MM@M: Charlie Chaplin and The Sad Clown.

Previously on Mad Men @ the Movies: 4.1 Live From Times Square 4.2 Sixties Sweethearts 4.3 Catherine Deneuve & Gamera, 4.4 Jean Seberg, 4.5 Hayley Mills & David McCallum

Before we begin, a hearty congrats to Mad Men team for their third Emmy. Confetti thrown.

Episode 4.6 "Waldorf Stories"
In this episode, Don and Roger continue their downward spirals (it seems to be the long arc plot of Season 4) drinking way too much and imbibing too much awards show adulation (Don wins a Clio) or nostalgia (Roger continually reminisces). Meanwhile Peggy and Peter are on the rise, choosing pragmatism and hard work over their individual personal discomfort. The older characters tripping themselves up and the younger characters changing and rising is definitely the long arc of Season 4.

The only character chatting up the movies this week was Roger Sterling (John Slattery).

Roger: Charlie Chaplin was very lonely. That Tramp -- too much of a sad sack. Laurel and Hardy - they're much better. Except Hardy was so mean to Laurel. I hated that.


Why am I talking about silent movies?

Caroline (his secretary, taking dictation): I suppose as part of the chapter on your childhood?

Roger: That part of my book is getting bigger and bigger. Why is that?

Oh Roger. Who exactly is the sad clown? Clue: It's not Chaplin though he was that, yes.

That Roger is talking about 1920s movies and wonders why aloud, is one clue that he's having difficulty focusing on work or even the present tense aka 1965. The flashback heavy nature of the episode, in which we suddenly realize that Joan & Roger go way way back (intriguing -- was she even working in the office yet?), is the other.

Best Moment
Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) strips off her clothes in a hotel room as challenge to her sexist faux-nudist co-worker. "I can work like this. Let's get liberated."

Finally, you have to love the choreography of the finale, which threads Don & Peggy's storylines together and also has a movie joke. Don lost his advertising award during his very own Lost Weekend. Here's his resigned banter with his secretary Miss Blankenship (Randee Heller, yes, that's The Karate Kid's mom).

Draper: Call the Pen and Pencil and see if someone found my award.
Blankenship: What's the category?
Draper: Best Actress.

Ha! Don hates her so much.

But the staging is as funny as the joke.


Draper actually enters the office (blink and you'll miss him) during Peggy's story punchline in which she mocks her co-worker after their nude encounter (she's talking about a "little" change in the ad) but her hand gesture and the eyeline from art director Rizzo to her implicates Don Draper. He keeps getting emasculating this season.

Best Actress. Heh.

Other References in this Episode
(TV) Peyton Place, The Flintstones (Celebrities) The Pope, Red Skelton (Literature) A Tale of Two Cities, Noah's Ark, Playboy (Politics) The Daisy Ad, The Klu Klux Klan, The Temperance Movement

Of Note
Show creator Matthew Weiner on why his actors come up empty at the Emmys. This was recorded before Sunday night's awards in which all of the actors lost again.



Further reading
For diehard Mad Men fans who can't read enough.

• Shitty First Drafts "Why Betty Draper Matters" This is a smart read about housewives in the 1960s. I'm within the small minority who is fascinated (even when appalled) by the former Mrs. Don Draper so I heartily approve.
• Tom & Lorenzo The cast on the cover of Rolling Stone.
• Rolling Stone a beauteous on set photo gallery from Rolling Stone.
  
• Antenna The waning value of masculine detachment.
  
• Fast Company actors as spokespersons for brands blurs MM's boundaries
  
• Antenna "You're Not Going to Kill This Account" on actual and revisionist history alike.
  
• Scanners "...From Twin Peaks" a must read for David Lynch fans.
• TV Guide Sal will be coming back to the show in some way (!) Cameo or otherwise?
  
• Norsk Film Institute Mad Men at the Movies gets its own screening series in Norway. Unfortunately I am not thanked, involved, or flown over for it. Jeg gråter.
  

MM@M: The Apartment (1960)

Mad Men at the Movies: We've been talking about the movies and film stars referenced in the two-time Emmy winning (yay!) 1960s set series. Previously name-checked: Gidget,Wizard of Oz, Lady Chatterley's Lover, Natalie Wood, Joan Crawford, Marty and Grace Kelly

1.10 "The Long Weekend"
Sterling (John Slattery) proposes a public date with Joanie (Christina Hendricks) since his wife Mona will be out of town for Labor Day weekend. Sterling proposes dinner, naked. Joanie isn't playing this particular conversational foreplay game. Her frustration with their affair is starting to show.

Joanie: How about a movie? Have you seen The Apartment?
Sterling: I went last week with Mona and Margaret.
Joanie: I hear Shirley Maclaine is good.
Sterling: Oh please, a white elevator operator? And a girl at that? I want to work at that place!
Joanie: [turning on him] Oh, I bet you do. The way those men treated that poor girl, handing her around like a tray of canapes. She tried to commit suicide.
Sterling: So you saw it, huh?

At this point he realizes the conversation isn't strictly about the movie. Sterling tries to smooth things over.

Sterling: Oh, Red, that's not how it is. Look, It was crude. That's the way pictures are now. Did you see that ridiculous Psycho? Hollywood isn't happy unless things are extreme.
Joanie: It didn't seem that extreme to me.
Sterling: Are we actually going to get into a fight over a movie? You know Mona had a dream once where I hit the dog with the car. She was mad at me all day. And I never hit the dog. We don't even have a dog.

Later in the same episode we see that Joanie, who never intended to spend the weekend with her boss/lover, has also completely soured on seeing a movie. She makes plans with her best friend Carol (Kate Norby) instead.

Carol: All I want to do is sit in the movies and cry.
Joanie: No movies. Let's look for some actual bachelors, empty their wallets.

Since Shirley Maclaine has already been name-checked, you should know that we've moved on from the emotional volatility of The Apartment and we're now entering the subdued internal terror of The Children's Hour (1961). Carol is not so interested in the bachelors if you know what I mean.

Both Psycho and The Apartment, two "extreme" movies, premiered in the same week in NYC in June of 1960. They both became sensations, ending the year comfortably in the box office top ten. It makes total sense that people would still be talking about them in early September. Once upon a time movies were not "over" after opening weekend. They played for months and there was no such thing as DVDs. Opening weekend was the beginning of the discussion, not the end. [*wipes nostalgic tear for bygone eras away]. Months later both films were in play at the Oscars too, with The Apartment the night's big winner taking home Picture, Director, Screenplay, Art Direction (it beat Psycho in this category, what???) and Editing. It's also worth noting that Shirley Maclaine, so suicidal on screen in the early 6os, also had reason to cry offscreen. She lost the Oscar many initially thought she'd win to "the slut of all time" Elizabeth Taylor in BUtterfield 8, when Taylor was suddenly hospitalized.


Ever had an argument about Psycho or The Apartment? Ever had an argument about a movie that wasn't really an argument about the movie? Arguments in disguise. I can tell you that I have dreamed about a movie when I hadn't seen the movie. The picture was The Silence of the Lambs which starred in three (!) of my dreams before I ever saw it. How mental is that? I guess my subconscious isn't happy unless things are... extreme.
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Nicole Kidman, Rabbit Hole and the Legacy Factor

Why is it so hard to stay in the present with the movies? The news cycle is constantly asking us to look ahead a year or two. Just barely came to grips with performances we might be loving in 2009 and already we have to think about Nicole Kidman's 2010? Alas, it can't be helped. When it comes to Nicole Kidman we can't look away.


She's taking over Cynthia Nixon's (Sex & The City) TONY winning role as the grieving mother in the hit play Rabbit Hole. Aaron Eckhart takes over for silver fox John Slattery (Mad Men) as the grief-stricken father. Emmy regular and TONY winner Tyne Daly was the third name actor in the Broadway production, playing the wife's mother. No word yet on which movie star will be getting her part. This is yet a further reminder that it's nearly impossible for actors to be cast in the screen versions of their stage successes, even when they're already known quantities. You only get lead movie roles if you're an 8 figure salaried movie star.

News about the transfer of the Pulitzer winning Rabbit Hole spread like wildfire Thursday. I'm not quite sure what prompted the sudden news surge since Nicole Kidman was booked for this film as early as January 2007 . Maybe it's that the whole thing is more real now with Aaron Eckhart in place and none other than TFE favorite John Cameron Mitchell (himself a Broadway vet) signed to direct.

<-- John Cameron Mitchell (right) with fellow firestarter Bruce LaBruce last year. John is 45 years old and he still looks like he's 25. I hate him.

It's that last bit that's most interesting. John Cameron Mitchell has made one widely acclaimed outré miracle (Hedwig and the Angry Inch) and one divisive but still award winning outré picture (Shortbus). He has never directed someone else's material for the screen. It makes sense to employ him for a theatrical conversion since he understands the medium but why Rabbit Hole? It doesn't seem to fit into what we know of his sensibility. It's a relatively conventional story of a husband and wife whose child is accidentally killed. It won stellar reviews for its performances and its incisive look at grief but studies of grief aren't exactly untrodden ground at the movies and the material isn't out there in any way. Its detractors claimed it wasn't theatrical enough for the stage. It was more like a screenplay already.

I hope Mitchell has an interesting take on it. But even if it remains only a straightforward quality drama, good on Kidman. She can't be stopped. If there's a great or challenging director alive that she wouldn't crawl across beds of glass to work with, it's probably just because she hasn't heard of him/her yet. For all the heat she takes in the press for her box office returns being disproproportionate to her salary and her "weird" taste in unconventional projects (i.e. interesting failures or thorny near-masterworks), she'll have the last laugh. Most movie stars are beautiful and talented. Those things are givens. Few of them seem to understand the importance of working with auteurs. They concentrate instead on finding mainstream hits, franchises and middlebrow prestige pieces. Kidman has done that, too, sure. But the best thing about her is her willingness to throw herself down the artistic rabbit hole and into the wilds of auteurial visions. I'm a staunch defender of Kidman on this front. Think of Dogville, Birth, Eyes Wide Shut, Portrait of a Lady, Moulin Rouge! and even the ones that didn't work like Fur and Australia.

Auteur-loving Kidman, always plotting.

I'm of the opinion that stars that serve auteurs first and foremost have the best chance of being remembered once they're dead. Uma Thurman has had a continually rocky career. Will she be remembered in 50 years time? Absolutely! Playing muse for Tarantino seals the deal. Stars that don't challenge themselves by working with real auteurs tend to fade, no matter how blinding their spotlight currently is. Box office is mostly irrelevant to the legacy equation. Consider this current example: Julianne Moore. She started her acting career in the 80s but found her first substantial fame in 1995. Guess which movie people associate with her ascendance: Assassins which grossed $30 million or [safe] which grossed $512,000? That's what I'm talking about! And that's with only 14 years of distance. Imagine what happens to the collective cultural memory in 50 years time.

So... Nicole Kidman. Mega famous now. Mega famous forever. Add John Cameron Mitchell to her ever expanding list of auteur conquests. Cross your fingers that their collaboration makes Rabbit Hole really sing and sting on the screen.
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