I’m just basically going to repeat what I wrote when I first posted this video in June 2011. I don’t think I could improve upon it.

Today we present Timothy’s incredible performance from John Cassavetes‘ Minnie and Moskowitz (1971). The video note states he improvised the scene, but Cassavetes’ script did provide the framework upon which Tim hung what is undoubtedly one of the finest depictions of raw humanity ever put on film.

This man, Morgan Morgan, is so sad, so lonely, so desperate to make some kind of human connection. He tries hard not to let it show, and fails. And yet, when Moskowitz (the wonderful Seymour Cassel) tries to engage him in conversation, draw him out of the “script” that he seems stuck in, Morgan reveals himself to be so trapped by his alienation that he cannot respond. Cassavetes was one of the few directors willing to let Tim take a role and run with it, and for that we can be eternally grateful.