Mad Men: Season One
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Movie Reviews of Mad Men: Season One
Movie Review: Another landmark in the evolution of TV drama
Summary: 5 Stars
AMC's much-acclaimed Mad Men is a sterling example of how primetime television has evolved recently. While past television shows were dull visually and inert dramatically, particularly when compared to film, top-tier shows now display a sophistication that I would've thought impossible a decade back. While much has been made of the detail and authenticity (or lack thereof) of the early 60s setting, the specific locale (an Advertising Agency, Sterling Cooper, on Madison avenue) is equally intriguing. Though dramatic shows generally demand exciting professions (police, law or medical), the seemingly dull field of advertising is a brilliantly appropriate backdrop for an examination of the intricacies and drama of day to day life. As Mad Men repeatedly demonstrates, advertising is not about what is on the surface, but instead draws out that which was once inside, revealing that which no one, perhaps even the individual who is being exposed, was aware of.
Though Mad Men boasts an impressively large ensemble cast, the first season focuses primarily on a few central figures. At the heart of the show is creative department head Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the contradictory protagonist and already one of the most compelling characters on television. Though often amoral, Draper still embodies a masculine ideal: he is smart, cynical, ultra-competent and largely indifferent to social expectations. (Not to mention improbably handsome, but in a masculine, un-feminized way.) Draper is not without a core of vulnerability, but this only serves to give his strengths more weight. We also follow Draper's homelife, including his neurotic, vaguely unsatisfied wife Betty (January Jones) and their two young children. (Whom Don obviously loves, making his frequent neglect and betrayal all the more puzzling.) As a foil to Draper we have Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), a well-born and entitled junior executive who imagines himself heir to Draper's throne. Finally we have Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), a new secretary and eventual copy writer who is largely (though not entirely) separate from the cutthroat ethos of the office, and who often serves as an audience stand in. The cast of secondary characters (not that I've even covered all the major ones) is too large to really consider here, though the ensemble portrays them all with skill. The sheer size is perhaps a minor weakness initially, as it takes a long time for the average viewer to even remember who is who, and even longer for the characters to be developed. Nevertheless, it is worth the wait and effort.
The story is equally difficult to define, with the show taking an organic approach, juggling numerous different subplots without necessarily resolving them fully. The overarching threads could loosely be defined as the fate of Sterling Cooper generally (they're a small agency with, shall we say, erratic and unreliable leadership) and the uncovering of Don Draper's history. (He rarely talks about it, and with good reason . . .) While the hedonistic lifestyle at the office is always substantial, I find the business angle particularly intriguing, with the show examining the underlying logic behind many real world ad campaigns. (These elements also give Draper a chance to cynically philosophize, which is always a treat.)
Though the intriguing storytelling soon takes hold, the new viewer will must likely first note the shows extraordinary visuals. While we don't typically think of eras that still hang on common memory as being fodder for period-piece detail, Mad Men recreates the dawn of the 60s with all the care that a high budget film would give to any pre-modern era. (Truthfully, I couldn't say if the visualization is utterly accurate, but the totality of the vision is certain.) Relatedly, Mad Men's depiction of older social mores has been the major source of both praise and controversy. Though a fairly socially conservative individual myself (outlandish tastes notwithstanding), I can't help but feel the more old-fashioned critics are missing something. Intentionally or not, Mad Men works as an antidote to the laughably superficial views of the era promoted by tedious productions like Sam Mendes' adaptation of "Revolutionary Road." Modern liberals like to pretend that social conservatism and conformity were the cause of all middle class misery prior to the 60s, but is anyone foolish enough to believe that Don or Pete or Betty would be totally content if they'd been after the blessed 60s? Though there are plenty of "oh my god look at how terrible people were in 1960" moments, Mad Men is ultimately just cynical, certain that there is only so much we can do to rein in human weakness. (Note how the beats and self righteous proto-hippies are portrayed in a less than glowing light, and are verbally eviscerated by Draper.) The validity of this perspective can be debated, but it's not quite the same as simple permissiveness. (I'd also say that the show's values are fundamentally bourgeois, though that's a debate too tiresome and lengthy to consider here.)
In the end, most great art or entertainment is defined by the nebulous core of humanity that is absent from mediocre works. Even though the characters often behave reprehensibly, an attachment gradually develops. This culminates in sorrowful season finale, where we see the initially overly vain and unsympathetic Betty breakdown in front of the weird neighbor child over the state of her marriage and life, desperately asking for this prepubescent boy to tell her everything will be okay. Even better is Don's nostalgia pitch for the carousel slide projector, where he illustrates the notion with a brief speech given over a series of photos from the happier times of his family's checkered past, and his always impassive face blanches and glazes over just so slightly with restrained emotion. Rationally, neither Don nor Betty is worthy of all that much sympathy, but here reason no longer applies. By the end of the first season, Mad Men has reached that magical point where the fictional figures mean more to the viewer than such non-existent figures have any right to. This is another rarity on TV, and an accomplishment that more than offsets whatever minor flaws the show may have.
Movie Review: Glorious, involving, terrific drama; best TV in years
Summary: 5 Stars
The summer of 2007 is when Mad Men swept the nation. Why? It is anti-politically correct. It is an intelligent, thinking man's ("persons" would be too PC for *this* show)) show for adults. Not to mention the fantastic, Rod Serling-esque realism in the quality of its writing, the direction, the scope, and the dazzling work of the previously unknown cast - now all certified household names - stars, if you will (none will ever have to worry about getting future work). The best part of this casting is that there are no familiar public-entrenched "personalities" to disturb the continuity and believability of the proceedings; a "star" would have interupted the realism of the story and surroundings. And, in the process, we get to discover a whole new set of actors (their work and camaraderie is gaspingly satisfying, the most sheerly pleasurable in recent memory).
Matthew Weiner, the show's genius creator, has painstakingly ensured that we're really getting a believable early 1960s. There's not an irritatingly currently contemporary viewpoint to be found anywhere. Of course the show is depicted in a hindsight manner; but all of the dialogue, situations and characters are all breathtakingly, reassuringly of a past time. Despite the deceptively, smoothly stylized look via the posh sets and clothes, the atmosphere is constantly invaded by the smog of cigarette smoke; we're not used to seeing such flagrant puffing and inhaling on film. You can almost smell the overfilled ashtrays. No one goes outside to smoke here. This is the Martini and Rossi era, and everyone in corporate America smoked and drank as if it were part of the life and job description. Then, too, you see women used as business, sexual and marital props. They existed to serve their men (and I hope the PC feminists are in a tizzy, because they should be). To provide their dictation, their pleasure, their masculine image, their food, their offspring. Of course, we see in Joan, the foxy, knowing secretary, using the men in return to get what she wants; and we see in Don Draper's wife (brilliantly, tensely enacted by January Jones) an all-pervasive, unnameable malcontentedness. We see the glaring dichotomies of the men, looking Madison Avenue dapper, but behaving and displaying attitudes of overgrown high schoolers. Most of these men, from today's standpoint, are bastards; and no attempt is made to Ralph Nader or Alan Alda-ize them (it would be interesting to have the series run into the late 1960s, when these men are forced to run into the massive social consciousness that emerged in a shockingly short time later).
Most of all though, the tone of the show is presided over by the brilliant Jon Hamm, whose Don Draper is the most multifaceted character on television in ages. Hamm is blessedly allowed several moments in deep repose, and we can see the massively disturbed soul behind the savvily successful executive. And yet the character's troubled mien allows him to understand human nature, therefore key elements in advertising - how to emotionally ensnare the public into believing the merit of a product or slogan. He's also smart enough to see that Peggy (wonderfully played by Elizabeth Moss), the secretary, with her questioning, probing mind, has a depth unavailable to most of the male executives, to provide key insights into how to sell a product. Hamm's Don Draper is already a classic, public-entrenched persona. It is a stunningly limned portrayal.
The great strength of this show is its quietly commanding, un-TV-like sense of pacing. You wouldn't call this a suspense show, yet the bottled-up, stealthy sense of pacing keeps us in a tantalizingly unnerved state; you always wait for that cork to explode unexpectedly. The brilliance here is that the explosion factor doesn't always come when we expect it; but the build-up leads us to believe it will. Those explosions come when the build-up has not been prepared, and happens in a swift, tightly controlled manner, never spilling over into predictably cheap shock value.
After each show, we smile, having been on the edge of our seats, engrossed, and left deeply satisfied - and impatient for next week. Thursdays at 10:00. Phone turned off, a glass of wine or spirits.
Another great asset to the overall tone is the darkly cynical humor. Never overplayed or explicitly self-conscious, it nevertheless ingeniously, deftly exposes the foibles of human nature. The most overt humor is slyly depicted by Christina Hendricks, whose eye-poppingly Kim Novak-voluptuous, leeringly confident secretary Joan is an absolute delight. Hendricks looks and acts so unerringly real of the time period, it would be a shock to see her as she really is in real life. She and John Slattery, perfectly playing the sloppily amorous boss, create genuine sexual edge in their scenes together.
Vincent Kartheiser, playing Pete Campbell, an insecure, untalented but ruthlessly ambitious business and social climber, is scarily effective; there's an element of genuine danger in this character. Campbell is so aware of his limitations, and you sense he'd stop at nothing to prove himself.
The good-time unreformed Frat-elevated-to-biz-executive contingent, played by Rich Sommer, Aaron Staton, Michael Gladis, and Bryan Batt, strike just the right notes; they're all joyfully oversexed, blithely good-time, but very real, and we get to see inside their characters.
Robert Morse, the only familiar name in this cast, is perfect as the head of Sterling Cooper, a boss who cares not what goes on as long as the money rolls in.
I hope Mad Men will be on for years to come. HBO's loss is AMC's considerable gain - and is the best-written, best acted show of our time. It will be heralded, discussed, and acclaimed for years to come, and be held as the classic show it has already become. I have never enjoyed something so much as this intriguing, wonderfully engrossing drama. Cheers and thanks to all those involved.
Movie Review: A brilliant and evocative re-creation of America at childhood's end
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow, this series just took my breath away. It is a deeply thoughtful re-creation of America in 1960, as seen through the lives of the people at a fictional ad agency in New York City. This is a period of time that has rarely been explored in modern cinema.
I was a small child in the 1960s, but I still have vivid memories of that time. America in 1960 was right at the cusp of sweeping social change. In 1964, LBJ passed the landmark Civil Rights Act; in 1965 he escalated the war in Vietnam. In 1968, assassinations, riots, the Tet offensive, the sexual revolution, the rise of youth power (from what later became known as the baby boomers), and the election of Richard Nixon as President would start a long period that would completely re-make American society.
We are indeed a much different society today than in 1960, but the true genius of "Mad Men" is that there is a much deeper layer to the way the series underscores the differences between then and now.
I remember the sharply defined gender roles, the men going to work wearing formal suits and ties, the women and their pointy bras, the incessant cigarette smoking (I hated cigarette smoke then and still do), the frequent presence of hard liquor (the style of new American houses of that era included built-in mini-bars for hard liquor and mixed drinks), and the casual racism (I remember seeing a "whites only" public drinking fountain for the first time as a child, and asking my mother what that was all about). Homosexuality was something almost unheard of, and definitely not discussed in polite company. Government sponsored warnings were about marijuana and unbecoming dating habits, not about cigarettes, alcohol, or the dangers of large plastic bags.
All of these aspects of 1960s culture are strikingly featured in "Mad Men".
The characters in "Mad Men" move about in realistic 1960s fashion - all men smoked back then, because they picked up the habit while in the armed forces, which gave out cigarettes in the ration packs. Married men screwed around regularly in secret, illegitimate children were conveniently packed off for adoption (as a child, in school, it was common to find schoolmates who were adopted), and the wives kept silent and divorces were far fewer than they are now. A gay character in the series has an encounter but has to closet his feelings.
We think we are so much smarter and better now than we were in 1960. In this time of Barack Obama, we are talking about a post-racist American society. We have sex education, we have birth control, we have legalized abortion, we have Mothers Against Drunk Driving and police sobriety checkpoints (Roger Sterling would surely have lost his driver's license in today's world), and in case that fails, we have air bags inside the cars. We have smoke-free airplanes, homes, restaurants, hospitals, etc. Smokers are treated like lepers (yea!). Women are empowered, we have Title IX, we have mandatory sexual harassment training in the corporate workplace, we have community property for marriages.
But are we really so much better off today than we were in 1960? By some health standards we are. Average life spans have increased. Traffic fatalities per mile driven were far, far higher back then than they are now. Men used to just keel over and die from a "coronary" when only in their 50's and 60's. That rarely happens anymore.
Racism has in fact not gone away, only changed in the details. Poor African-Americans in the cities have gone from being openly repressed to being incarcerated. And even though Hollywood now has black actors in every single movie or TV show (one suspects a quota system), many other minorities are still underrepresented. Muslims and Arabs are now the Negroes of the entertainment industry, portrayed only in stereotypical blackface.
And as unrealistic as the ideal nuclear family in 1960 may seem to us now, it was very real for the children of that time. I do remember that children were much better off then. We children played freely in the streets and backyards without parental supervision. Children usually had two parents, not one. Most children had stay-at-home moms. Parents had definite roles, parents were around, parents did not just break up and disappear as they do so often now.
Today, divorces have skyrocketed, we have children completely unmonitored by either parent because both are working or absent, and the large numbers of children born out of wedlock are no longer given up for adoption to families able to take care of them. Instead it has become the norm for single mothers to try to raise children themselves, often with terrible results for both mother and child. The numbers are huge. One out of three children are now born out of wedlock, two out of three in the African-American community. Women, having become empowered in the workplace, did not at the same time also gain the super powers needed to raise children alone; many men certainly saw this empowerment thing as an opportunity to skip out on their responsibilities as fathers.
Even cigarette and alcohol abuse have not been tamed so much as replaced by the worse problems of marijuana and cocaine.
The year 1960 was a special and yet transient moment in time for American society, the last moments of a pre-pubescent America, still the naïve superpower of the post-WWII era, before it began the long, agonizing transformation into the confused, liberated, legalistic, and moralistic America of today. This was a young, earnest, idealistic America that was on top of the world, one that thought it could do no wrong, thought it had the answers for everything.
And so finally, at the end of this brilliant first season DVD of "Mad Men", when we look deeper into what it really tells us, we see that what it says is, my goodness, how we have changed! But have we changed all that much for the better?
Movie Review: Outstandingly outrageous
Summary: 5 Stars
A surprising American series indeed. And yet it is fascinating. Nostalgia first. 1960 with the duel between Nixon and Kennedy. It is amazing to recapture these old pictures and these old events, and the reactions of some people to the events that were going to become historical if not frankly historic. Nostalgia too with the presence, excessive presence, total submersion if not flood of tobacco smoke in these episodes. I defy you to just feel like following them and chain, double chain, triple chain smoke the way they do. They kiss and smoke at the same time, smoking through their nostrils or their ears I guess. Was there a place where we could not smoke in those days? I don't even remember a non-smoking area, except maybe on trains, one compartment per carriage, when there were compartments. Smoke detectors were not trendy yet. Still nostalgic but in another style and direction with the Korean war, but in a dramatic way: a lieutenant being killed and his identity assumed by the only witness, a simple soldier from nowhere who volunteered in the war to escape his own family he hated completely and utterly. The film is cruel about this episode, and yet the man is a success story on the basis of a college diploma he never passed, but who cares? No one of course. No deserting, no real criminal act, except the exchange of a dog tag with a dead officer. But then the nostalgia is quite tempered by the insight the other questions that are evoked here bring about some further evolution in society. The main and central problem is that of women. These women who were supposed to be beautiful to just find a husband through some work, at times, but not too much, then make two children, a boy and a girl if possible, and take care of the family home without letting any stranger cross the threshold. Those who worked real hard were not envisaging a housewife career but rather a plain career, be it social, economic, artistic or whatever. They were the new postwar generations of women who decided that the housewife fate was not for them, and anyway the economy required them to work and the incomes of workers and the new needs and consuming possibilities required a second income in the home. Here the film is quite clear about the motivations of women, of working women as well as of housewives. They want to have their say in things, their independence in life, the recognition of their personality and identity. The series is cruel though at times, but so true. Cruel with these housewives who are so bored that they waste their time on checking the phone calls of their husbands, and finding out about their affairs, the good old western Christian or Jewish polygamy. Cruel about the women who use their sex appeal or their yielding to the sexual appetite of the men around them just for their vanity and to have some small presents and advantages, like a canary in a cage. Cruel when a woman gets some authority over another woman and over-uses it, abuses it and even abuses the girl or woman she is supposed to take care of. But the worst cruelty is against all the macho phallocratic men who behave with women as if they were servants, subservient, as if they had to be crawling at their feet and obsequiously submissive. The men are odious, purely idiotic, blind but also conscious at times that something was evading and escaping them, that women, married or not, wives or not, Jewish or not, were taking over the territory that was becoming theirs, the family, their desk space, their waste paper basket, their box in the personnel lounge, etc. We just wonder if things were really like that and we have to remember that yes they were and yes they were changing in that direction. The last thing I would like to say on that series, I mean the first season of that series, is that there is a lot of humor nearly everywhere, and at times, quite often indeed, sad humor, but humor all the same like about the Jews who are still ghettoized, or a lesbian woman who is nicely diplomatically negotiated by her room mate, or a gay man who is curtly and coldly pushed back by the closet homo who does not want to admit it. We are still in 1960 and Kennedy has not been elected yet and the real battle about civil rights is just starting in a way, for the Blacks. The Jews are maybe slightly different, but the gay and lesbian people are far from the beginning of the decision to just open the door of the closet one inch to see if there is anyone in there. I must admit it is good to look back, not in anger but in shame and in gratefulness, at times that have changed in this period that was just the very first step towards real freedom in our countries, and we are still far from the fulfillment of Roosevelt's promise about the four freedoms. By the way, what about the freedom from want in the healthcare field of poverty and misery, what about top notch surgery for a coronary accident of a homeless person?
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne, University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines, CEGID
Movie Review: Immerse yourself in the tone, texture and feel of an era
Summary: 5 Stars
Mad Men is one of those very rare TV shows that is both superb and popular. Sometimes there really is a TV god. Unlike great shows like Friday Night Lights, people are watching and the awards are rolling in - 16 Emmy nominations, more than any other drama this year.
It's 1960 in a Manhattan based advertising agency. The men have slicked back hair, crisp white shirts and perfect suits. What comes out of their mouths would get them slapped or sued if it happened today. Toots, babe, honey. Women are sex objects and they have less brain power - as one character says, "It was like watching a dog play the piano" when a certain female character with professional drive and passion exceeds the lowly expectations of the men.
The women are no better. The head secretary tells another female that they (the men) designed the technology so simple that even a woman can use it. A mother smokes and drinks while pregnant and ignores the danger of a nearby child playing make believe with a plastic drying cleaning bag over her head. Some of the women act childish because that's the role that's been forced upon them. Others are starting to reject the social strait jacket and are rebelling - it's the beginning of a new era and they are the foremothers of what is about to hit this nation like a baseball bat to the head.
The wall paper in one house is plaid and the cars are big and many have tail fins. There's a cigarette in almost every scene - people cough and there's no recognition of any connection in their minds. One major character smokes, drinks and eats with abandon and almost dies of a heart attack with, again, no recognition of cause and effect.
This show, unlike any on air or cable at this time, immerses you in its era. It's authentic, real and grabs your attention. Quite simply, if you watch only one current show on TV this year it should be Mad Men.
Several reviewers have commented on the packaging. While it is a little more delicate than others, it's still cool (it's like a cigarette lighter) and you can handle the DVDs without damaging them. The DVDs are held in the case with a foam insert that doesn't scratch the surface. When you take the DVDs out you have to gently push against the top side with your (clean) fingers and gently push upward. They will come out and you won't smudge or scratch the surface. If the DVDs are getting damaged it's because people are just grabbing both sides of the disc and pulling it out. Unlike other reviewers, I have not been impressed with other boxed sets where you end up literally breaking the plastic sprockets that hold the DVDs in place. If you want really poor packaging just look at the complete West Wing. In any case, you can handle these DVDs and not damage them.
The extras here are sparse but very good nonetheless. There's an hour long behind the scenes docu that looks as all aspects of the show from character backgrounds to hair and art design to the actors feelings about their characters. It's not full of that fluffy hype stuff you find on other DVD sets where they just show you short clips from the show and present it as somehow something new. You'll actually learn something about the show. I would love to see full interviews with all the actors to talk about the characters they're playing. Maybe we'll get that in the season 2 set. As noted by others, the commentaries are minimal and a bit disappointing. Doesn't really matter in the end as it's still a superb show you simply shouldn't miss.