Cassavetes' Works: Minnie and Moskowitz

Gateway

Life

Films

Words

Early Career

Television

Acting

Photographs

Scrapbook

Chronology

Bibliography

Buy a Book

You're in the section of Ray Carney's John Cassavetes Pages devoted to an overview of Cassavetes' career

·
Turn off pop-up blocking to access site pages. Click here for more information.
·
To display the menus for the major areas of the site, click on the tickets below.

·
To read about Ray Carney’s life and work, click on the tickets below.

·
Click below to read letters from students and artists, screening news and events, links to other sites, and thoughts about art and life.

·
For viewing recommendations, click on the ticket below.

·
The site contains only a fraction of Ray Carney's writing. To learn how to obtain the complete books and essays, click on the ticket below.

·
The Mailbag Letters and Replies section (click on the ticket higher up in the margin to go there) has answers to many questions, but to contact Ray Carney, click on the ticket below.

·
Click on the tickets below to access navigation tips, tools, and site tables of contents.

Minnie and Moskowitz

Click here for best printing of text

Minnie and Moskowitz is a screwball comedy about the madcap love affair between a, well-bred, museum administrator and a loud mouthed, dog faced, old hippie that parks cars for a living. Minnie’s relationship with Moskowitz when contrasted with her affair with her abusive yet handsome married lover (played by Cassavetes) calls into question many of Hollywood’s romantic conventions. 1971 (115 m. Color) Stars Gena Rowlands, Seymour Cassel, and John Cassavetes.

REVIEWS

Absolutely stunning!!

Minnie and Moskowitz is a wacky wonderful comedy! What a wild ride! This movie is funny but it's much more than funny. You can be laughing and crying in the same scene because it tells truths about love and life. Cassavetes is never merely an entertainer. He wants to make you think. I also want to highly recommend a new book where Cassavetes talks about this film and all of his other ones. It's by Ray Carney and called Cassavetes on Cassavetes, and is the geatest collection of "behind the scenes" stories I've ever read anywhere. (It's available at a discount on this site.) Great book. Great stories. Turns out that Cassavetes was as nutty and wild as Moskowitz is in this film. Is that good or bad? You'll have to decide for yourself. That's the way Cassavetes movies are. You have to think about them. You'll be talking about this movie for a long time.

Anybody who has ever loved someone so desperately that they felt so stupid, proud, and confused knows what John meant by Love Streams. Can you even imagine how hard it was for him and Gena to even contiplate the end - after thirty years. No one has ever truly 'captured' what love can be and is and is not than John Cassavetes. Can you even imagine being loved through, with, in a stream? I wish I had had the chance to meet them. See all his movies -they will touch you in the most painful, frustrating, and elating ways - ways you can never imagine. - KEM

For each seemingly reprehensible act (abandoning a son, striking a wife) only the is represented, there is no isolated malice or evil present. Everyone has a humanity in the film, no characters are left to suffer as cyphers. How many directors could resist passing judgement on the stepfather or Seymour Cassell's character? Their biggest crimes are shown to be humanely stupid. Two more smaller reflections: I thought hawling a stubborn goat in out of the storm was a very Greek depiction of male tenderness; and do the final scenes in the storm make anyone else recast Cassavettes as Noah in his hat and smock coat?- Anthony Dolphin

I saw this film. I will not forget this film. I will see this film, tomorrow.

john shows that we are solid like rocks, his charcators can hurl themselves into such emotionally tumultous situations. But love, our spirituality is water - something we can't get a handle or control. For me the film examines the differences between different understandings of our world.- Felim Mac Dermott

I have only seen Love Streams once, 15 years ago and I have yearned to view it again ever since. I remember only one or two details from it. But the ugly crazy fun thing that Cassavettes captured in most of his film efforts , in terms of integrity superfreaks acting out their heartfelt and petty obsessions right in front of each other and watching the characters be with each act of selfishness and love, permenantly affected me. Life and films are missing all that beauty. I hope to view this Masterpiece again soon. Paolo Visentin

This was one of the first "American Independent" films I remember seeing in its original theatrical release, and I'm eternally grateful to the friend who dragged me kicking and screaming to see it (it sounded dreadful to me, as described.) Love Streams is one of those rare films that succeeds in expressing verities about life and love that most of us feel are unexpressable, but essential. Rowlands' characters musing about how Love Streams continue even after the end of a relationship was, when I first saw the movie as a very young man, an insight that both haunted and helped me in later years. I'm sure we can all relate. Why then, are such simple truths so rarely expressed with such naked honesty in American films? One of the most frequent comments by lovers of Cassavetes' ouvre is that his films are so "honest." Indeed, and that's why they'll endure and continue to be rediscovered. When the movie was originally released to VHS in the '80's, I rented it to show to some friends. I was the only one remaining in the room by the end of the movie. Nobody thought it was a poor film, rather, they were too disturbed by its being "too close too home" for them to endure in the company of others. Now that's effective art! (I think...) - Dean Estes

The picture of Gena Rowlands unloading the taxi of its goats, sheep, and roosters, and Cassavetes reaction, is one of the greatest moments in American film history. -Dean Imperial

I always think of the scene where Cassavetes is drunk, hysterically laughing, alone, watching the storm through slide glass doors... This is how I always pictured him reading reviews.

Never have two hearts broken more quietly, more devastatingly. My favorite Cassavetes films... and my first.

To get grasped from a distance. That means a most perfect acting which reveals its sources: the body, the spirit, the soul. And this the viewer gets as a present. Nothing more is possible. Theo Thiesmeier

GO BACK                      BIBLIOGRAPHY

Photographs by Sam Shaw and Larry Shaw are used by special arrangement. They may not be used on other sites or otherwise reproduced. All ownership and copyrights are retained by Shaw Family Archives, LTD. More information is available at: www.samshaw.com and www.spc-promotions.com.