One of the greats passes....

From Associated Press

John Schlesinger, whose Oscar-winning "Midnight Cowboy" and thrillers like "The Falcon and the Snowman" explored lonely underdogs in modern society, has died. He was 77.

The British-born filmmaker had a debilitating stroke in December 2000, and his condition deteriorated significantly in recent weeks. He was taken off life support at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs on Thursday and died early today, hospital spokeswoman Eva Saltonstall said.

"He did pass this morning," she said, declining any further information.

Schlesinger broke ground in 1969 with his first American film, "Midnight Cowboy," which starred Jon Voight as a naive Texan who turns to prostitution to survive in New York and Dustin Hoffman as the scuzzy, ailing vagrant Ratzo Rizzo.

I just watched Midnight Cowboy the other night for the first time in 30 years and was blown away. Schlesinger's dark vision of America was astonishingly prescient. Years before homelessness became ubiquitous in America, Schlesinger saw where the widening gap between the decadent haves and miserable have-nots was leading.

"You know what they do to ya when, when they know you can't, when they find out that you can't walk-walk," says crippled Ratso Rizzo, brilliantly portrayed by Dustin Hoffman (fresh from success in The Graduate). Those poignant words foreshadowed Governor Ronald Reagan's actions, in the years after the film, when he forced the residents of California's mental hospitals out onto the streets, where they formed the core of today's homeless population.

Perhaps Schlesinger’s gayness gave him both an outsider’s perspective and the necessary courage to turn an unflinching lens on the hypocrisy of America: its "rag-to-riches" fairytales, puritanical sexual mores, cruelty to and neglect of children and perverted ideals of masculinity and femininity. The film foretold the demise of small-town (bigoted) America in face of creeping commoditization, consumerism and globalization, and did it with unflinching honesty (Midnight Cowboy was originally rated X) and heart.

In 1970, Schlesinger said, "I'm only interested in one thing -- that is tolerance. I'm terribly concerned about people and the limitation of freedom. It's important to get people to care a little for someone else. That's why I'm more interested in the failures of this world than the successes."

We could sure use more like him in Hollywood today.

Complete story here.