When I first saw the preview for Outlaw, I was flabbergasted. The premise, that a Supreme Court Justice decides he wants to change the legal system in America, and thinks that its best to do so not by maintaining his position on the nation's highest court, which can shape the law and reform the legal system, but instead that he should resign and become a defense attorney, is preposterous (as, by the way, was that terrible run on sentence). I had incredibly low expectations for Outlaw, and it still managed to not just disappoint me, but to flat out offend me.
I think Jimmy Smits is a shockingly charismatic actor, who can liven up anything. In fact, with a premise like this show has, Smits was pretty much the only chance this show had to be anything better than terrible. He tries his best, but there is absolutely nothing that can redeem Outlaw, which I will already predict is the worst new show of this television season. The episode opens with RZA (a talented musician, and upcoming director who leaves a lot to be desired in this role) saying a tearful goodbye to his wife, which is supposed to make us sad. Unfortunately since we have zero context and both actors are subpar, it means pretty much nothing to us. Cut to Jimmy Smits, who has an opening line that pretty much sums up the quality of the show's writing when he says, "People say there's no justice." You see, that line of dialogue is clever, because he is a supreme court JUSTICE, and he will spend this series fighting for JUSTICE, because, you know, JUSTICE.
Let's pause for a moment to consider Smits character, the ridiculously named Cyrus Garza (I can only assume that his Irish mother met his Mexican father at an Irish bar on Cinco De Mayo). If Outlaw is to work as a show, Cyrus Garza absolutely must be a compelling character, and the show certainly thinks he is. He is set up in the cold open as a crazy conservative justice in the mold of Antonin Scalia, but then, seconds later, as a fence sitting moderate a la Anthony Kennedy. Yet, 30 seconds later, Garza remembers his father died a year ago (thanks, news!) and then he becomes a passionate liberal. The show seems to think that this makes him "unpredictable" but actually it just means that the man has no opinion whatsoever (which, I guess, makes him a pretty accurate Anthony Kennedy. Zing!). Additionally, he is supposedly both a titan of the legal field and a gambling addict $500,000 in debt (Don't even ask me how a gambling addiction and huge debt got past the Senate Judiciary Committee's confirmation hearings, or the media), and in the pocket of a Senator who threatens to impeach him if he doesn't vote the way the Senator wants him to (which, by the way, is more illegal than anything the show is accusing Garza of).
After Garza leaves the Supreme Court, for all the stupid reasons I mentioned, he proceeds to represent the client whose execution he stayed as his last act on the court. This is so unbelievably unethical that no one in the legal community would let it stand, yet neither the judge nor opposing counsel even bothers to mention it. Also, the Judge fails to recuse himself, even though it is clear he and Garza are buddies from way back.
Even if I could look past the fact that Outlaw is essentially a legal drama written by people who have clearly never even opened a law book (or perhaps want their show to be set not in America, but in the whimsical lawless land of Flumley) or taken a high school civics class, it is still a terrible piece of television. Cyrus Garza, the show's thematic and moral center, is all over the map in a way that is not interesting so much as unrealistically inconsistent. And every other character on the show is just such a pale imitation of the characters you already expect to see on this show that I pretty much forgot who every member of the team was whenever they weren't on screen. Jesse Bradford was there, and he was smart and cocky and ambitious (and will probably bang that brunette if the show isn't canceled within the month. This will be a will-they-won't -they that even the show's three die hard fans won't give a shit about, because there is no chemistry there). That brunette was there to make racy jokes and flash her boobs, because she's just that good, damn it! The blonde girl is pretty and apparently in love with Garza (which is revealed in her second scene, with absolutely no lead up. Not even so much as a flirty glance had passed before this revelation. It was like whoever wrote the episode just thought of it while writing that scene, but the delete key on his laptop clearly wasn't working so he just said "fuck it, no one will notice.") and that's about it. And the black guy is there because RZA had an attorney before and he was dedicated. So he must be the dedicated one, right?
Near the end of the episode, black attorney asks Garza, "how does it feel to be an Outlaw?" THis sentence makes absolutely no sense in the context of the episode unless you know that the series is called Outlaw and so, presumably, Garza must be a figure who transgresses outside our legal system. This is a legal show that doesn't understand the law. This is a character-focused show with terribly written, boring, forgettable characters. This is a show that wants to be fun and banter-filled, but seemingly doesn't understand what about banter is funny or appealing to audiences. Put simply, Outlaw is so bad it should be illegal.
Grade: F
Notes:
-Some terrible dialogue from the episode:
-"Promise me you'll move on." "Marry me."
-"He's on the Supreme Court? No wonder this country is going down the crapper."
-"I promise I won't bite." "Can I get that in writing?" That is what passes for banter on Outlaw. If you wonder just how bad the show can get, tune in to find out. Me, I'll be trying to forget this show ever existed for the rest of its very likely breif run.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Jordan's Review: Mad Men, Season 4, Episode 8: The Summer Man
I tend to tread carefully about naming particular favorites. As avid readers of this blog will know, I have yet to pick a favorite movie, and if you asked me the best tv shows of all time, you'd come away with at best a list. So it is no small gesture for me to proclaim, as I continuously do, that Mad Men is the best show on television right now, and proves itself to me week after week. Last week's episode, "The Suitcase" was one of the best hours I have seen in a long time. I prepared myself all week for the fact that this episode was bound to be a let down after the masterpiece the show gave us this week. "The Summer Man" is not as good as "The Suitcase," but the fact that it did not disappoint me as a follow up to that peak is praise enough for its virtues.
Mad Men is a show about people's attempts to hide themselves from the world, and to remake themselves in a more flattering light. In many cases, its characters have become so good at hiding, so adept at repression, that they even begin to fool themselves. Tonight's episode gave us a peak into Don's head in the form of voice over narration, a trick rarely pulled out on the show; yet it did not give us Don's thoughts. Rather, the show gave us a chance to hear what Don writes in the journal he has decided to keep, and in that, gave us the opportunity to get a glimpse of the Don that Don presents to himself, when he thinks no one else is watching. And that Don is alone. And that Don is afraid. And that Don wants to become a better man.
The arc of this season has taken Don to his depths, has shown him losing everything he had left to lose. At one point tonight, Bett's friend Francine tells her "Don has nothing to lose. You have everything." She's trying to console Betty, but in a way Francine is right. As Don states early in the episode, while making a list of things he would like to do, he desires to, "gain a modicum of control over the way I feel." Don is a man who has spent the better part of his adult life forming the perfect picture of suburban success, and creating himself in the image of an ideal man, successful, smart, unavailable, and enigmatic. His divorce from Betty, and everything that has happened to him so far this season, have shattered that picture, and Don, after mourning the demise of his old fashioned ideals, has decided this week to start picking up the pieces (I think its interesting, by the way, that Don hasn't ordered a single old fashioned this season. Maybe he sees that its gone out of style).
In the first words of the episode, Don proclaims, "They say as soon as you have to cut down on your drinking, you have a drinking problem." He has recognized this problem, and he is trying to cut down on the booze intake. Along with his new found sobriety (he may not be fully abstaining, but at least he isn't sloshed at all this week), Don begins to discard the detritus he has created in the last several months. First, its Bethany, who he sees again tonight, and hopefully for the last time. Don doesn't embarass himself with her this time around, and he's more than willing to accept a blow job in the back of a taxi from her, yet he is dismissive of her, writing, "She's a sweet girl and she wants me to know her. But I already do." The woman he does not know, or at least not as well, is Dr. Miller, who has been a cut above what Don Draper could manage in his emotionally battered, free fall state. Now that he's on his way back up, though, he lands a date with her, and, what's more, knows enough to end things at her door. Bethany might be gone for good, but Don wants to make sure Faye stays around for a little while. "I'm just going to take you to your door," he tells her. "Why is that?" "Because that's as far as I can go right now, and I'm not ready to say goodnight."
As much as I would love to dive into Don's psyche all week every week (and I'll touch on some other excellent lines in the Notes section), I have to mention the other goings on. This was definitely one of Betty's most significant episodes of the season, as we got our first insight since Sally's therapist's office on how Betty is feeling post Don. "He's the only man I'd ever been with," she tells Henry after acting out like a spoiled child upon seeing Don on his date with Bethany. Betty is still the petulant child playing at perfection in the doll house life she has constructed for herself. "We have everything," she tells Henry in the episode's closing words, hearkening back to Francine's consolation, almost as if trying to console herself as she watches Don play with their child, the baby that has symbolized their marriage from the start. Betty's words call back to Francine's advice, sure, but more tellingly they recall a line Don wrote earlier in the episode, when he maligned the fact that, "We're flawed because we want so much more. We're ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had."
That line also plays into Joan's subplot this evening, as she struggles to deal with an office feud in her own way, only to see Peggy handle the situation more proficiently using powers Joan has never had access too. At work Joan bears the burden of endless harassment from the assholes who populate the art department (worst of all is Joey, who Peggy fires in her show of force, and who early in the episode cruelly asks Joan, "what do you do besides walking around here looking like you're trying to get raped?), and speaking of rape, has to go home to her husband, who consoles her only long enough to shut her up and get into her pants. We get to see some of Joans old fashioned fire as she eviscerates the art boys who have insulted and demeaned her, and a bit of her politicking as she edges up to Don and Lane to try and get what she wants but has too much tact and too little actual power to come out and demand. Joan, as Peggy notes, is integral to SCDP, but few people realize her true worth. Because of this, she is forced to try and cajole what she wants out of the powerful men around her, and is understandably furious when she watches Peggy seize the power she desires and weild it herself to take care of the situation. Joan doesn't want anyone defending her, but more than that she realizes the sad fact that, "No matter how important we get around here, they can still just draw a cartoon." Peggy dealt with Joan's harassment in a very modern way (and, in fact, has been behaving in such a modern way all season that I have often heard the writing of her character criticized as anachronistic. I, unsurprisingly, disagree), but Joan knows the sad truth that at that time, and in that place (and still in far too many places today) Peggy's solution wouldn't solve Joan's problems, and nothing else would either. Joan failed to solve her problem not because she wasn's resourceful enough, and not even because she wasn's powerful enough, but because misogyny is a difficult problem to solve, especially when its that deeply ingrained.
"The Summer Man" may not top "The Suitcase" but it gave us a look at Don's standing in the world, and at his renewed attempts to change, shape, and ultimately control that standing, as well as others perceptions of it. We also saw the hint that Betty may not have quite as much as she tells herself, and that Joan is still filled with the deep seated insecurities that have powered her character from day one, forcing her behind masks of seduction, subterfuge and subtle persuasion so that she can avoid admitting that her standing in the office, in her marriage, and in her life, is anything but illusory. Mad Men is the best show currently on television, and I can't wait to see where it takes us next week.
Grade: A-
Notes:
-"The Suitcase" reminded me that I have been giving the "A" away a little too freely so far this season. "The Summer Man" was great, but maybe not good enough to get the "A."
-"Satisfaction" plays early in the episode, demonstrating that we are in the period commonly associated with the '60s. Beyond that, the song has to be one of the best ever written about the emptiness of advertising, and the hollowness that must come along with being an ad man.
-"More and more about Vietnam..I hope its not another Korea." The show's continual references to the war may be a little too "if only they knew!" for some people, but they feel very realistic and well done to me.
-"Will you tell Ray Charles to come in here and clean this up?"
-"You're a saint." "I'm an adult." Amen Henry.
-"People tell you who they are, but we ignore it. Because we want them to be who we want them to be." One of the truest lines ever uttered on this show, and one of the toughest lessons I have learned in life so far. I could probably have written the entire review around that line alone.
-"You need three ingredients for a cocktail. Vodka and Mountain Dew is an emergency."
-"And when you are over there, in the jungle, and they're shooting at you, remember you're not dying for me, because I never liked you." God damn Joan is cold when she wants to be. Her mask has calcified from years of use.
-Don tells Peggy to fire Joey herself, showing increased respect for her. Shades of their development after last week?
-And, because its another stellar line, and a great one to end our examination on for this week, "When a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him..."
Mad Men is a show about people's attempts to hide themselves from the world, and to remake themselves in a more flattering light. In many cases, its characters have become so good at hiding, so adept at repression, that they even begin to fool themselves. Tonight's episode gave us a peak into Don's head in the form of voice over narration, a trick rarely pulled out on the show; yet it did not give us Don's thoughts. Rather, the show gave us a chance to hear what Don writes in the journal he has decided to keep, and in that, gave us the opportunity to get a glimpse of the Don that Don presents to himself, when he thinks no one else is watching. And that Don is alone. And that Don is afraid. And that Don wants to become a better man.
The arc of this season has taken Don to his depths, has shown him losing everything he had left to lose. At one point tonight, Bett's friend Francine tells her "Don has nothing to lose. You have everything." She's trying to console Betty, but in a way Francine is right. As Don states early in the episode, while making a list of things he would like to do, he desires to, "gain a modicum of control over the way I feel." Don is a man who has spent the better part of his adult life forming the perfect picture of suburban success, and creating himself in the image of an ideal man, successful, smart, unavailable, and enigmatic. His divorce from Betty, and everything that has happened to him so far this season, have shattered that picture, and Don, after mourning the demise of his old fashioned ideals, has decided this week to start picking up the pieces (I think its interesting, by the way, that Don hasn't ordered a single old fashioned this season. Maybe he sees that its gone out of style).
In the first words of the episode, Don proclaims, "They say as soon as you have to cut down on your drinking, you have a drinking problem." He has recognized this problem, and he is trying to cut down on the booze intake. Along with his new found sobriety (he may not be fully abstaining, but at least he isn't sloshed at all this week), Don begins to discard the detritus he has created in the last several months. First, its Bethany, who he sees again tonight, and hopefully for the last time. Don doesn't embarass himself with her this time around, and he's more than willing to accept a blow job in the back of a taxi from her, yet he is dismissive of her, writing, "She's a sweet girl and she wants me to know her. But I already do." The woman he does not know, or at least not as well, is Dr. Miller, who has been a cut above what Don Draper could manage in his emotionally battered, free fall state. Now that he's on his way back up, though, he lands a date with her, and, what's more, knows enough to end things at her door. Bethany might be gone for good, but Don wants to make sure Faye stays around for a little while. "I'm just going to take you to your door," he tells her. "Why is that?" "Because that's as far as I can go right now, and I'm not ready to say goodnight."
As much as I would love to dive into Don's psyche all week every week (and I'll touch on some other excellent lines in the Notes section), I have to mention the other goings on. This was definitely one of Betty's most significant episodes of the season, as we got our first insight since Sally's therapist's office on how Betty is feeling post Don. "He's the only man I'd ever been with," she tells Henry after acting out like a spoiled child upon seeing Don on his date with Bethany. Betty is still the petulant child playing at perfection in the doll house life she has constructed for herself. "We have everything," she tells Henry in the episode's closing words, hearkening back to Francine's consolation, almost as if trying to console herself as she watches Don play with their child, the baby that has symbolized their marriage from the start. Betty's words call back to Francine's advice, sure, but more tellingly they recall a line Don wrote earlier in the episode, when he maligned the fact that, "We're flawed because we want so much more. We're ruined because we get these things and wish for what we had."
That line also plays into Joan's subplot this evening, as she struggles to deal with an office feud in her own way, only to see Peggy handle the situation more proficiently using powers Joan has never had access too. At work Joan bears the burden of endless harassment from the assholes who populate the art department (worst of all is Joey, who Peggy fires in her show of force, and who early in the episode cruelly asks Joan, "what do you do besides walking around here looking like you're trying to get raped?), and speaking of rape, has to go home to her husband, who consoles her only long enough to shut her up and get into her pants. We get to see some of Joans old fashioned fire as she eviscerates the art boys who have insulted and demeaned her, and a bit of her politicking as she edges up to Don and Lane to try and get what she wants but has too much tact and too little actual power to come out and demand. Joan, as Peggy notes, is integral to SCDP, but few people realize her true worth. Because of this, she is forced to try and cajole what she wants out of the powerful men around her, and is understandably furious when she watches Peggy seize the power she desires and weild it herself to take care of the situation. Joan doesn't want anyone defending her, but more than that she realizes the sad fact that, "No matter how important we get around here, they can still just draw a cartoon." Peggy dealt with Joan's harassment in a very modern way (and, in fact, has been behaving in such a modern way all season that I have often heard the writing of her character criticized as anachronistic. I, unsurprisingly, disagree), but Joan knows the sad truth that at that time, and in that place (and still in far too many places today) Peggy's solution wouldn't solve Joan's problems, and nothing else would either. Joan failed to solve her problem not because she wasn's resourceful enough, and not even because she wasn's powerful enough, but because misogyny is a difficult problem to solve, especially when its that deeply ingrained.
"The Summer Man" may not top "The Suitcase" but it gave us a look at Don's standing in the world, and at his renewed attempts to change, shape, and ultimately control that standing, as well as others perceptions of it. We also saw the hint that Betty may not have quite as much as she tells herself, and that Joan is still filled with the deep seated insecurities that have powered her character from day one, forcing her behind masks of seduction, subterfuge and subtle persuasion so that she can avoid admitting that her standing in the office, in her marriage, and in her life, is anything but illusory. Mad Men is the best show currently on television, and I can't wait to see where it takes us next week.
Grade: A-
Notes:
-"The Suitcase" reminded me that I have been giving the "A" away a little too freely so far this season. "The Summer Man" was great, but maybe not good enough to get the "A."
-"Satisfaction" plays early in the episode, demonstrating that we are in the period commonly associated with the '60s. Beyond that, the song has to be one of the best ever written about the emptiness of advertising, and the hollowness that must come along with being an ad man.
-"More and more about Vietnam..I hope its not another Korea." The show's continual references to the war may be a little too "if only they knew!" for some people, but they feel very realistic and well done to me.
-"Will you tell Ray Charles to come in here and clean this up?"
-"You're a saint." "I'm an adult." Amen Henry.
-"People tell you who they are, but we ignore it. Because we want them to be who we want them to be." One of the truest lines ever uttered on this show, and one of the toughest lessons I have learned in life so far. I could probably have written the entire review around that line alone.
-"You need three ingredients for a cocktail. Vodka and Mountain Dew is an emergency."
-"And when you are over there, in the jungle, and they're shooting at you, remember you're not dying for me, because I never liked you." God damn Joan is cold when she wants to be. Her mask has calcified from years of use.
-Don tells Peggy to fire Joey herself, showing increased respect for her. Shades of their development after last week?
-And, because its another stellar line, and a great one to end our examination on for this week, "When a man walks into a room, he brings his whole life with him..."
Whose Film Is It Anyway?: Sergio Leone
Note: The purpose of Whose Film Is It Anyway? is to examine the validity of the auteur theory through the lens of individual film-makers, taking a look at their bodies of work and highlighting the technical elements, personal style, and thematic consistency of their films. Ultimately, the goal of this column will be to generate a discussion of the merits of auteur theory through examinations of directors widely considered auteurs, analyses of directors whose status as auteurs is more tenuous, and occasional looks at non-directors who may drive the quality and content of their films with more assuredness than the directors they work with.
“If you’re gonna shoot, shoot, don’t talk.” Tuco (Eli Wallach), The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
I feel no shame in saying I have never been a huge fan of the western. My grandfather is as big a John Wayne fan as ever lived (so much so that one of my uncle’s is actually named John Wayne Ferguson), but I have found most of the western’s I’ve seen to be poorly paced, morally simplistic, and far too hinged on the shootout that will inevitably close the movie. Yet everything I knew to be true about the (admittedly few) westerns I’ve seen was supposedly turned on its head by the “Spaghetti Western” movement that became popular in Italy and Spain in the 1960’s. So called because they were produced in Italy and Spain, by Italian directors, and often filmed in Italian to later be dubbed into English, the movement is pretty much centered on the work of Sergio Leone, who in actuality only made five spaghetti westerns in his career (and only seven full films in total). Leone was a huge American History buff, and had a distinct idea of how to portray the old west in a new and dynamic way. Though dialogue and plot were rarely important features in his films, he theorized that, “The west was made by violent, uncomplicated men, and it is this strength and simplicity that I try to recapture in my pictures.” Leone embraced the pacing of the western genre, but added a layer of complexity to its morals by pointing out that it was the characters within that period for whom morals were black and white, not the director behind the camera. Leone’s moral outlook, his juxtaposition of extreme close-ups and extreme long shots, and his work with composer Ennio Morricone make his films, and in particular, his spaghetti westerns fully distinct from the work of any other director.
Leone’s first, and most problematic, western, A Fistful of Dollars shows all of these traits in full force. The film is an unofficial remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (so much so that Kurosawa is said to have sent Leone a note reading, “It is a very fine film, but it is my film.” Kurosawa later won a copyright infringement suit against Leone), which was in itself a Japanese riff on the American western. Leone coasts through most of the film on Kurosawa’s visual schemes, placing his “Man with No Name” (Clint Eastwood, who by the way has at least a nickname in all three of the so called “Man with No Name” movies. Here, he is Joe, in For a Few Dollars More he is Manco, and in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly he is Blondie. To avoid using the misnomer, I will refer to the three as “The Dollars Trilogy” from here on out) in the middle of a dusty street with opposing gangs entrenched at either end and watching him play one side against the other while hoping to come out on top himself.
The larger problem with A Fistful of Dollars is not that it is an unofficial remake so close to the original as to actually be distracting, but that Leone has chosen to work with a conventional plot, and one that involves double-crosses on top of triple-crosses to boot. The film is at its best when it ignores its plot entirely, giving into long shots of the quiet desert, or close ups of the cold eyes of its characters. Leone’s movies are not focused on plotlines or development; they are about existential self-definition in an era where a man could fully redefine himself by climbing on his horse and riding one town over where he could easily be just a stranger in a strange land. As such, Leone does much better when he is allowed to build the tension that develops just before a shoot out, or pan across the desert while Ennio Morricone’s score defines what exactly it would have been like to ride across these uninhabited plains with barely even a road to guide or constrain you. Critic Richard Jameson once described Leone’s films as, “operas in which the arias are not sung but stared” and in fact, the best moments in Leone’s films often come when the guns are about to start blazing and he lingers in extreme close up on the eyes of those about to do battle. This seems as good a time as any to point out the Leone’s very distinct alteration between long shots and close ups is not entirely a matter of style, but in fact was partially derived from the limitations of Techniscope, the cheap process of wide-screening film that Leone used to keep his budgets low, which did not function well in middle distances. However, the interspersing of epic long shots and detailed close ups also fits with the worldview Leone espoused, where the world is an expansive and empty moral vacuum, in which sheer will and the number of bullets in your gun are the only currency that actually makes a difference.
This leads Leone to populate his films with taciturn characters who spout philosophical worldviews whenever they take the trouble to talk at all. Eastwood’s character in A Fistful of Dollars lives by the creed, “When a man’s got money in his pocket he begins to appreciate peace,” while Gian Maria Volonte’s rugged gangster believes, “When a man with a Winchester meets a man with a pistol, the man with the pistol is a dead man.”
Leone hits the mark with For a Few Dollars More, where his style seems to cohere with the story (which becomes much simpler than in the previous film). The film opens with a title card reading “When life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. This is why the bounty killers appeared,” and follows Eastwood’s bounty hunter as he teams up with an older killer (an excellent Lee Van Cleef) to bring down a murderous gang leader (Volonte). A few flashbacks play up a history between Van Cleef and Volonte, which pays off in one chilling line near the film’s end, but that is all the plot development Leone needs before letting these three loose on each other. All of the emotion the characters feel can be conveyed through close up, which works perfectly to add layers to characters who couldn’t be less verbose, and the epic stage on which they fight their battle of wills is set up again by Leone’s masterful long shots. Morricone’s score simultaneously captures the epic struggle between predator and prey and the tragic undercurrent that has lead Van Cleef down a path he would regret if he took occasion to feel.
While For a Few Dollars More is better than A Fistful of Dollars, and is in fact a very good film, it still feels in places like a dry run for Leone’s masterpiece, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a three hour epic that again eschews the plot (which, quite simply, sets the titular characters against each other on a quest to be the first to get to $200,000 in buried gold) in favor of an immersive experience that draws the audience in to the philosophical posturing of three diverse figures and sets their battle against the backdrop of the Civil War. Each character has their own distinct worldview, which is played out across three hours before coming to a head in the film’s legendary Mexican standoff in a cemetery. Without the preceding hours spent with the characters, their showdown might seem like the logical conclusion to a tale of greed, yet knowing all we have learned about them, the tension that the final sequence builds gives us time to think about how each character got to this point, and what they might do when the shooting starts.
The verbose Tuco (Eli Wallach), the title’s “The Ugly,” who uttered the line that opened this week’s column believes that there are two kinds of people, “Those with a rope around their neck, and those who have the job of doing the cutting.” His sometimes partner, sometimes rival Blondie (Clint Eastwood), “The Good” thinks similarly, that “In this world, there’s two kinds of men: Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.” And Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), “The Bad” thinks more simply, “[…] the pity is when I’m paid, I always follow my job through.” Leone sets the film up as a struggle between three philosophies, and his ideas about which are superior and which will fail are played out against a sea of poetic violence and empty landscapes. The battle between these three men and the philosophies they represent actually comes to be more important, in Leone’s eyes, than the Civil War that is going on all around them, as at one point Blondie looks at a battlefield and sighs, “I’ve never seen so many men wasted so badly.” In Leone’s mind, violence can be meaningful, but it can just as easily be pointless. There are battles worth fighting in his world, and battles it would be better to walk away from. Knowing the difference takes a level of wisdom only some of his characters ever attain.
Leone completed his meditation on the American West with Once Upon a Time in the West (though he would return to the western with Duck, You Sucker which is set in Mexico during the Revolution), which is fittingly set during the advent of the transcontinental railroad, which heralds the arrival of civilization and marks the death of the old west. The film follows the struggle between Frank (Henry Fonda, playing against type as a cold hearted killer), Harmonica (Charles Bronson), Cheyenne (Jason Robards), and, to a lesser extent, Jill (Claudie Cardinale) who inherits the land at the center of the film’s struggle. Jill’s new husband purchased the land years ago in anticipation of the railroad’s arrival, knowing the his property had the only large source of water for miles, and that the railroad would need to buy his land to come through the area. When a railroad tycoon learns of this, he sends Frank to intimidate the man, and Frank kills him and his three children, leaving the land in the possession of the newly arrived Jill. Throughout the film Frank attempts to leave his past as a gunslinger behind and become the sort of businessman that society will expect to find when it reaches the frontier, yet he is continually driven back to violence by a past that haunts him and has caused Harmonica to pursue him endlessly.
Throughout his work, Leone intersperses long shots and close ups, integrates the brilliant scores by Ennio Morricone, and creates characters that fully sum up a world view he hopes to examine. The work of Ennio Morricone alongside Leone cannot be undervalued, (which is why I have included segments of Morricone's scores for each film above. Trust me, they're worth it) and in fact, Morricone scored A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More before production even began on the films (an event so unusual, I briefly considered the possibility that Morricone was himself an auteur, though that is an entirely different column) allowing Leone to play the scores on set and perfectly time the action to the score, inverting the common practice. Leone used his distinct style and individual outlook to shape his westerns, altering the genre immensely and changing the way we view westerns to this day. From aping Kurosawa, Sergio Leone quickly grew into a unique voice, examining the role of self-definition and personal morals in an era where authority was corrupt and law and order was nowhere to be found.
Read more Whose Film Is It Anyway? here
Coming up on Who's Film Is It Anyway?:
9/26: Ingmar Bergman
10/10: Halloween Horror Auteur Month: George Romero
10/24: Halloween Horror Auteur Month: John Carpenter
11/7: James Cameron
“If you’re gonna shoot, shoot, don’t talk.” Tuco (Eli Wallach), The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
I feel no shame in saying I have never been a huge fan of the western. My grandfather is as big a John Wayne fan as ever lived (so much so that one of my uncle’s is actually named John Wayne Ferguson), but I have found most of the western’s I’ve seen to be poorly paced, morally simplistic, and far too hinged on the shootout that will inevitably close the movie. Yet everything I knew to be true about the (admittedly few) westerns I’ve seen was supposedly turned on its head by the “Spaghetti Western” movement that became popular in Italy and Spain in the 1960’s. So called because they were produced in Italy and Spain, by Italian directors, and often filmed in Italian to later be dubbed into English, the movement is pretty much centered on the work of Sergio Leone, who in actuality only made five spaghetti westerns in his career (and only seven full films in total). Leone was a huge American History buff, and had a distinct idea of how to portray the old west in a new and dynamic way. Though dialogue and plot were rarely important features in his films, he theorized that, “The west was made by violent, uncomplicated men, and it is this strength and simplicity that I try to recapture in my pictures.” Leone embraced the pacing of the western genre, but added a layer of complexity to its morals by pointing out that it was the characters within that period for whom morals were black and white, not the director behind the camera. Leone’s moral outlook, his juxtaposition of extreme close-ups and extreme long shots, and his work with composer Ennio Morricone make his films, and in particular, his spaghetti westerns fully distinct from the work of any other director.
Leone’s first, and most problematic, western, A Fistful of Dollars shows all of these traits in full force. The film is an unofficial remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (so much so that Kurosawa is said to have sent Leone a note reading, “It is a very fine film, but it is my film.” Kurosawa later won a copyright infringement suit against Leone), which was in itself a Japanese riff on the American western. Leone coasts through most of the film on Kurosawa’s visual schemes, placing his “Man with No Name” (Clint Eastwood, who by the way has at least a nickname in all three of the so called “Man with No Name” movies. Here, he is Joe, in For a Few Dollars More he is Manco, and in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly he is Blondie. To avoid using the misnomer, I will refer to the three as “The Dollars Trilogy” from here on out) in the middle of a dusty street with opposing gangs entrenched at either end and watching him play one side against the other while hoping to come out on top himself.
The larger problem with A Fistful of Dollars is not that it is an unofficial remake so close to the original as to actually be distracting, but that Leone has chosen to work with a conventional plot, and one that involves double-crosses on top of triple-crosses to boot. The film is at its best when it ignores its plot entirely, giving into long shots of the quiet desert, or close ups of the cold eyes of its characters. Leone’s movies are not focused on plotlines or development; they are about existential self-definition in an era where a man could fully redefine himself by climbing on his horse and riding one town over where he could easily be just a stranger in a strange land. As such, Leone does much better when he is allowed to build the tension that develops just before a shoot out, or pan across the desert while Ennio Morricone’s score defines what exactly it would have been like to ride across these uninhabited plains with barely even a road to guide or constrain you. Critic Richard Jameson once described Leone’s films as, “operas in which the arias are not sung but stared” and in fact, the best moments in Leone’s films often come when the guns are about to start blazing and he lingers in extreme close up on the eyes of those about to do battle. This seems as good a time as any to point out the Leone’s very distinct alteration between long shots and close ups is not entirely a matter of style, but in fact was partially derived from the limitations of Techniscope, the cheap process of wide-screening film that Leone used to keep his budgets low, which did not function well in middle distances. However, the interspersing of epic long shots and detailed close ups also fits with the worldview Leone espoused, where the world is an expansive and empty moral vacuum, in which sheer will and the number of bullets in your gun are the only currency that actually makes a difference.
This leads Leone to populate his films with taciturn characters who spout philosophical worldviews whenever they take the trouble to talk at all. Eastwood’s character in A Fistful of Dollars lives by the creed, “When a man’s got money in his pocket he begins to appreciate peace,” while Gian Maria Volonte’s rugged gangster believes, “When a man with a Winchester meets a man with a pistol, the man with the pistol is a dead man.”
Leone hits the mark with For a Few Dollars More, where his style seems to cohere with the story (which becomes much simpler than in the previous film). The film opens with a title card reading “When life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. This is why the bounty killers appeared,” and follows Eastwood’s bounty hunter as he teams up with an older killer (an excellent Lee Van Cleef) to bring down a murderous gang leader (Volonte). A few flashbacks play up a history between Van Cleef and Volonte, which pays off in one chilling line near the film’s end, but that is all the plot development Leone needs before letting these three loose on each other. All of the emotion the characters feel can be conveyed through close up, which works perfectly to add layers to characters who couldn’t be less verbose, and the epic stage on which they fight their battle of wills is set up again by Leone’s masterful long shots. Morricone’s score simultaneously captures the epic struggle between predator and prey and the tragic undercurrent that has lead Van Cleef down a path he would regret if he took occasion to feel.
While For a Few Dollars More is better than A Fistful of Dollars, and is in fact a very good film, it still feels in places like a dry run for Leone’s masterpiece, The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, a three hour epic that again eschews the plot (which, quite simply, sets the titular characters against each other on a quest to be the first to get to $200,000 in buried gold) in favor of an immersive experience that draws the audience in to the philosophical posturing of three diverse figures and sets their battle against the backdrop of the Civil War. Each character has their own distinct worldview, which is played out across three hours before coming to a head in the film’s legendary Mexican standoff in a cemetery. Without the preceding hours spent with the characters, their showdown might seem like the logical conclusion to a tale of greed, yet knowing all we have learned about them, the tension that the final sequence builds gives us time to think about how each character got to this point, and what they might do when the shooting starts.
The verbose Tuco (Eli Wallach), the title’s “The Ugly,” who uttered the line that opened this week’s column believes that there are two kinds of people, “Those with a rope around their neck, and those who have the job of doing the cutting.” His sometimes partner, sometimes rival Blondie (Clint Eastwood), “The Good” thinks similarly, that “In this world, there’s two kinds of men: Those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.” And Angel Eyes (Lee Van Cleef), “The Bad” thinks more simply, “[…] the pity is when I’m paid, I always follow my job through.” Leone sets the film up as a struggle between three philosophies, and his ideas about which are superior and which will fail are played out against a sea of poetic violence and empty landscapes. The battle between these three men and the philosophies they represent actually comes to be more important, in Leone’s eyes, than the Civil War that is going on all around them, as at one point Blondie looks at a battlefield and sighs, “I’ve never seen so many men wasted so badly.” In Leone’s mind, violence can be meaningful, but it can just as easily be pointless. There are battles worth fighting in his world, and battles it would be better to walk away from. Knowing the difference takes a level of wisdom only some of his characters ever attain.
Leone completed his meditation on the American West with Once Upon a Time in the West (though he would return to the western with Duck, You Sucker which is set in Mexico during the Revolution), which is fittingly set during the advent of the transcontinental railroad, which heralds the arrival of civilization and marks the death of the old west. The film follows the struggle between Frank (Henry Fonda, playing against type as a cold hearted killer), Harmonica (Charles Bronson), Cheyenne (Jason Robards), and, to a lesser extent, Jill (Claudie Cardinale) who inherits the land at the center of the film’s struggle. Jill’s new husband purchased the land years ago in anticipation of the railroad’s arrival, knowing the his property had the only large source of water for miles, and that the railroad would need to buy his land to come through the area. When a railroad tycoon learns of this, he sends Frank to intimidate the man, and Frank kills him and his three children, leaving the land in the possession of the newly arrived Jill. Throughout the film Frank attempts to leave his past as a gunslinger behind and become the sort of businessman that society will expect to find when it reaches the frontier, yet he is continually driven back to violence by a past that haunts him and has caused Harmonica to pursue him endlessly.
Throughout his work, Leone intersperses long shots and close ups, integrates the brilliant scores by Ennio Morricone, and creates characters that fully sum up a world view he hopes to examine. The work of Ennio Morricone alongside Leone cannot be undervalued, (which is why I have included segments of Morricone's scores for each film above. Trust me, they're worth it) and in fact, Morricone scored A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More before production even began on the films (an event so unusual, I briefly considered the possibility that Morricone was himself an auteur, though that is an entirely different column) allowing Leone to play the scores on set and perfectly time the action to the score, inverting the common practice. Leone used his distinct style and individual outlook to shape his westerns, altering the genre immensely and changing the way we view westerns to this day. From aping Kurosawa, Sergio Leone quickly grew into a unique voice, examining the role of self-definition and personal morals in an era where authority was corrupt and law and order was nowhere to be found.
Read more Whose Film Is It Anyway? here
Coming up on Who's Film Is It Anyway?:
9/26: Ingmar Bergman
10/10: Halloween Horror Auteur Month: George Romero
10/24: Halloween Horror Auteur Month: John Carpenter
11/7: James Cameron
Monday, September 6, 2010
Pilot Season Scehdule
Summer is officially over this weekend, and so its time for Sam and I to announce our pilot season schedule. As per usual, we will cover some of our returning favorites on a weekly basis, and review at least the premiere of several new shows (which we may add to our weekly repertoire if we enjoy or hate them with enough vigor to keep writing about them). An asterisk (*) next to the show denotes that we will be covering it weekly, a J next to the show denotes that Jordan will be covering it, and an S denotes that Sam will be covering it. Here's our planned schedule, conveniently placed in the order of their premiere:
-Mad Men*-(J, reviews already in progress)
-Terriers-(S, September 8th)
-Outlaw-(J, sneek preview September 15th)
-Boardwalk Empire-(J and S, September 19th)
-How I Met Your Mother*-(J, September 20th)
-Running Wilde-(J, September 21st)
-Modern Family*-(S, September 22nd)
-Undercovers-(J, September 22nd)
-Community*-(J, September 23rd)
-Outsourced-(S, September 23rd)
-The Office*-(S, September 23rd)
-30 Rock*-(J, September 23rd)
-Dexter*-(J, September 26th)
-Eastbound and Down*-(S, September 26th)
-No Ordinary Family-(J, September 28th)
-The Walking Dead-(J, October 31st)
This schedule is an estimate, subject to change. Happy Pilot Season everybody!
-Mad Men*-(J, reviews already in progress)
-Terriers-(S, September 8th)
-Outlaw-(J, sneek preview September 15th)
-Boardwalk Empire-(J and S, September 19th)
-How I Met Your Mother*-(J, September 20th)
-Running Wilde-(J, September 21st)
-Modern Family*-(S, September 22nd)
-Undercovers-(J, September 22nd)
-Community*-(J, September 23rd)
-Outsourced-(S, September 23rd)
-The Office*-(S, September 23rd)
-30 Rock*-(J, September 23rd)
-Dexter*-(J, September 26th)
-Eastbound and Down*-(S, September 26th)
-No Ordinary Family-(J, September 28th)
-The Walking Dead-(J, October 31st)
This schedule is an estimate, subject to change. Happy Pilot Season everybody!
Jordan's Review: Mad Men, Season 4, Episode 7: The Suitcase
To begin with, I should say that "The Suitcase" is definitely one of the five or so best episodes of Mad Men the show has yet produced, and may even come to be my favorite over the many, many times I will view it in the days to come (I have already watched it twice, which I have never done before writing the review in the past). The writing is pretty much perfect, its excellently directed, and Jon Hamm and Elisabeth moss turn in performances that will almost surely win both Emmys next year (especially since Bryan Cranston won't be eligible, due to the late start of Breaking Bad, which hurts me inside). "The Suitcase" is also an off-format episode of Mad Men, if the term even applies to a show that so avoids serialization; it takes place almost entirely in the office, focuses so heavily on Peggy and Don that all other characters exist only in service to the study of those two characters, and plays more like a play than an episode of television. The episode is divided into four segments, really, and to make the task of tackling what will probably be my favorite episode of any tv series this year (though Breaking Bad has some contenders, and the fall may hold some surprises) a little more manageable, I will approach my discussion in the same way.
The first portion of the episode sets the stage for what's to come, giving us an idea of where both Peggy and Don are going in to the night that takes up most of the running time. Peggy is dealing with the frat-boys she is forced to work with every day, trying to come up with a pitch for Samsonite and hoping to brainstorm something that will keep Don from degrading her like he usually does. Its also her birthday, which is a mixed blessing. As nameless attractive secretary points out in the bathroom, Peggy has done a lot for her age, especially considering she's a woman in the '60s; yet only moments later a pregnant and happily married Trudy Campbell walks in and reminds Peggy of the other side of the coin. Peggy has achieved much professional success (even though Don undercuts her achievements at every turn), yet her personal life is not where she wants it to be. When Trudy tells her that 26 is still very young, she means it to sound as passive aggressive as it does, but she probably doesn't realize how close to home her comment strikes. The point is driven home even further as Peggy delays meeting Mark (and, initially unbeknownst to her, her entire family) for dinner to brainstorm Samsonite with Don. All of that lets us know Peggy's complex emotional state very quickly; In Don's case, all we have to hear is, "A call came in from California. Stephanie, no last name. She says its urgent" and we know exactly where Don is emotionally.
The second portion of the episode is a bit of an antagonistic dance between Don and Peggy, as he abuses her even more than usual, and she for once refuses to take his insults and engages him directly. Peggy points out that Don is ruining her plans and Don mocks even the idea that he should feel sympathy. She then reminds him its his birthday, and he scoffs at the notion that he should have any idea when that is, even telling her, "You're twenty...something years old. Its time to get over birthdays!" Peggy continually feels like Don does not appreciate her contributions, and his comments cut her to the core. She rages back at him, bringing up the Clio he won for what she thinks was her idea (though from what we've heard, it sounds like Don made enough changes that it wasn't really Peggy's, at least not fully), and yelling, "You never say thank you!" to which Don harshly replies, "That's what the money is for!" All of this tension has been building between the two for years now, as Don pushes Peggy to work harder than everyone else, mostly through cruelty and dismissiveness, and Peggy works as hard as she can, mostly for Don's approval. This struggle between the two has been subtext as far back as season one, but "The Suitcase" makes it text. That would be enough to make a great episode, but there are still two segments left in this story.
After Peggy leaves Don's office in tears, the two continue working separately, Peggy having broken up with Mark to stay in the office, and Don having nowhere else he'd rather be. After the fight they have just had, it would make perfect sense for a rift to separate the two, yet when Don discover's a tape of Roger dictating Sterling's Gold, his autobiography, the two are bonded by the realizations that Roger slept with Blankenship (who he calls "The Queen of Perversions"), that Cooper lost his testicles in his prime (which, to my mind, explains a lot), and that Roger is writing an autobiography, despite having done basically nothing. The absurdity of these revelations quickly smooths over the tension between the two, and Don takes Peggy out for dinner and drinks. This is the segment that's the real game changer, as Don and Peggy finally engage on a personal level, after years of building a professional relationship that each insisted remained that way. The relationship between Don and Peggy is a fascinating, as they are probably the central male and female characters, and the show focuses often on their relationship, yet even the idea of a romance between the two is generally laughed off immediately (and thank God. The two are so much more interesting as they are). This episode deepens their bond beyond just professional respect, but it does not, to my mind, change the nature of that bond. It just allows each to share their secrets and their sense of loss with each other, as Don admits to growing up on a farm and to serving in Korea but never killing anyone, while Peggy admits to thinking about the child she gave up and feeling strange because she's single but not really focused on marriage like she is on work. The two also bond over the shared experience of watching someone die.
In fact, the spectre of death and aging hangs over the episode, from our knowledge early on that Anna is dead, to Peggy's recurrent fear that she is getting too old to be focused on career over personal life, to the discussion I just mentioned about the violence and trauma of watching someone die, and finally, when Don faces it directly (for a moment at least), when Duck pins him during their drunken brawl and mentions, threateningly, the 17 people he killed in Okinawa. And, in the background, the brutal violence of a boxing match preoccupies all of the other characters. Speaking of Duck (king of segues that I am), he and Anna serve similar purposes throughout this episode, reminding Peggy and Don of the people they were, the things they've tried to be, and the things they've given up to be who they are today. As the two spend their night together in the office, both Duck and Anna haunt them in a sense, but so does the Samsonite account, which on the surface appears to be just the Macguffin that allows for their lengthy interactions, but is in fact an essential piece of the episode. As Don points out, he had an uncle who always kept a packed suitcase around, ready to leave at any moment, and as Peggy mentions, she wants to travel, if only so she can take a plane for the first time. The two dance around one of the major themes of Mad Men, as does the account they spend the episode working on. The show, in a sense, is about the fact that life is always moving forward, forcing you to recreate yourself to fit the changing world around you and your changing place in that world. The characters at the center of Mad Men are caught in a moment of immense change and are struggling (and sometimes failing) to reinvent themselves for what's to come. The third segment of the episode ends with Don waking up, briefly, to see a spectral Anna walking in, suitcase in hand, smiling at him, then turning and walking away forever. I know this moment, translucent Anna and all, will be considered a flaw by some people, but personally I think it closes out Don and Peggy's night together perfectly. Anna looks at Don with Peggy and smiles before she leaves them together. She knows, as Peggy reassures Don the next morning, that Don has someone else who understands him now. And when Don, sobbing, explains to Peggy that the person who died was, "the only person who really knew me," her response, "that's not true" is believable and profoundly moving in large part because of what the two have just gone through together.
The final segment shows us the morning after, and allows us to see how things have subtly shifted since the night before. Peggy still has to deal with the frat boys, and still has to wonder if she'll ever settle down; Don has still lost perhaps the most important person to him (so far anyway). Yet before them is a winning Samsonite campaign (which, to my mind, is not better than the one Don rejected at the episode's opening, remniscient of his admission that the line between awful and great is a thin one), a bright new day that they can face fresh faced, and the fact that they can still adjust themselves to the world they live in now and prepare for the changes to come. Don has spent most of this season closing the world out and living in the past, with his heavy drinking, antique apartment, and feeble attempts at seduction. The last words of the episode change all that, as Peggy asks him "Open or closed?" and for the first time all season, Don responds "Open."
Grade: A
Notes:
-If an A+ was a reasonable grade, this episode would get one.
-This is also a very funny episode, which I mostly glossed over before. Here are some of the great moments:
-"If I wanted to see two negros fight I'd throw a dollar bill out my window." Blankenship hasn't gotten old yet...at least not as a throw away gag.
-"I wouldn't be good company anyway." "That's never bothered me before." Don and Roger's serious drinking has drawn them together, and gotten so out of hand that Roger thinks Don isn't coming because they won't be able to drink through dinner, and sneaks off to a bar to drink himself throughout.
-"Its an incredible feeling having this baby kick me." "Is it any different than living with Pete?"
-"This guy Rutledge killed a guy with a motorboat. You know what gets you over that? Drinking!"
-"As Danny would say, there's no use crying over fish in the sea."
-"There's a way out of this room we don't know about." That is a much more meaningful line than Don realizes when he discusses the mouse's disappearance. By episode's end, I would say he's found the other way out.
-"You'll find someone. you're cute as hell." That was very sweet, Don.
-"You don't want to start giving me morality lessons, do you? People do things." Don's life philosophy in three words.
-"She's in a better place." "That's what they say." One of several times in the episode where I wished I had the tear ducts to cry.
The first portion of the episode sets the stage for what's to come, giving us an idea of where both Peggy and Don are going in to the night that takes up most of the running time. Peggy is dealing with the frat-boys she is forced to work with every day, trying to come up with a pitch for Samsonite and hoping to brainstorm something that will keep Don from degrading her like he usually does. Its also her birthday, which is a mixed blessing. As nameless attractive secretary points out in the bathroom, Peggy has done a lot for her age, especially considering she's a woman in the '60s; yet only moments later a pregnant and happily married Trudy Campbell walks in and reminds Peggy of the other side of the coin. Peggy has achieved much professional success (even though Don undercuts her achievements at every turn), yet her personal life is not where she wants it to be. When Trudy tells her that 26 is still very young, she means it to sound as passive aggressive as it does, but she probably doesn't realize how close to home her comment strikes. The point is driven home even further as Peggy delays meeting Mark (and, initially unbeknownst to her, her entire family) for dinner to brainstorm Samsonite with Don. All of that lets us know Peggy's complex emotional state very quickly; In Don's case, all we have to hear is, "A call came in from California. Stephanie, no last name. She says its urgent" and we know exactly where Don is emotionally.
The second portion of the episode is a bit of an antagonistic dance between Don and Peggy, as he abuses her even more than usual, and she for once refuses to take his insults and engages him directly. Peggy points out that Don is ruining her plans and Don mocks even the idea that he should feel sympathy. She then reminds him its his birthday, and he scoffs at the notion that he should have any idea when that is, even telling her, "You're twenty...something years old. Its time to get over birthdays!" Peggy continually feels like Don does not appreciate her contributions, and his comments cut her to the core. She rages back at him, bringing up the Clio he won for what she thinks was her idea (though from what we've heard, it sounds like Don made enough changes that it wasn't really Peggy's, at least not fully), and yelling, "You never say thank you!" to which Don harshly replies, "That's what the money is for!" All of this tension has been building between the two for years now, as Don pushes Peggy to work harder than everyone else, mostly through cruelty and dismissiveness, and Peggy works as hard as she can, mostly for Don's approval. This struggle between the two has been subtext as far back as season one, but "The Suitcase" makes it text. That would be enough to make a great episode, but there are still two segments left in this story.
After Peggy leaves Don's office in tears, the two continue working separately, Peggy having broken up with Mark to stay in the office, and Don having nowhere else he'd rather be. After the fight they have just had, it would make perfect sense for a rift to separate the two, yet when Don discover's a tape of Roger dictating Sterling's Gold, his autobiography, the two are bonded by the realizations that Roger slept with Blankenship (who he calls "The Queen of Perversions"), that Cooper lost his testicles in his prime (which, to my mind, explains a lot), and that Roger is writing an autobiography, despite having done basically nothing. The absurdity of these revelations quickly smooths over the tension between the two, and Don takes Peggy out for dinner and drinks. This is the segment that's the real game changer, as Don and Peggy finally engage on a personal level, after years of building a professional relationship that each insisted remained that way. The relationship between Don and Peggy is a fascinating, as they are probably the central male and female characters, and the show focuses often on their relationship, yet even the idea of a romance between the two is generally laughed off immediately (and thank God. The two are so much more interesting as they are). This episode deepens their bond beyond just professional respect, but it does not, to my mind, change the nature of that bond. It just allows each to share their secrets and their sense of loss with each other, as Don admits to growing up on a farm and to serving in Korea but never killing anyone, while Peggy admits to thinking about the child she gave up and feeling strange because she's single but not really focused on marriage like she is on work. The two also bond over the shared experience of watching someone die.
In fact, the spectre of death and aging hangs over the episode, from our knowledge early on that Anna is dead, to Peggy's recurrent fear that she is getting too old to be focused on career over personal life, to the discussion I just mentioned about the violence and trauma of watching someone die, and finally, when Don faces it directly (for a moment at least), when Duck pins him during their drunken brawl and mentions, threateningly, the 17 people he killed in Okinawa. And, in the background, the brutal violence of a boxing match preoccupies all of the other characters. Speaking of Duck (king of segues that I am), he and Anna serve similar purposes throughout this episode, reminding Peggy and Don of the people they were, the things they've tried to be, and the things they've given up to be who they are today. As the two spend their night together in the office, both Duck and Anna haunt them in a sense, but so does the Samsonite account, which on the surface appears to be just the Macguffin that allows for their lengthy interactions, but is in fact an essential piece of the episode. As Don points out, he had an uncle who always kept a packed suitcase around, ready to leave at any moment, and as Peggy mentions, she wants to travel, if only so she can take a plane for the first time. The two dance around one of the major themes of Mad Men, as does the account they spend the episode working on. The show, in a sense, is about the fact that life is always moving forward, forcing you to recreate yourself to fit the changing world around you and your changing place in that world. The characters at the center of Mad Men are caught in a moment of immense change and are struggling (and sometimes failing) to reinvent themselves for what's to come. The third segment of the episode ends with Don waking up, briefly, to see a spectral Anna walking in, suitcase in hand, smiling at him, then turning and walking away forever. I know this moment, translucent Anna and all, will be considered a flaw by some people, but personally I think it closes out Don and Peggy's night together perfectly. Anna looks at Don with Peggy and smiles before she leaves them together. She knows, as Peggy reassures Don the next morning, that Don has someone else who understands him now. And when Don, sobbing, explains to Peggy that the person who died was, "the only person who really knew me," her response, "that's not true" is believable and profoundly moving in large part because of what the two have just gone through together.
The final segment shows us the morning after, and allows us to see how things have subtly shifted since the night before. Peggy still has to deal with the frat boys, and still has to wonder if she'll ever settle down; Don has still lost perhaps the most important person to him (so far anyway). Yet before them is a winning Samsonite campaign (which, to my mind, is not better than the one Don rejected at the episode's opening, remniscient of his admission that the line between awful and great is a thin one), a bright new day that they can face fresh faced, and the fact that they can still adjust themselves to the world they live in now and prepare for the changes to come. Don has spent most of this season closing the world out and living in the past, with his heavy drinking, antique apartment, and feeble attempts at seduction. The last words of the episode change all that, as Peggy asks him "Open or closed?" and for the first time all season, Don responds "Open."
Grade: A
Notes:
-If an A+ was a reasonable grade, this episode would get one.
-This is also a very funny episode, which I mostly glossed over before. Here are some of the great moments:
-"If I wanted to see two negros fight I'd throw a dollar bill out my window." Blankenship hasn't gotten old yet...at least not as a throw away gag.
-"I wouldn't be good company anyway." "That's never bothered me before." Don and Roger's serious drinking has drawn them together, and gotten so out of hand that Roger thinks Don isn't coming because they won't be able to drink through dinner, and sneaks off to a bar to drink himself throughout.
-"Its an incredible feeling having this baby kick me." "Is it any different than living with Pete?"
-"This guy Rutledge killed a guy with a motorboat. You know what gets you over that? Drinking!"
-"As Danny would say, there's no use crying over fish in the sea."
-"There's a way out of this room we don't know about." That is a much more meaningful line than Don realizes when he discusses the mouse's disappearance. By episode's end, I would say he's found the other way out.
-"You'll find someone. you're cute as hell." That was very sweet, Don.
-"You don't want to start giving me morality lessons, do you? People do things." Don's life philosophy in three words.
-"She's in a better place." "That's what they say." One of several times in the episode where I wished I had the tear ducts to cry.
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Jordan's Review: Mad Men, Season 4, Episode 6: Waldorf Stories
First things first, congratulations to Mad Men for its third consecutive Best Drama Emmy victory. Seeing as its the best, and probably smartest, show on television (in my humble, but rarely wrong, opinion), it was a deserved award; the show deserves extra points for airing an episode about Don winning an award at the same time it was winning an Emmy (and also for inserting a joke about how Jon Hamm was not going to win for Best Actor, when Don says, "Just because I got nominated doesn't mean they're going to give me an award."). While the cast and crew of the show were off celebrating much like the characters of the show were, Mad Men itself continued to explore Don Draper at rock bottom, and continued to show us just how low the man can sink.
First though, because its a show that loves to tear the audience apart, we got a glimpse of Don Draper acting like his old self again, reprimanding Peggy for just being good at her job, rejecting Danny Strong's dedicated, though not particularly talented young ad man wannabe, and winning a Cleo for an ad of his. For a brief, glorious moment, it looked like Don Draper might be back on top, but nothing is ever that easy on Mad Men, and so the rest of the episode bounced back and forth between Don going on the worst bender we've yet seen, and Don, in flashback, campaigning as hard as the man he rejected to win over Roger Sterling and a job at Sterling Cooper. What we saw at both ends was the unmaking of an ad man through alcohol, and the desperation of two men who are aging out of relevance.
Those two men, as usual, were Roger Sterling and Don Draper, and before I dive into the man I examine on a weekly basis here, I'd like to take a look at the fascinating and tragic character of Roger Sterling. Roger got into the ad game because of his father, and always felt cocky and entitled because of it. Yet it also left him feeling deeply insecure about what he does, and that insecurity has haunted him throughout his entire career (look, for example, at the moping he does to Joan in the bar, or the fact that he asks Don to tell him, "I couldn't have done it without you" before handing over Don's Clio). On the one hand, Roger knows that his worth to the company is largely unmeasurable, and that in fact hiring people like Don has made him very wealthy and very successful, but on the other, he knows that his job is one that will never get him recognition. "They don't give awards for what I do," he complains to Joan as he sips his umpteenth cocktail of the day, and he's right. What Roger also knows, though, is that probably his greatest professional success, the firing of mad advertising genius Don Draper, was a happy accident caused by a few too many cocktails one morning years ago.
I would be remiss if I didn't also touch on the revelation of how long ago Joan's affair with Roger began. That little fact, barely touched upon in the episode, speaks volumes about the connection we have all seen between the two of them over the years, and about how vital Joan is in both Roger's life, and in the firm. When Joan and Roger first got together, she was clearly very young, and she probably saw him as exactly the smooth, clever, successful man he hoped to be seen as. Over time, however, she grew to know the real Roger Sterling, and came to understand and love the insecure man whose professional worth was slowly slipping through his fingers. When Roger left Joan, right after the heart attack that served as the (most apparent) catalyst to his personal and professional downfall, he was leaving behind someone who understood and accepted him to recommit to a failing marriage. And later, when he left Mona, he leapt into the arms of a young girl who saw him, as he so desperately hoped, as smooth, clever, and successful.
On the other half of tonight's tragedy is Don, who drinks so much he literally loses an entire day, waking up with a woman he doesn't remember, never showing up to see his children, and slowly discovering that he, in his drunkenness, booked Peggy a hotel room to work in, plagiarized the slogan he sold to Life cereal, and lost the award that was his supposed reason for celebrating in the first place. The flashbacks that are interspersed throughout tonight's episode show us a Don Draper who is driven to achieve his dreams, and desperate to make something of himself; the episode that unfolds in Don's current life reminds us just how far this self-made man has fallen, and how much he can damage with his self destructive tendencies. Watching Danny (which may actually be the character's name, but is definitely the actor's) muscle his way into a job using his connection to Roger and (unbeknownst to him) Don's guilt over plagiarizing, it is hard not to compare him to both Don and Roger. Danny exists, not just as a personification of Don's guilt, but also as a way to reflect on Don and Roger, and how the former may slowly become the latter, coasting on reputation and name recognition rather than actually accomplishing anything, and drinking far too much on the side (notice as well that Don fails in his attempt to seduce Faye tonight, but immediately beds the woman who approaches him based solely on his name. Notice also, that in his drunken stupor, Don tells the waitress he picks up that his name is Dick). And on the margina of this episode about the dangers of over-drinking, and the personal hell that both Don and Roger exist in, we get a nice cameo from Duck, whose trip off the wagon has taken him to rock bottom as well, to the point where he drunkenly accosts the host of the Clio's and is forcibly removed from the event. Duck was always a cautionary tale for the heavy drinking protagonists of Mad Men, but now he seems more like just the next step in their terrible descent.
Meanwhile, if Don has stepped into Roger's shoes this week, its clear that Peggy has found herself in Don's, as she boldly perserveres to create a new campaign with a lazt, sexist art director, going toe to toe with him and even calling his bluff by getting naked. Part of this is to show him that she is in control, but more than that, Peggy seems truly dedicated to getting the job done. Last season, I think, we would have seen Peggy sleeping with Stan as a form of earnign validation that she is attractive and worthy of respect. This season, Peggy doesn't need that validation, nor does she need Don to admit that she does good work; now what Peggy needs is to do the good work, not to be recognized for it. Peggy's story across the entire series so far has beem a move towards self actualization, and this season we are seeing an actualized Peggy, taking control of her personal and professional life while those around her flounder and fall apart.
Finally, in another bit of expert editing, we cut near the episode's end between Danny extorting a job out of Don straight to Pete extorting respect (or at least the appearance of it) out of Ken. Last season, Pete was outperformed and humilated by Ken during their competition to become Head of Accounts. Now Pete has the opportunity to turn the tables and, never one to be a good sport, or to show any humility, Pete milks the moment for all its worth. Both Pete and Ken know that Pete holds the power, and Ken is smart enough to act the part of the meek underling for long enough to secure Pete's approval. Pete needs to feel superior to Ken, and Ken is superior enough to play the part of the inferior to get what he wants (were the tables turned, you can bet that Pete would be as petulant as ever at the idea of cowtowing to Ken). Pete revels in Ken's clearly manufactured deference, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms behind his head in relaxed triumph. I for one am interested to see how the dynamic between the two develops now that Ken has secured the job and will likely prove himself to be more useful than Pete all over again.
Perhaps the perfect cherry on top on the sundae that was this episode (to borrow a phrase Don uses in regard to the Life account) is the few scenes we get of Roger trying to write his memoir, and failing to come up with anything all that interesting to say about his adult life. Sure, he's more than willing to talk about how he loved chocolate ice cream but his mother made him eat vanilla so he wouldn't stain anything, but what the memoir scenes hint at is that Roger thinks, deep down, that he's never really amounted to much as an adult, and that maybe his story isn't worth hearing. His professional insecurity is what lead him out of retirement and into co-founding SCDP in the first place, but watching him struggle to remake himself, as Don was at least once so adept at, and coming up empty-handed shows us exactly how far our existential Don Draper may fall if he continues on Roger's path. Right now we are watching Don in free fall, but Don always has his ability to utterly remake himself to fit what he wants to be in his back pocket (or has he lost that too by this point?). Roger never had that, and is stuck, depressing as that may be, with himself. And that's something he has never been very happy with.
Grade: A
Notes:
-Danny Strong, since I held off on mentioning it above, is better known as Johnathan, high school loser turned one time superstar turned supervillain wannabe on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was often excellent on that show, and it looks like he will probably be very good on Mad Men (he'll be around for at least a bit, as he appeared in the still maddeningly vague preview for next week's episode).
-We didn't see Sally or New Bobby (fuck you, New Bobby) this week, but I still got to think "poor, poor Sally" when I realized her terribly neglectful father wasn't coming for her and she would be stuck with Betty all day.
-"I told him to just be himself. That was mean, wasn't it?"
-"I'll have a seven and seven." "You have legs." Joan has certainly changed a lot since we first met her, and even more since she and Roger first got together.
-"Little kid, big bowl, big spoon." Not exactly Don's show-stopping monologue from "The Wheel" back in Season One. Its also particularly excellent that his campaign was getting at basically the same ideas of youth, nostalgia, and a sense of familial bond. My how the mighty have fallen.
-Joan and Roger's handholding was a great little moment, but I couldn't help but notice her disapproving look as Roger sipped his drink, and the fact that she then also held Don's hand and actually kissed him when he won the award. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying anything is going on between Joan and Don (they have great respect for each other, but in a professional way), just that Joan is disappointed in the man Roger is letting himself become right now.
First though, because its a show that loves to tear the audience apart, we got a glimpse of Don Draper acting like his old self again, reprimanding Peggy for just being good at her job, rejecting Danny Strong's dedicated, though not particularly talented young ad man wannabe, and winning a Cleo for an ad of his. For a brief, glorious moment, it looked like Don Draper might be back on top, but nothing is ever that easy on Mad Men, and so the rest of the episode bounced back and forth between Don going on the worst bender we've yet seen, and Don, in flashback, campaigning as hard as the man he rejected to win over Roger Sterling and a job at Sterling Cooper. What we saw at both ends was the unmaking of an ad man through alcohol, and the desperation of two men who are aging out of relevance.
Those two men, as usual, were Roger Sterling and Don Draper, and before I dive into the man I examine on a weekly basis here, I'd like to take a look at the fascinating and tragic character of Roger Sterling. Roger got into the ad game because of his father, and always felt cocky and entitled because of it. Yet it also left him feeling deeply insecure about what he does, and that insecurity has haunted him throughout his entire career (look, for example, at the moping he does to Joan in the bar, or the fact that he asks Don to tell him, "I couldn't have done it without you" before handing over Don's Clio). On the one hand, Roger knows that his worth to the company is largely unmeasurable, and that in fact hiring people like Don has made him very wealthy and very successful, but on the other, he knows that his job is one that will never get him recognition. "They don't give awards for what I do," he complains to Joan as he sips his umpteenth cocktail of the day, and he's right. What Roger also knows, though, is that probably his greatest professional success, the firing of mad advertising genius Don Draper, was a happy accident caused by a few too many cocktails one morning years ago.
I would be remiss if I didn't also touch on the revelation of how long ago Joan's affair with Roger began. That little fact, barely touched upon in the episode, speaks volumes about the connection we have all seen between the two of them over the years, and about how vital Joan is in both Roger's life, and in the firm. When Joan and Roger first got together, she was clearly very young, and she probably saw him as exactly the smooth, clever, successful man he hoped to be seen as. Over time, however, she grew to know the real Roger Sterling, and came to understand and love the insecure man whose professional worth was slowly slipping through his fingers. When Roger left Joan, right after the heart attack that served as the (most apparent) catalyst to his personal and professional downfall, he was leaving behind someone who understood and accepted him to recommit to a failing marriage. And later, when he left Mona, he leapt into the arms of a young girl who saw him, as he so desperately hoped, as smooth, clever, and successful.
On the other half of tonight's tragedy is Don, who drinks so much he literally loses an entire day, waking up with a woman he doesn't remember, never showing up to see his children, and slowly discovering that he, in his drunkenness, booked Peggy a hotel room to work in, plagiarized the slogan he sold to Life cereal, and lost the award that was his supposed reason for celebrating in the first place. The flashbacks that are interspersed throughout tonight's episode show us a Don Draper who is driven to achieve his dreams, and desperate to make something of himself; the episode that unfolds in Don's current life reminds us just how far this self-made man has fallen, and how much he can damage with his self destructive tendencies. Watching Danny (which may actually be the character's name, but is definitely the actor's) muscle his way into a job using his connection to Roger and (unbeknownst to him) Don's guilt over plagiarizing, it is hard not to compare him to both Don and Roger. Danny exists, not just as a personification of Don's guilt, but also as a way to reflect on Don and Roger, and how the former may slowly become the latter, coasting on reputation and name recognition rather than actually accomplishing anything, and drinking far too much on the side (notice as well that Don fails in his attempt to seduce Faye tonight, but immediately beds the woman who approaches him based solely on his name. Notice also, that in his drunken stupor, Don tells the waitress he picks up that his name is Dick). And on the margina of this episode about the dangers of over-drinking, and the personal hell that both Don and Roger exist in, we get a nice cameo from Duck, whose trip off the wagon has taken him to rock bottom as well, to the point where he drunkenly accosts the host of the Clio's and is forcibly removed from the event. Duck was always a cautionary tale for the heavy drinking protagonists of Mad Men, but now he seems more like just the next step in their terrible descent.
Meanwhile, if Don has stepped into Roger's shoes this week, its clear that Peggy has found herself in Don's, as she boldly perserveres to create a new campaign with a lazt, sexist art director, going toe to toe with him and even calling his bluff by getting naked. Part of this is to show him that she is in control, but more than that, Peggy seems truly dedicated to getting the job done. Last season, I think, we would have seen Peggy sleeping with Stan as a form of earnign validation that she is attractive and worthy of respect. This season, Peggy doesn't need that validation, nor does she need Don to admit that she does good work; now what Peggy needs is to do the good work, not to be recognized for it. Peggy's story across the entire series so far has beem a move towards self actualization, and this season we are seeing an actualized Peggy, taking control of her personal and professional life while those around her flounder and fall apart.
Finally, in another bit of expert editing, we cut near the episode's end between Danny extorting a job out of Don straight to Pete extorting respect (or at least the appearance of it) out of Ken. Last season, Pete was outperformed and humilated by Ken during their competition to become Head of Accounts. Now Pete has the opportunity to turn the tables and, never one to be a good sport, or to show any humility, Pete milks the moment for all its worth. Both Pete and Ken know that Pete holds the power, and Ken is smart enough to act the part of the meek underling for long enough to secure Pete's approval. Pete needs to feel superior to Ken, and Ken is superior enough to play the part of the inferior to get what he wants (were the tables turned, you can bet that Pete would be as petulant as ever at the idea of cowtowing to Ken). Pete revels in Ken's clearly manufactured deference, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms behind his head in relaxed triumph. I for one am interested to see how the dynamic between the two develops now that Ken has secured the job and will likely prove himself to be more useful than Pete all over again.
Perhaps the perfect cherry on top on the sundae that was this episode (to borrow a phrase Don uses in regard to the Life account) is the few scenes we get of Roger trying to write his memoir, and failing to come up with anything all that interesting to say about his adult life. Sure, he's more than willing to talk about how he loved chocolate ice cream but his mother made him eat vanilla so he wouldn't stain anything, but what the memoir scenes hint at is that Roger thinks, deep down, that he's never really amounted to much as an adult, and that maybe his story isn't worth hearing. His professional insecurity is what lead him out of retirement and into co-founding SCDP in the first place, but watching him struggle to remake himself, as Don was at least once so adept at, and coming up empty-handed shows us exactly how far our existential Don Draper may fall if he continues on Roger's path. Right now we are watching Don in free fall, but Don always has his ability to utterly remake himself to fit what he wants to be in his back pocket (or has he lost that too by this point?). Roger never had that, and is stuck, depressing as that may be, with himself. And that's something he has never been very happy with.
Grade: A
Notes:
-Danny Strong, since I held off on mentioning it above, is better known as Johnathan, high school loser turned one time superstar turned supervillain wannabe on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He was often excellent on that show, and it looks like he will probably be very good on Mad Men (he'll be around for at least a bit, as he appeared in the still maddeningly vague preview for next week's episode).
-We didn't see Sally or New Bobby (fuck you, New Bobby) this week, but I still got to think "poor, poor Sally" when I realized her terribly neglectful father wasn't coming for her and she would be stuck with Betty all day.
-"I told him to just be himself. That was mean, wasn't it?"
-"I'll have a seven and seven." "You have legs." Joan has certainly changed a lot since we first met her, and even more since she and Roger first got together.
-"Little kid, big bowl, big spoon." Not exactly Don's show-stopping monologue from "The Wheel" back in Season One. Its also particularly excellent that his campaign was getting at basically the same ideas of youth, nostalgia, and a sense of familial bond. My how the mighty have fallen.
-Joan and Roger's handholding was a great little moment, but I couldn't help but notice her disapproving look as Roger sipped his drink, and the fact that she then also held Don's hand and actually kissed him when he won the award. Don't misunderstand me, I'm not saying anything is going on between Joan and Don (they have great respect for each other, but in a professional way), just that Joan is disappointed in the man Roger is letting himself become right now.
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