawer next to the bed. Finally, Joe holds a lamp over his head. “Are you going to give me the rest of that money?” Intercut parallel with close shots of the man’s face are close-ups of Ratso—he is barely conscious. Joe punches the man, grabs the money, and we see a quick shot of Joe putting Ratso on the bus. Then the man reaches for his phone. Joe becomes back, takes the receiver away from him, and then mashes the receiver into the old man's mouth---

35. (42.15). –cut to a moving shot through a tunnel. Cut to close shot of Ratso, lying back against the bus seat. Ratso asks, "You didn't kill him did you, you have blood on your shirt". Ratso continues through the night talking about how he doesn't want to be called "Ratso", he wants to be called Ricco.

36. (44.34). Daytime in Florida. It appears that they have made it pretty far south. Ratso begins to cry because he has peed in his pants. They end up laughing about it. Montage music: "Everybody's talkin' at me". Joe exits a department store. He buys "regular" clothes to replace his cowboy get up. He shoves hi sold clothes in a garbage can. He stops in a restaurant to purchase some food and has a pleasant conversation with a lovely young woman. They continue to move on the bus. Shots of rows of bungalows along the street. Joe dresses Ratso up in a tropical printed shirt.

37. (47.30) The end of the road. Joe wipes Ratso's brow. Montage music ends. "Thanks Joe," Ratso says. Shot of Ratso, then cut to a shot of Joe as he lights a cigarette. Joe contemplates the future; he's got a plan. “Hell, I ain’t no kind of hustler.” They'll get jobs. “What do you think?” The camera pulls back from a close-up of Joe to a two-shot. Ratso’s eyes are open, but his head is back against the glass.” Joe says "Ricco?" with no response, Joe moves in closer to look at Ratso. He touches his face. But Ratso is dead. Joe shakes his head, as if affirming the death. (49.17). The bus pulls over and the driver comes back to see Ratso. “Is he kin to you?” He asks Joe to close his eyes for him. The people on the bus become gawkers as Joe, in a moment of kindness, holds Ratso close to him as the bus continues on. Cue the Midnight Cowboy theme—harmonica playing the melody. The look on Joe's face one of a man who has grown, and even healed possibly. He's both upset yet poised. The journey has come to a close with the famous last shot of Joe holding Ratso. The exterior shot through the window of the bus includes the reflections of the passing scene---palm trees and buildings, and the interior view of Joe holding on to Ratso, whose face is in the foreground. The multiple layered image continues as the screen fades to black.

Credits begin A slower version of the Midnight Cowboy theme plays.