The films of John Cassavetes: part 7 - MINNIE & MOSKOWITZ
August 9th 2010 10:04
Screwball comedy at it's most eccentric
One thing so unique about John Cassavetes’ films, was that most of them, created new sub-genre’s. Cassavetes was an inventor of new forms, but Minnie & Moskowitz is his direct take on the screwball comedy. One of the staples of Hollywood films, the screwball comedy was a romantic comedy formula where the male and female who attempted to have a romantic relationship, had absolutely nothing in common with each other. This provided some comic spills in their relationship, where the two were forced to come to a half way understanding of each other if they were going to make things work out. The most famous screwball rom-com is probably 1934’s ‘It Happened One Night’ with Clarke Gable and Claudette Coulbert, and in Minnie and Moskowitz, he turns this tried and true formula into one of the most eccentric, emotionally jarring and often times hilarious films I’ve ever experienced.
Minnie & Moskowitz is possibly Cassavetes most entertaining film, it’s joyous as it examines how two people who are completely wrong for each other, still manage to come together in a world where romance and love can be elusive and barren. Minnie & Moskowitz, with some of it’s perhaps flawed oddities still works on many levels. It’s not close to any of his best films, but it’s solid and has some of his most memorable scenes ever, which are at once hilarious and unpredictably volatile.
Minnie & Moskowitz is about how deeply Hollywood films have affected our expectations of love and romance and how our ideals of love have become unrealistic as a result, never able to live up to what we had hoped for. This takes two characters -Seymour Moskowitz, played by Seymour Cassel (The Royal Tenenbaums, Faces, Indecent Proposal), the first time we meet him he is watching Humphrey Bogart in The Maltese Falcon, an ideal model of coolness. Seymour is a gratingly loud, eccentric, happy go-lucky extrovert who parks cars for a living, he’s a strange, overbearing but lovable and warm hearted man. The first time we meet Minnie Moore played by Gena Rowlands (Night On Earth, Faces, The Notebook) she is watching Bogart as well, in Casablanca. Minnie is conservative, lady like and too serious for her own good, she’s well educated and is a museum curator. She also perhaps come from a wealthier family and has the airs to make this noticeable.
Minnie is watching Casablance with her friend, Florence, an elderly woman, they go back to Florence’s house and this is where the themes of the film are set up. Florence insists they share a bottle of wine, leading to them sharing their intimate thoughts on love and life. This is where Cassavetes is such a brilliant writer, the scene is tender and Florence who is played by non-actor Elsie Ames brings a staggeringly vulnerable truth to her spoken lines.
Minnie: Florence, are you still romantic?
Florence: I sure am!
Minnie: I mean, I never know when someone reaches your age whether they still have a real need to be loved.
Florence: I sure do!
Minnie: Do you still... do it?
Florence: Yes!
Minnie: Yeah? I... I'm sorry, it's a terrible question, but I really did want to know. Does it diminish, Florence? Does it go away?
Florence: (drinks some wine) Sometimes... and I get very frustrated... and (drinks some more) I don't know whether it's the sex thing or whether it is being alone that makes me so frustrated! After a while I just don't know.
Minnie: You know with me, it just seems like I get more so... I get more aroused, more willing to give of myself. You know the world is just full of silly asses that just want your body... I mean not just your body... your soul, your heart your mind, everything, they can't live until they get it. And then they get it... and they don't really want it.
Florence: They're just crazy.
Minnie: Yeah... you know in movie's its never like that. You know I think movies are a conspiracy! They actually are because they set you up, Florence! They set you up from the time you are a little kid! They set you up to believe in... everything... ideals and strength and good guys and romance and of course... love. Love, Florence!
Florence: Love?!
When Seymour and Minnie finally meet, which is inevitable, they almost kill each other before conceding to a harmonious bond. Minnie & Moskowitz’s acting and dialogue is filled with emotional barbs between the two characters who meet after Seymour rescues her from the blind date from hell. Minnie is in a relationship with a married man who hits her and when that finally ends she finds that Seymour is her only option in the romance department. Seymour bludgeons Minnie with confessions of love in the only way he knows how, “I think about you so much, I forget to go to the bathroom! ”, he proclaims. Minnie grabs his face, ”Seymour look at me, that’s NOT the face of my dreams, you’re NOT the man I’m in love with”, the dialogue by Cassavetes is at times brutal, and the barbs the characters make at each other feel uncomfortably tangible. When Minnie finally kisses Seymour, she bursts into tears. This emotionally brutal romance is balanced with the tender and the outrageous and it’s an unusual but incredible experience.
Val Avery bears his emotional wounds in a hilarious and memorable scene
The casting of Cassel as Seymour and Rowlands as Minnie is beyond perfect as each actor plays marvellously to their strengths and inclinations of their real personalities. There are a handful of scenes in here that are absolute gems of eccentric comedy, they work as acting lessons alone just watching them, and at the same time say plenty about each of the main characters. The one is an extremely funny and bizarre scene where Minnie goes on a blind date with Zelmo Swift, played by the great Val Avery (The Anderson Tapes, Vanishing Point, Faces, The Pope Of Greenwich Village) and it has to be seen to be believed.
This fantastic scene is been included below:
The other memorable cameo is from the legendary cult actor Timothy Carey (Snake Charmer, One Eyed Jacks, East Of Eden), who has a had a notorious track record. Carey was fired from his role in The GodFather by Francis Coppola only to have Coppola ask him to return for The God Father II which Carey quit on half way through. While acting in Stanley Kubrick’s The Killing, Carey faked his own kidnapping and sent a ransom note to the producers. On the set of One Eyed Jacks, Marlon Brando became so furious with him that he stabbed Carey with a pen. Elia Kazan physically attacked Carey as well while shooting East Of Eden. When you saw Carey acting though, there was this incredible presences burning away on the screen - you suddenly understood why directors put up with so much from him. Finally, when John Cassavetes came to Timothy Carey’s house to ask him to act in Minnie & Moskowitz he made Cassavates put on a fat suit made of sausages and released his attack dogs on him before he agreed to do it. Carey would appear in other Casavetes film as well and here we see him in full flight as Morgan Morgan, in a scene with Seymour Cassel and it’s a gem.
Cassavetes directs Timothy Carey and Seymour Cassel
Minnie & Moskowitz is ultimately an acquired taste, some people love it, finding it warm and funny, while others find it’s unexpectedly savage moments abrasive. It’s editing is also jarring, filled with off-putting rhythms that are an escape from what we’ve come to expect as ‘good editing’. Eventually you begin to get used to the editing’s strange pacing, realising that it’s not bad, but just different. There’s also something very old fashioned about the film, there are moments where you feel like you’re watching a film made by a 70 year old wino, rather than the genius behind Shadows, Faces and Husbands, but there remains constant moments of brilliance here as well and the work that the amateur non-actors do in this film is poignant, removing the layers that trained actors put between them selves and the viewer and creating raw moments of human beauty.
Minnie & Moskowitz isn’t for everyone but it’s a great and sometimes strange screwball comedy with some masterful scenes, that has a comment to say about hollywood giving us unrealistic expectation about love. Cassavetes next film would also be about two people who are in love but have nothing in common with each other, but the rifts between the characters in his next film would see comedy being replaced by something absolutely heartbreaking and terrifying – coming soon – a review for perhaps his most important film ever, ‘A Woman Under The Influence’ .
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Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
I am very picky when it comes to screwball style comedy (Some of the Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn ones rank highly). This one had some good moments but overall grated.
Great performances though and a far more interesting take on the genre than the Coen Brothers Intolerable Cruelty.
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure