The Movie Date

“Can I go to the movies?”

“When?” Mama wanted to know.

Thursday night, I told her.  There was a new movie playing that I had seen advertised and it looked good, it looked interesting.

“What movie?”

An Unmarried Woman.

“Ooh, I saw that advertised, too.  I’ll come with you, it looks good.”

Mommy and I often went to the movies together.  We had similar tastes in pictures, even though there were times that she didn’t get into a movie as much as I did.  She liked Barbra Streisand but she didn’t really have the patience for Funny Lady.  She and Me Father had taken me to see From Noon Till Three for my birthday and we all had a good time at that, in spite of the Charles Bronson dick jokes that made me somewhat uncomfortable - but, still, it made me feel like a right proper grown up, being taken to dinner with just me and my parents, and then to a grown-up movie with dick jokes, all in honor of my thirteenth birthday.  The truth is that my parents had walked a fine line with me, with regard to whether or not I should be treated like a child or a big person, deciding, on a case-by-case basis, what actions to take.  When it came to literature and films, they just didn’t mind if I saw something with a more adult perspective.  And I loved them, loved being with them, so I enjoyed these outings.  After all, when Mama was in Texas with Tony and Stephanie, getting Jimmy tested to see what his developmental level was, Daddy and I were left together in Cascais, and we went to the movies a lot (Me Father and I were really active bachelors during those last months in Portugal).  I was fourteen at that point and Daddy sat by my side when I saw the movies Cabaret and Barry Lyndon - not your average fare for a fourteen-year-old, and certainly films with some content that I definitely did not understand, entirely.  They knew I was precocious and that I would either follow along or get left behind.

So going to see An Unmarried Woman with My Mam was a perfect idea, a great mother and son activity.

Come Thursday night, Mother and I grabbed our coats, she picked up her pocketbook, and we headed to the picture show, just a fifteen-year-old and his Mam.  Up we marched to the box office window, where I ordered the tickets (Mama did not learn to speak much German while we were in Switzerland, though her Portuguese had gotten pretty good, during the Cascais days).  The lady at the window sold us the seats to the seven pm show and into the cinema we walked… but we were mightily confused when we got there.  Inside of the lobby of the cinema, there was a red carpet.  I didn’t know what it was called then but there was a step-and-repeat (or what was, essentially, the 1979 version of a step-and-repeat).  Every man wore a suit, some even wore a tuxedo.  Every woman wore evening clothing, cocktail dress, and even the odd fur.  Photographers were snapping photos as flashbulbs went off.  Reporters with portable recorders held out microphones for interviews.  It was a cacophony of elegance and excitement as Mama and I stood there in our sneakers, dungarees, and sweatshirts.  We felt mighty out of place.

About face!  Back to the box office.  

"Entschuldigung, bitte.”

“Ja, was kann ich für sie tun?” replied the lady behind the glass.

“Wir möchten Eine Unverheiratete Frau sehen…”

“Ah!  Nicht heute Abend, verzeihen sie.   Sie müssen morgen wiederkommen.”

It turned out, the box office worker explained, that An Unmarried Woman was off for the night, as the cinema was screening the world premiere of a Swiss-made film, and we would have to come back the next night.  She switched our tickets for the following night and, like school children, Mama and I laughed while walking back to the car in our low-class attire, amused by the fact that the woman even sold us the tickets in the first place, and that we had stood amongst all the glitterati, looking like a pair of stow-aways.

The next night My Mam and I arrived back at the cinema at the exact same time, we ordered our popcorn and we settled in for An Unmarried Woman.

I don’t know what Mama’s experience was, watching this movie with me, and we have never discussed it (perhaps we should have, perhaps there is still time) but even with all of the grown-up attitudes to which I had been privileged, even with the adult movies and books I had read, I was not prepared for sitting beside my Mommy and watching Jill Clayburgh have sex with Cliff Gorman.  I was not prepared for Jill Clayburgh’s bare breasts in widescreen and my Mama to my left.  I was not prepared for Jill Clayburgh yelling at her therapist, “We sucked and we fucked!  What else is there?!”  while sitting beside my Mom. I was not prepared for the burning of my red, flushed cheeks as I angled my body away from Mama and looked at my hands, at the ceiling, at the walls, at the carpet, anywhere but the big screen, during all of the incredibly intimate moments of sexuality on display during An Unmarried Woman.

Mama handled it with grace and aplomb.  She did not stir.  She did not waver.  She did not take her eyes off of the movie screen. She did not talk to me about it, after, she did not discuss it, walking to the car, she did not ask me about it when we got home.  We watched our movie and when it was over, we said, “That was good,” and we kept moving.  If I needed to talk about it, she left the decision to me. She knew I would come to her if I had anything to say.  I did not need to talk.  It was one and done. I got what I needed from the experience, one of the greatest movie-going experiences (and greatest memories) of my life. To this day, An Unmarried Woman remains one of my favorite films.

Bill Conti’s instrumental soundtrack to AN UNMARRIED WOMAN was the first instrumental soundtrack I ever bought, in my life.  It was the record that introduced me to the genre of motion picture instrumental soundtracks - indeed, it changed my life, for a major portion of my music collection is movie soundtracks.  Unmarried Woman did that for me.

And so much more.