In Taxi Driver there’s a scene where Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) takes Betsy (Cybill Shepherd) to a movie, which turns out to be X rated. (It’s reportedly Ur kärlekens språk, a graphic sex-ed film from Sweden.) Maybe not the most conventional choice for a first date, it goes over poorly.
On a seemingly unrelated note, I went to a concert on this past Sunday night. You may remember that my social anxiety makes this a daunting prospect; but Jonathan Richman was performing at a local bar, and I was determined not to miss the chance to go. So determined, in fact, that I spent the week leading up to it quashing the recurring urge to back out. By the time I met up with Tim and his friend, I was pretty much a nervous cat and expected the worst at every turn.
Fortunately we all got along together, and the only hiccup was that some tickets were left in a coat that hadn’t attended with us. Not a huge deal on my end, as I hadn’t paid my way yet anyhow. Besides, admission was ridiculously cheap. All that mattered to me was securing one of the few wall-hugging stools. The three of us managed to snag exactly one stool, which was graciously granted to me. Then the woman who’d saved the seat next to me offered to free that one up by sliding over. We thanked her and annexed the stool to our growing kingdom of seatedness.
Eventually her husband arrived and sat down, but we didn’t really notice. As usual, Tim and I had started talking about movies. The first I was aware of the guy, he’d leaned over and injected himself into the conversation. After some awkward back-and-forth, he decided that it was sharing time.
Fella: Hey, you guys know a lot about movies, right?
Me: Some, yeah.
Fella: So you might know this one. For our first date, I took my girlfriend — she’s my wife now; this lady here — I took her to see Salo!
Me (weakly): Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom.
Fella: Yeah! It was a test, and she passed!
Salo is a masterpiece, but it’s not the sort of film that you show to an uninformed viewer. It’s an unflinching adaptation of the Marquis de Sade’s The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinism, set in the last days of Mussolini’s Italy. Given writer/director Pier Paolo Pasolini’s previous works, it’s fair to say that the film is intended to show how human love and tenderness can exist in even the most detrimental conditions. However, those conditions include rape, ephebophilia, torture, coprophagia, and assorted other activities that are not for eyes of the cinematically timid or, y’know, people who don’t want to see that sort of thing.
I didn’t ask for the goal of this “test”, but obviously she passed it. Perhaps by ever speaking to him again. She certainly didn’t look thrilled that he was telling the story. The look on her face spoke volumes about how often she’d had to hear him tell it. I wondered briefly what sort of test he’d had to pass; being carbon-based, perhaps. I just hoped he didn’t drive a cab.
Tales of the Atomic Zombie 
Bad Date First/Early Date Movies, Mort Style (in order of when they happened)
Taxi Driver (my first date ever. Was supposed to be a screening at a local college, girl was sick, we rented it, dated for almost two hellish years)
Blade Runner/Brazil double feature: Never went anywhere, but there may have been other dates.
Amores Perros (her choice; my mistake was in not realizing she would be upset by/didn’t know about the dog fighting): Never went anywhere, but had several more, terribly awkward dates.
Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibal World/Humanoids from the Deep/Silent Night, Deadly Night: I am cheating because this was not an honest to God “date” but a bored lady I was interested in making my special lady friend asking to come along to a movie night with my bad movie compadre, and me being too dumb to a) change the line-up b) say that I was working or something. Such a bad night for me, the closest I’ve ever felt to Bickle.
The Station Agent: My first date with my wife. See, apparently this is the right kind of movie to take your girl to. 😉
I could and probably should write a post wherein I apologize for bad movie experiences on dates for my moribund blog. Maybe for Valentine’s Day.
(I should say of that triple feature, the lady in question handled it well and we did end up dating in a very casual way that was mostly fine)
I chose Eyes Wide Shut as our anniversary movie one year. I accepted the beating that followed.
My angry ranting about King Kong nearly ended my marriage.
Back in the BMR days, I was writing about some movie that was, in short, terribly gross and bloody (don’t have the time right now to look over the site and jog the memory) but got an e-mail from some guy who proudly stated he forced people with weak stomachs to watch it. I replied that he was a horrible human being and to go away.
Travis Bickle, indeed.
I prefer to respect people’s boundaries, although Tim L. may justifiably question that after years of me showing him terrible movies.