MINNIE AND MOSKOWITZ

John Cassavetes
August 1972
What has been most remarked and admired in ­Cassavetes' method is his incorporation of quasi-
underground improvisation with conventional forms of story-telling. In a superficial way, <i>Minnie and </i><i>Moskowitz</i> makes with a minimum of structure, its story only existing very loosely to bring together the unlikeliest of lovers. Minnie More works in a Los ­Angeles museum, is coming to the end of a stormy affair with a married man, and is rather reluctantly steered into a date with a businessman. He has a line in agressive confession which seems on the point of turning to physical violence, when Minnie is saved by Seymour Moskowitz, a car park attendant who has recently abandoned a similar job and a solitary existence in New York. Rescue does not bring relief: ­Seymour's simple manner goes with an explosive way of broaching a relationship, and he is quickly provoked by Minnie's habit of fighting shy of emotional demands. Their subsequent affair does not so much deflate the ideal of romantic cinema as interwine with it to some satirical and conscious effect. Minnie in fact emerges as the credible centre of the film; Gena Rowlands adroitly combining hints of genuine romanticism, the compulsive behaviour which provokes Seymour into complaining about Minnie's lack of timing. They will make their way together finally, and even more important, Minnie will take off her oversized sunglasses.