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The 1960s was a decade of extreme change socially and cultural, especially in the US. The ability of the film industry to flexibly and effectively present an era’s zeitgeist is perhaps shown most effectively in the change it reflected throughout this particular time. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) and Midnight Cowboy (1969) bookend this transformational decade with incredibly contrasting, yet financially and critically successful representations of normal people living in New York- their success demonstrating just how well their ideologies reflect the years they came from. These films were deeply influential within and representative of the times they were born out of, both garnering massive box office success and critical attention.

The films tell similar stories of sex workers surviving in New York, yet their representations of this narrative differ in extreme ways, from Breakfast at Tiffany’s upbeat, witty and astonishingly glamourous portrayal of life in New York to John Schlesinger’s cold and bleak outlook on life in the city eight years afterwards. The contrasts between these representations are so large that the films look to be about different worlds, rather than the same city. The shift raising questions as to what happened in those years separating the films that caused such a drastic change in mindset, a mindset clearly mirrored in the public as demonstrated by their immense popularity. What had changed between 1961 and 1969?

From his election in 1961, John F Kennedy’s attempts to usher in a ‘New Frontier’ became emblematic of the strong signs of shifting attitudes and a hope in the US that the 1960s would be the beginning of a so-called ‘golden age’. His plans promised to rid America of injustice, division and inequality, creating a hope for prosperity and new beginnings amongst the disadvantaged. His fight for the civil rights movement despite strong resistance in congress, an economic policy that lowered interest rates and inflation to allow for strong growth in GDP and expanded funding to support the poor, education and infrastructure all worked to create a sense of optimism for the coming years, years that could represent a turning point in US culture and ideology.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s encapsulates this dream in a stylish vision of New York where even failed writers and sex workers throw drinking parties with the social elite and live in lavish apartments. From the first shot, Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) is filled with glamor as a taxi rolls down a lifeless fifth avenue and empties Holly Golightley (Audrey Hepburn), draped in a Givenchy dress and an excess of pearls, onto a desolate sidewalk in front of the golden sign of Tiffany’s. Even the title cards display the film’s lavish feeling as they spell out the cast and crew in golden, sparkling letters. Following this is an upbeat film of a glamorous life in New York City filled with drinking parties and lifestyles that could not be realistically supported by these characters- who’s professions, despite their attempts to convince everyone otherwise, is to accompany lonely old rich people. The film is, as described by the New York Times, an ‘unbelievable but wholly captivating flight into fancy’- an alluring portrayal of life in the 1960s America, possible even for those who aren’t rich or famous.

This is how the film feels and has been described for years. Yet overlooked, but very noticeable in watching the film, is an underlying fear and lack of direction in these characters. Holly, for example, was a teenaged bride who sees no opportunity in her future without the support of a wealthy spouse and in the end is forced into a state of desperation and hopelessness in the back of a cab coming from jail. The return of her ex-husband comes as a nostalgic reminder of the character’s simpler past and prompts a sombre reflection on her present, the scene in which she leaves him in a greyhound bus station is a moment of genuine despondency. Alternatively, Paul has had to live through the building and crumbing of his ambitions as a writer, his last published work being five years prior to the film’s opening. He is dependent on, manipulated and mocked by “Tooley” (Patricia Neal), the wealthy woman who pays him for company. Despite this, Breakfast at Tiffany’s is broadly seen as a film that glamorises the lifestyle of these characters and overall life in New York in the early 1960s. How does the response seem to contrast so heavily with the content and the nature of the characters? For me, there are two reasons: Blake Edwards and Audrey Hepburn.

Edwards’ direction worked seamlessly to create a film ‘composed of unequal dollops of comedy, romance, poignancy, funny colloquialisms and Manhattan's swankiest East Side areas captured in the loveliest of colours’ (from the same article of the New York Times). Edwards aimed to and succeeded in giving an optimistic and romanticised representation of American living that effectively captured the mindset of the public at the start of Kennedy’s presidency, casted to be a new beginning for American politics. The direction continues to implement the glamorousness in the film’s opening to reflect the optimism for prosperity amongst the public. Following, for the most part, a classical Hollywood style of direction that involves editing and photographing the film in a way that is winningly self-effacing, Blake Edwards also uses other techniques taken from the classical era to underscore the atmosphere of the film and add more glamor. The lighting, while quite conventional, emphasizes the attractiveness of the film’s leads (Aubrey Hepburn and George Peppard) as they are lit from above with a warm tinge, often walking into the light to punctuate this, helped by the number of glamor shots and extended close ups of Hepburn and Peppard that are included in the movie. Added to this is the use of a diffusion filter that removes any blemishes or wrinkles the actors might have and gives the shot a dreamy feeling. This is encapsulated, for example, in the film’s most iconic moment of Holly singing Moon River out of her bedroom window. As she finishes the song and looks up to see that Paul is watching, his perspective and mindset is punctuated by a close up on Hepburn in warm overhead light, her eyes and teeth sparkle as she smiles. The dialogue is also reminiscent of the classical Hollywood era with characters speaking extremely fast and constantly engaging in witty exchanges. The snappy back and forths along with plenty of exposition are reminiscent of classical Hollywood, especially films by Howard Hawks. The style used by Edwards displays, too, where the Hollywood’s attitude towards filmmaking lay at the time- Hollywood wanted films that was easy to follow and upbeat. Alongside Audrey Hepburns well documented iconic portrayal of Golightley, the effect the film became a symbol of style and panache. It was a fantasy filled vision, a view that presented the hope of so many for prosperity and glamor in the coming years. Ultimately, the film exists in a society of fantasy, Blake Edwards portrayal is less one of New York than how viewers wished to see New York. It represented people’s hope for the coming years. It showed the possibility of prosperous living in the future.

As the decade continued, however and the progression of liberal political policies were persistently limited, this mindset began to fade. Eight years is a long time and by 1969, the hope for America’s ‘golden age’ had unfortunately all but disappeared. As the new decade drew closer, social change didn’t look to be progressing as Kennedy’s short and tragic time in office was defined by the thwarting of his attempts at progressing his plan for a ‘New Frontier’ by republicans in congress. The non-violent demonstrations for peace and equality, led by the civil rights, counterculture and anti-war movements were transformed by hateful assassinations (Martin Luther King, Bobby Kennedy). These peaceful movements that had been so influential in demonstrating against violence and inequality in the 1960s became more extreme as peaceful efforts were met with hatred. Simultaneously, Richard Nixon was introduced to government after a split in the Democratic Party. Consequently, ‘by the end of the decade, community and consensus lay in tatters’ (history.com). This only continued in the 1970s as Nixon ‘abolished as many parts of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty as he could, and he made a show of his resistance to mandatory school desegregation plans’. Therefore, while Breakfast at Tiffany’s came at a time of optimism and hope for the future, Midnight Cowboy entered a society facing war, growing prejudice and a lack of support for the poor. Midnight Cowboy and John Schlesinger’s representation of New York is, through its themes and filmmaking, unrecognisable compared to that portrayed by Blake Edwards.

Midnight Cowboy also tells the story of a sex worker in New York (although this fact is dealt with more explicitly), but the way in which Schlesinger chooses to present this reflects not only this change in social and cultural attitudes, but artistic practices. Cinema in Hollywood had begun to change as the influence of Francois Truffaut, Jean Luc Goddard and the rest of the French Nuvelle Vague began to seep into American filmmaking. These influences are seen clear as ever in Midnight Cowboy, coming after a number of films that pushed both the creative and social boundaries of filmmaking. Throughout the 60s, filmic techniques evolved and the censorship code that was previously so strong in Hollywood began to crumble. As a result, films began to look very different to those previously coming out of Hollywood ad artists were able to deal with controversial issues in a much more straight forward way.

Midnight Cowboy displayed these changes while simultaneously winning best picture, best director and best adapted screenplay in the 1970 Academy Awards and was nominated a further 4 times, which is an achievement that shouldn’t be understated considering the film deals relatively openly with homosexuality (even when considering how the Academy Awards are often considered obsolete).  As a result of the ‘homosexual frame of reference’, the film originally received an X rating and, given the fact that homosexuality at the time was still illegal in America, the prominent filmmakers involved (especially Schlesinger and Hoffman) were taking huge risks with their career in making the project. Evidently, the shifting attitudes in the USA were reflected in the critical and commercial success of the film.

The film begins with Joe Buck (Jon Voight) leaving Texas to go to New York, the audience is led to believe this is solely in order to make money as a male prostitute, however, as the editing throughout the film demonstrates (constructed by Hugh Robinson), we slowly learn that leaving Texas is not the start of Joe Buck’s story. It is gradually revealed, through the intercutting of flashbacks, that there are in fact a number of events that led to Joe leaving Texas. The approach to temporal arrangement in the film was very progressive for the time and rare in Hollywood cinema, especially in the way Robinson and Schlesinger employed them. The flashbacks are presented so that, as film progresses, audiences learn more about Joe’s sinister life prior to the events in the film. Not only this, but the use of intercutting throughout the flashbacks- rather than isolating the flashbacks as a whole- shows that this is Joe’s current experience and that these events still regularly haunt him. Ultimately, we learn that Joe and his old girlfriend were the victims gang rape, an element crucial to the film shown tragically as memory through this use of intercutting and that, prior to the breakdown of censorship, would’ve been omitted. Editing in this way, therefore, presents the audience with a vital subjective view of Joe’s experience, one that makes the narrative all the more tragic. Filmmaking had clearly changed drastically in the years from Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Important in this representation of American society in 1969, is that the cinematography, a great deal of which is achieved using guerilla techniques such as location shooting, natural light and hidden cameras, is very much environmentally orientated. The effect is a representation of New York that is realistic and truthful. The use of guerilla filmmaking and camera movement that leads us through environments or uses long lenses from a distance to include as much of the New York streets as possible, supporting the realism well. Through these techniques, we get a sense of what New York was like in 1969 and how hostile this environment really was- a fact only emphasised when contrasted to Blake Edward’s portrayal of the city 8 years earlier. Other aspects of the cinematography that add to the grittiness and helps present a picture of poverty so accurately is the use of grain and colour. Scenes in the film are purposely shot in low light in order to add a graininess to the shot that emphasizes the dirtiness and squalor that the protagonists find themselves in. Not only this, but the colour palettes in the film, shown most notably in the blues that demonstrate the transition to winter (emphasized too by distorted angles and the introduction of dissolves), again depict a city draped in gloom and horribly lacking in those loveliest of colours that were displayed so vividly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. New York (and by extension America) is not shown as a place people go to prosper or even survive- demonstrated in Ratso’s death at the end of the film. Here you must be shroud, cunning and cruel to survive- and even then, you might not. Here the poor are left to their own useless or none existent devices. There is nothing attractive or glamorous about the New York shown in this film, everyone who lives there wants to leave, those who move there (like Joe Buck) are stupid or escaping worse, the charm of the city has disappeared, and its place is a gritty, colourless, cold town where no one gets any sleep. This film is an incredible depiction of hardship, but also hope and companionship. Importantly it’s an incredible depiction of where American hopes for a brighter future lay at the end of the decade.

I wrote this because it astonished me how much can change in a few years. The contrast between these films is hard to understand, it is almost impossible to imagine that they both came from the same industry and show the same place. The filmmakers’ approaches to their technique, the way in which they deal with the environment and the characters as well as taboo subject create two texts that seem to directly contradict the each other. Yet they both boasted massive success, critically and commercially, showing just how well these representations struck chords with viewers at the time of their releasesThe fact is that both represented the zeitgeists of their own times very well, despite coming from the same era, which itself demonstrates the volatility of the decade. What this fact demonstrates is how adaptable and eloquent this art is in capturing social trends and how well their study can reflect social trends.

The change these eight years represented, reflected in the films, shows a dark time in American history. A time that was tragically born from hope, hope for a turning point that could be ushered in by a young, progressive president. The loss of this hope is reflected in a staggering and haunting manner by Hollywood’s artistic representations of the deterioration of the eternally glamorous New York- the icon of American success and, perhaps more accurate, excess. What started the decade as a glamorous holy land for those looking for a lifestyle of style ended as a ruthless and cruel wasteland.

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