Give 'Em the Old Pizzazz - Funny Face (1957)

Director Stanley Donen and actress Audrey Hepburn are being honored separately and together at this year's TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood. The director, who will be making personal appearances at all screenings of his films, did some of his best work with the sublime Audrey as his leading lady. With a "happy birthday" to Stanley Donen who celebrates his 88th birthday today, this post is dedicated to them both...
 
Pizzazz! The very word came into being with Funny Face in 1957.

Stylish and energetic, Funny Face is a collaboration extraordinaire involving some of the great talents of the era: Producer Roger Edens and director Stanley Donen, screenwriter Leonard Gershe, cinematographer Ray June, costumer Edith Head, couture designer Hubert de Givenchy, photographer Richard Avedon and the film's matchless stars Audrey Hepburn, Fred Astaire and Kay Thompson. Sprinkled with an assortment of Gershwin tunes, this is a movie of considerable pizzazz...

Audrey Hepburn as Jo Stockton

Funny Face had been a work in progress for years, but the vital element that finally brought the project together was Audrey Hepburn. Then under contract to Paramount, Hepburn was a white-hot star at the time and any picture with her name attached had a very good chance of being made. She loved both the script and the opportunity to dance with Fred Astaire and quickly agreed to do the picture.

Astaire, then nearing 60, was coming to the end of his career in musical films. Funny Face and Silk Stockings were released within months of each other in 1957 and were his last popular movie musicals.

Though its name was taken from a '20s Gershwin musical in which Astaire had starred, the title and a few tunes were all the film had in common with the original New York show. The film's story came from Wedding Day, Leonard Gershe's Broadway musical about the fashion world based on 'the aura' (rather than the life) of legend-to-be photographer Richard Avedon and his wife. Doe Avedon, a great beauty of the time, was a reluctant muse; it was her husband who turned her into a top-notch model and who guided her career.

Kay Thompson, ace vocal coach, arranger and cabaret star, had worked with Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Lena Horne and many others during her years in MGM's music department. Gershe had her in mind from the start for the role of Maggie Prescott, a character closely modeled on powerhouse fashion editor and style doyenne of the era, Diana Vreeland. According to Leonard Gershe, it was Vreeland who coined the word 'bizzazz' that mutated into 'pizzazz.' Thompson as Prescott is an invigorating presence and she steals just about every scene she's in; early on, her "Think Pink!" number kicks Funny Face into high gear...

Think Pink!

Funny Face is a Cinderella tale, the kind of story that was Audrey Hepburn's bread and butter. The film begins in the offices of Quality magazine where editor Maggie Prescott (Thompson) decrees that the world of fashion shall think and wear pink (though she does not)! Soon after, she and photographer Dick Avery (Astaire) venture to bohemian Greenwich Village on a shoot...where bookstore clerk Jo Stockton (Hepburn), an ugly duckling with swan potential, is unearthed. The plot takes off from here. Cut to Paris where newly made-over model Jo wears exquisite Givenchy haute couture and is gorgeously photographed by Dick everywhere in the City of Light. Songs are sung. Dances are danced. Love blooms. A fairytale ending eventually comes to pass.

Fred Astaire as Dick Avery

The basic storyline is nothing new, but watching Hepburn, Astaire and Thompson cut loose in New York and Paris (and in song) is so easy on the eyes and ears that in so many ways...'s wonderful.

And there's the 'beatnik' interlude, most noteworthy for Audrey's dance routine in a subterranean Parisian club dressed in black turtleneck and capris with white socks. Though Hepburn battled Donen over the color of her socks, he won and the result is memorable.

Stanley Donen was never nominated for an Academy Award, although he created some of the greatest musicals in movie history - including Singin' in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. He also made several successful non-musicals, films like Charade and Two for the Road. In 1998, the Academy honored him with a Lifetime Achievement Award and in his acceptance speech he both sang and danced to Cole Porter's "Cheek to Cheek"...he still knew how to "give 'em the old pizzazz!"

Stanley Donen and his Lifetime Achievement Oscar, 1998

Click here to watch his acceptance of his Lifetime Achievement Award

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Celebrating the TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood

Hollywood's legendary Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Just as Turner Classic Movies will pay on-air tribute to the films, talents and themes of the third annual TCM Classic Film Festival in Hollywood April 12 – 15, The Lady Eve’s Reel Life will also salute this year’s festival. From now until the 15th, TLE will feature posts and links to reviews of some of the 70+ film classics being shown in Hollywood and the end of this week.

TCM's Robert Osborne

Opening night, Thursday, April 12, features the world premiere screening of the 40th anniversary restoration of 1972 Best Picture Oscar nominee Cabaret.  The film's stars Liza Minnelli and Joel Grey, both of whom won Academy Awards for their performances, will appear with TCM host Robert Osborne.

The festival's celebration of Style in the Movies will honor Audrey Hepburn: Style Icon with presentations of four of her films and the first, Sabrina (1954), screens Thursday night. Janie Bryant, acclaimed costume designer of the Emmy winning series Mad Men, will be on hand.

Style in the Movies: The Legendary Costumes of Travis Banton will spotlight Paramount's long-time costume Designer-in-Chief who, before he moved on to 20th Century Fox, mentored his successor Edith Head. Costume designer Deborah Nadoolman Landis will introduce all six Banton films (those asterisked below are part of the Travis Banton tribute). The Noir Style will also be celebrated and Eddie Muller, founder of the Film Noir Foundation, will be on hand for several noir screenings along with 'dames noir' like Rhonda Fleming, Marsha Hunt and Peggy Cummins.

There is so much packed into the four day festival that only a closer look at the daily schedules can give a real sense of how wide-ranging and spectacular TCMFF #3 promises to be. Click here (and scroll down) for Thursday's full schedule.

Friday offers a day of non-stop events:

James Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo

At world-famous Grauman's Chinese Theatre: John Ford's masterpiece, The Searchers (1956), Funny Face (1957) with  director and festival honoree Stanley Donen (on his birthday) and Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) with its star, Kirk Douglas. Kim Novak will introduce the screening of Vertigo (1958) (click here for Brandie Ashe's review for this blog on Novak's performance) and the final Chinese Theatre presentation for the night, Roman Polanski's brilliant 1974 neo-noir, Chinatown, will be discussed by legendary producer and former Paramount exec, Robert Evans, and screenwriter Robert Towne, who won an Oscar for his screenplay.

Audrey Hepburn in Stanley Donen's Funny Face

Among the films screening Friday at Chinese Multiplex 1 are William Wellman's Wings (1927), presented by Bill Wellman, Jr., and former Paramount exec A.C. Lyles (a sprightly 93-year-old), the world premiere restoration of Two for the Road (1967) presented by Stanley Donen (click here for Kevin Deany's take on the film at Kevin's Movie Corner), and the U.S. premiere of the 75th anniversary restoration of Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1937). At Chinese Multiplex 3, highlights include screenings of Nothing Sacred* (1937) and the Astaire/Rogers classic Swing Time (1936). A Friday night high point at Chinese Multiplex 4 will be the screening of Max Ophuls' Letter From an Unknown Woman* (1948), starring Joan Fontaine (click here for R.D. Finch's reflection on this underappreciated gem at The Movie Projector). At the Egyptian Theatre, Shirley Jones will present the screening of Elmer Gantry (1960), and Rhonda Fleming will join 'czar of noir' Eddie Muller for the screening of Cry Danger (1951).

Click here for the complete schedule of events for Friday, April 13.

Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Film festivals are always frantically busy on weekends, and TCMFF will be no exception. On Saturday at Grauman's, Kim Novak will have her hand and footprints enshrined in the courtyard concrete. Later, screenings at the theatre will include Disney's Snow White (1937), Casablanca (1942) and the 60th anniversary world premiere restoration of Singin' in the Rain (1952) - introduced by Debbie Reynolds. At Chinese Multiplex 1, Robert Wagner will appear for the presentation of The Longest Day (1962) and director Norman Jewison will be on hand for a 25th anniversary screening of his 1987 classic Moonstruck. At Chinese Multiplex 3 fashion designer Barbara Tfank will appear for the screening of Otto Preminger's sumptuous Bonjour Tristesse (1958), Eddie Muller will introduce Jules Dassin's 1950 noir classic, Night and the City, and actor Richard Anderson will be on hand for the screening of John Frankenheimer's underrated 1966 film, Seconds (click here for John Greco's review at Twenty Four Frames). Chinese Multiplex 4 will feature a program of Laurel & Hardy shorts, A Fine Mess (1932 - 1933), and the astonishing Josef von Sternberg/Marlene Dietrich 1934 historical fantasy, The Scarlet Empress* (click here for my series on the von Sternberg/Dietrich collaboration).

Marlene Dietrich in The Scarlet Empress

The Egyptian Theatre will showcase the sparkling 1958 comedy Auntie Mame, with an appearance by designer Todd Oldham, director Norman Jewison will  discuss his very stylish The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) and Eddie Muller and actress Peggy Cummins (now 86) will discuss her best-known film, a standout of its genre and a shocker in its time, Gun Crazy (1950).

Click here for Saturday's full schedule.

Grace Kelly and Cary Grant in To Catch a Thief

Though Sunday's schedule isn't yet complete, the day is by no means quiet . At Grauman's: Hitchcock's glittering 1955 VistaVision romp To Catch a Thief, Robert Evans will appear at the screening of Roman Polanski's 1968 trendsetter Rosemary's Baby (my take here), Thelma Schoonmaker, Oscar winning film editor and widow of the incomparable Michael Powell, will introduce Powell's masterful 1948 collaboration with Emeric Pressburger, Black Narcissus (click here for Ivan G. Shreve's review at Thrilling Days of Yesteryear), and Todd Oldman is set to appear for the screening of George Cukor's sly and fabulous The Women (1939). At the Cinerama Dome, Debbie Reynolds will introduce the Cinerama epic How the West Was Won (1962). 

Deborah Kerr in Black Narcissus

Click here for the Sunday schedule. 

As even a brief glance at its schedule makes crystal clear, TCM's Classic Film Festival is truly bigger and better than ever in 2012.

John Wayne, The Searchers

Click here to watch a TCM festival promo...

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Sunday Night is Still "Mad Men" Night

As the fourth installment (the 2 hour premiere covered two episodes) of Mad Men Season 5 approaches (see below for Episode 4 update), there are no signs of waning interest from its audience or the rapt media. In my travels through cyberspace over the past two weeks I've come upon a wide assortment of posts about the new season of this most intriguing series. Here is a sampling - click on titles for links...

Betty Francis

In Episode 3 Roger Sterling (John Slattery), becoming ever more frustrated with changing times, utters a phrase that will no doubt echo on the series - and off - for some time to come, "When is everything going to get back to normal?" Laurel Brown, senior writer at BuddyTV, contemplates the implications of Roger's question with Normal Isn't Coming Back.

By far the most talked-about element of last week's episode was the revelation that beautiful Betty Hofstadt Draper Francis (January Jones) had gained more than a new home in recent months. This new twist in Betty's story arc created intense discussion, some controversy, and a variety of reactions. Jessica Grose presents her Defense of Betty Draper at New York (.com) magazine's Vulture. Bruce Handy of Vanity Fair considers Betty's dilemma from a different perspective by delving into The Amazing Junk Food of the '60's. 

Megan and Don Draper

Not soon to be forgotten is that 5th Season opener moment when Don Draper's young and slender new wife, Megan (French-Canadian actress Jessica Paré), turned heads and inspired tongues to wag when she gave Don (Jon Hamm) a surprise 40th birthday party and a very special gift. Megan's rendition of the French pop tune "Zou Bisou Bisou" lit up the Twitterverse, and was the water cooler subject of the week. Leaving no stone unturned, Lauren Streib looks into the History of Zou Bisou Bisou for The Daily Beast.

The Return of the Ladies of Mad Men is the focus of Alison Willmore at Indiewire, who views the series as one "about gender, about masculine ideals and shifting female identity." Eleanor Clift, a former Newsweek staffer (and sister-in-law of Montgomery Clift), recalls her memories as a woman in that news magazine's workplace during the '60s with Mad Men and Working Women (here, courtesy of The Daily Beast).

Joan Harris and Peggy Olson of SCDP

At the UK's Daily Mail, Kristie Lau contemplates How Mad Men Embraced the Fashion Trends of 1966, and at GQ, Matthew Sebra posts weekly on what the men of Mad Men are wearing, so far: Season 5/Style Report 1 and Season 5/Style Report 2.


Update: Click here for Bonnie Stiernberg's take on Episode 5.04 at PasteMagazine.com 

Stay tuned...

Note: Sunday Night is Mad Men Night will continue. Next up, Jill of Sittin' on a Backyard Fence  - date TBA...

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Revisiting the "Youthquake"

Landon Jones coined the term “baby boomers” in his 1980 tome Great Expectations: America and the Baby Boom Generation, but, as the book's title indicates, the great horde born in the years following World War II was already distinguished as more than just a baby boom – it was the baby boom. In fact, boomers had been the subject of intense interest and considerable attention from the beginning; Dr. Benjamin Spock’s runaway best-seller, Baby and Child Care, was first published in 1946.

LA's Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip

And then Dr. Spock’s babies grew up.  In 1963, Diana Vreeland, long-time editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine, coined the word “youthquake” to define a cultural phenomenon dominated by the young that was a mixture of music, fashion and political disaffection.

Britain figured prominently in “youthquake” culture. Designers like Mary Quant whipped up trendy “mod” fashions and Carnaby Street became an epicenter of style; British models Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy epitomized the waifish, leggy look of the era, and London-born hairdresser Vidal Sassoon created “wash & wear” geometric cuts that revolutionized hair styling. “The British Invasion” swept popular music in 1964 when The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Who,  The Kinks, The Animals and a multitude of others generated a flood of hit records. But the U.S. was not without influence. New York, where Bob Dylan made his ascent, had a thriving youth scene and in L.A., where youth is what it's all about (still), bands like The Byrds and The Doors built their reputations at clubs on the Sunset Strip before breaking out nationally.

Twiggy

The Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York has been showcasing “Youthquake! The 1960s Fashion Revolution” since March 6. An exploration of the impact of the youth culture of the ‘60s, the exhibit features clothing, accessories, videos and related media and runs through this Saturday, April 7. Click here for more information.

The Rolling Stones in the '60s

Click here for a link to Sunday Night is Mad Men Night, the blog event that inspired this post...

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A Meditation on Mad Men

 "...nostalgia. It's delicate...but potent...in Greek, nostalgia literally means 'the pain from an old wound.' It's a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone."

Sterling Cooper's creative director Don Draper is pitching his promotional concept to Kodak, a prospective client, for its new product, a wheel-like slide projector. As images of his own young family flash by, one by one, on a projection screen, he continues his inspired dream-spinning:

"This device isn't a spaceship. It's a time machine. It goes backwards, forwards. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again."

With these words, words that also echo an aspect of Mad Men's emotional appeal,  the client and everyone else inside the hushed room is in the palm of Draper's hand; he concludes:

"It's not called 'the Wheel." It's called a 'Carousel.' It lets us travel the way a child travels. Around and around, and back home again...to a place where we know we are loved."

The carousel whirl that is AMC's Mad Men sweeps the viewer along on the labyrinthine journey of Don Draper, preternaturally savvy and eloquent Madison Avenue dreamweaver, as he and those close to him navigate the dark and white nights of their own souls and that of 1960s America.

Click here to watch Don Draper's entire 'Carousel' pitch

In an early episode, Betty Draper, Don's then-wife, stares at him as he lies sleeping and wonders aloud, "Who are you?"  Betty's late father, Gene, didn't like his son-in-law at all and, in another episode, complains of him, "He has no people. You can't trust a person like that..." Season 4 opened with the question, "Who is Don Draper?" posed to Draper over lunch by a reporter from Advertising Age. Series loyalists learned early on that Draper was once a neglected farm boy whose impoverished family moved from the Midwest to Pennsylvania coal country. While serving in the Korean war he saw a way out of his nowhere-man future and seized the opportunity. In just a few years he would be a rising star on Madison Avenue with the trophy wife, children, Cadillac and suburban Ossining house to certify his status.

Don and Betty Draper at home

Draper's mysterious past and meteoric ascent have inspired comparisons to another iconic fictional character, Jay Gatsby of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It was of Gatsby that Fitzgerald's narrator, Nick, would say, "If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him..." Gatsby, born James Gatz in an upper Midwestern backwater, was based on a character out of ancient fiction named Trimalchio. A freed Roman slave who became wealthy and powerful and was intent on winning over the 1st century crème de la crème, Trimalchio hosted an elaborate but tasteless feast about which the elite laughed behind his back. Gatsby, who made his fortune through confidence schemes and shady connections, was rich but naive, and his grand soirees were attended but scorned by New York's finest.

A man in full

Though, like Gatsby, Don Draper is an arriviste who was once "a penniless young man without a past," no one is laughing at him. By 1960, when Mad Men picks up, the talented and charismatic Mr. Draper has sparked awe and envy throughout the world of advertising. No, at this point, Don Draper is perceived less like the ill-fated Gatsby and perhaps more like a more fortunate young man who fled his roots and re-made himself: Archie Leach of Bristol, England, who made his name in America and of his reinvented self said, "Everyone wants to be Cary Grant. Even I want to be Cary Grant."

Despite his great success, Draper lives in barely contained turmoil. He wrestles with personal demons and chafes under mounting pressures at work and at home. The very time in which he lives is a jittery age - it is the height of ‘the cold war’ and American culture is in the midst of rapid change.

Soviet missiles in Cuba

It was at just about this time, in 1959, that developmental psychologist/psychoanalyst Erik Erikson coined the term ‘identity crisis,’ a condition of disorientation or role confusion that results from conflicting internal and external experiences, pressures and expectations that can lead to acute anxiety. Though Erikson originally viewed 'identity crisis' as primarily an adolescent experience, its definition expanded to include crises that occur during major life transitions as well as within social structures.

Not too many years earlier, in 1950, sociologist David Riesman had written what became, and remains, the best-selling book ever in the U.S. on sociology. The Lonely Crowd examined America’s social character and described the country’s shift from 19^th century ‘inner-direction’ (behavior internalized early through parents and community) to mid-20^th century ‘other-direction’ (responsiveness to peer groups and the media). Riesman’s theories spoke to concerns of the time regarding the conformity that accompanied the sweeping spread of suburban culture. It was Riesman’s view that the confidence and unity that followed World War II were in part an attempt to deflect cultural despair, and his term ‘the lonely crowd’ entered the mainstream as a description of alienation within an affluent society.

America, perhaps in its adolescence at mid-century and reeling under the weight of too much power, wealth and responsibility too soon, was entering a period of increasing uncertainty and anxiety as the 1960s unfolded. Clearly Don Draper, with his double life and murky past, is guarded and isolated, and most in his professional and personal orbit are perplexed by the changing, often frightening times.

November 22, 1963 at Sterling Cooper

Walter Cronkite reporting for CBS News, November 22, 1963

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner has said that it was during his tenure as a writer on the sitcom Becker that an idea occurred to him for a show set in the ‘60s about someone like himself, “who… had everything and was miserable.”

Smoke Gets in Your Eyes

As Weiner focused on writing the story of a character he thought of as a man who has sold out in some ways but is still trying to find himself, he hired a researcher to investigate the 1960s in detail. According to Weiner, the very first piece of research he received was about the crisis in cigarette advertising in 1960. And so it followed that when we first catch sight of Don Draper in the series opener it is 1960 and he is alone at a table in a cocktail lounge quizzing a black waiter about his brand of cigarettes - Old Gold. Draper is struggling to come up with an ad concept for Sterling Draper’s biggest account, Lucky Strike. The noisy, smoke-filled room is dim and in the background a recording of Don Cherry singing “Band of Gold” plays. The episode tracks the sharp, charming and handsome Mr. Draper through the evening and into a night spent with his commercial artist girlfriend, his next day at the office and his trip home after work to – surprise! – his wife and children in the suburbs.

Since then Don Draper and his family and his colleagues at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (formerly Sterling Cooper) have grappled with the wildly unpredictable 1960s as best they can. Having witnessed everything on the national scene from historic space flights and assassination to the explosion of the civil rights movement and the beginnings of women’s movement, they are at the same time dealing with upheaval in their personal lives.

The 1960s are accurately reflected and exquisitely replicated in Mad Men, and immersion in that glittering and chaotic decade is mesmerizing. But it is the series’ finely drawn, palpably authentic characters, credible story lines and archetypal themes that provide its greatest appeal. Mad Men, to borrow a phrase from Don Draper's Kodak presentation, affords that "rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash."

Season 5 begins...

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Lucky Seven

Over the past few weeks the 7x7 Link Award has been making its way across the classic film blogosphere. I’ve been kindly honored with this award by three of my favorite bloggers:  Ivan G. Shreve, Jr., of Thrilling Days of Yesteryear, FlickChick of A Person in the Dark and Whistlingypsy of Distant Voices and Flickering Shadows.

Recipients of the 7x7 are obliged to do these things:

Mad Men's Don and Sally Draper

Reveal an unknown aspect of ourselves. With my current blog event, a tribute to Mad Men, in mind, I’m disclosing that, in my distant youth I was a quintessential child of the ‘60s/’70s. To wit…my brother and I were taken with our parents to hear JFK deliver a speech during his presidential candidacy –I managed to grab and shake his hand by standing on an abandoned papier-mâché donkey in front of the podium. There's more, but that's enough for now. In other words, I think I have a pretty good idea where Sally Draper is headed…

Single out those posts we consider our:

1. Most beautiful piece – Possibly, The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex – my entry in CMBA’s Movies of 1939 blogathon last year. Though E&E isn’t a favorite film of mine, I was fascinated by its history and tried to tell the story of what turned out to be one of the lesser films of that storied year in an interesting way.

Edna May Wonacott on the set with Alfred Hitchcock

2. Most helpful piece – My pieces on child actress Edna May Wonacott (Shadow of a Doubt, The Bells of St. Mary’s) have had a positive impact on her life. When our first interview appeared - online, in her local paper and in a classic movie journal - she began hearing from fans from all over the world. She has since received invitations to speak about her movie-making experiences at local clubs and organizations. Earlier this month a British professor of film studies/ Hitchcock authority contacted me with an interest in interviewing Edna for an upcoming book; Edna has since responded to her questions.

3. Most popular piece –Hands down, Marlene Dietrich: another facet of her legend, about the less glamorous side of the legendary goddess of screen and stage.

4. Most controversial piece – I can’t think of one, but I’ll choose my pieces about Leatrice Gilbert Fountain if only because of the controversy surrounding the career of her father, John Gilbert.

5. Most surprisingly successful piece – Location, Location Location, about the movie history of Southern California’s Catalina Island. View #s for this post are through the roof.

Marlene Dietrich and Josef von Sternberg

6. Most underrated piece –Light, Shadow and Synergy a 3-part series on the collaboration of Josef von Sternberg and Marlene Dietrich that I posted very early in this blog’s life.  I suspect it would have been more popular had it appeared later.

7. Most pride-worthy piece – It's not a piece but an event, this January’s A Month of Vertigo which was successful beyond my wildest dreams.

Bestow the award upon seven bloggers we follow:

Fellow CMBA members Allen Hefner of Bit Part Actor, John Greco of Twenty Four Frames, Kevin Deany of Kevin’s Movie Corner and Jill of Sittin’ on a Backyard Fence who is hosting the fantastic tribute to Fredric March, March-in-March this month -along with these classic film bloggers from other corners of the blogosphere: Yvette of …in so many words, prolific blogger on art, literature and film…Kay of the entertaining and canny Movie Star Makeover who I met on Twitter…and The Vintage Film Costume Collector, who I discovered through Chistian’s blog roll on Silver Screen Modiste.

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Mad Men: Through a Glass Darkly

by guest contributor Motorcycle Boy

“A personality marked by traits of compulsive and habitual use of a substance or practice in an attempt to cope with psychic pain engendered by conflict and anxiety.”

~      definition of addictive personality, Mosby’s Medical Dictionary

  

“Mad Men glorifies alcoholics.”  This statement was made to me by an acquaintance, clearly meant as a criticism of my favorite television series.  He went on:  “It seems the writers take every opportunity conceivable to shove a glass in the hands of the actors.”

Now, there is no denying the fact that at the office of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, alcohol is a constant given. “I drink, therefore I am” seems to be the ad man’s motto.  And everyone on this show smokes – they smoke like chimneys, as if there’s no tomorrow (or at least a tomorrow not leading to premature illness and death). Of course, these characters live in a different time – the early 60’s -  a not so distant past when people freely and thoughtlessly litter a park while they picnic and adults slap children, even ones that aren’t their own.  This was a time when women and minorities were openly treated as second class citizens.  And along with this, it was a time when many people were alcoholics, though they may not have identified themselves as such, who drank throughout the day. Mad Men depicts all this as it enters into the reality of the era, though these things are never portrayed as something to be emulated.

But as  much attention that is given to Mad Men -  its smoking and drinking, its obsessive attention to period detail (the length of women’s skirts, the hairstyles and interior design of the rooms)  -  there is so much more that lies beneath the glossy, escapist surface of this show. Mad Men is an extremely complicated drama - a human drama.  There is much to discover in its characters and storylines – much about our society and about ourselves. I believe that it’s all these factors that contribute to this show’s great appeal.  Something draws us to watch it - something we’re seeking to discover (whether we’re conscious of it or not) and this, in itself, is addictive.

Mad Men depicts a period in American culture when habitual drinking and smoking (and bigotry) were an accepted part of the norm. It deals with the social changes that were happening at the beginning of the 60’s and into the mid-60’s. Often different episodes will show the tension between the passing era of the 50’s – the rigidity, repression and denial – and the approaching of the turbulent changes associated with the 60’s – the civil rights and women’s movements, open sexual freedom, drug experimentation and the events that were about to blow the lid off of American society. It’s quite fitting that there’s an episode in the first season titled “Kennedy vs. Nixon”.  There is the “old order,” in which the different levels of society were much more hierarchical and defined (like the male dominated pecking order of the ad agency), and then there is the dawning of a new awareness that is full of promise and, at the same time, threatening. How society worked and how people coped during this changing time is fertile ground for exploration and producer/creator Matthew Weiner makes the most of it.

         

...So what habits are Don Draper and his agency pushing?

         

The basic thrust of consumerism is marketing an image to people so that they can be sold a product. It’s not just about what people want, but what they really want – their unconscious desires and the obstacles to fulfillment represented by their unconscious fears.  In the time period of Mad Men - much more so than even today - there were many social boundaries around sex and race, of one’s basic identity, and a suffocating rigidity in roles that people felt pressured to act out in their lives.  This is an obvious formula for the kind of psychic pain that comes from conflict – the conflict that grows from a repressed identity.  How can you know what you really want or need when you don’t know who you really are?  If the “social mask” fits too tightly it makes it difficult to breathe.  The constant drinking in Mad Men is shown more as a socially sanctioned way that many people sought some relief from this internal pressure – or at least as a way to numb themselves.  A person who is imprisoned, whether conscious of it or not, feels the overwhelming need to be released.

Don Draper and his associates cater to this need.  By the 1950s America had undergone a form of mass hypnosis constructed around total consumerism.  Television and growing mass media connected people in a way that opened them further to manipulation by the “professionals” who understood the pressure points of living a false identity and could use it to sell product.  Many people, then and now, present a fabricated image to society - a façade for the real identity underneath. This condition  is embodied in the whole Madison Avenue advertising industry as presented in the show and, in particular, in the central character of Don Draper, who literally has taken on a false identity to hide the truth from the world, and, as best he can,  himself.  If anyone is in psychic pain its Draper and it touches everyone in his life.  Still, no one knows better how to sell people a bill of goods by manipulating their insecurities and, unavoidably, their addictions.  On some level Draper seems to understand that he reflects a kind of mass delusion where consumerism is a substitute for self-knowledge and love.  The whole thing, from the perspective of the men in advertising and the unknowing public, is like one great dysfunctional, addictive process, founded on repression and denial and affecting everyone.  What motivates people is spiritual “thirst” and Don Draper knows how to use that to sell product because he’s so familiar with the feeling himself.

Mad Men is a series with many stylish surfaces and is so well done it could easily be appreciated strictly as escapism. But it’s so much more than that.  The characters are full of twists and turns and their fates interest us because they’re very much up for grabs.  What will happen next?  By the fourth season Don Draper is moving headlong into alcoholism and we wonder if he’ll end up a more fashionable version of his rival, Duck Phillips, or a less farcical Roger Sterling.  What’s captivating is that we, the audience, know what is to come for America but we don’t know how these characters will respond to or reflect the change.  The events are part of history, and though these people’s lives are shaped by them, they have to strive and discover for themselves their place in the new society.   We wonder if Betty Draper will completely go over the edge and continue to alienate her children.  She seems hopelessly stuck and unable to discover a path out of her false existence - she could take a number of courses, one of which could easily be addiction.  Sally Draper, the difficult young daughter who also is struggling to find her way, seems to represent a coming generation which will be defiant and loud, sexually active, and impossible to ignore.

There are multiple angles from which to interpret Mad Men, but I feel that there’s a great overriding tension at the core of the series, and in many ways it’s linked to the addictive process.  When people live within tightly wound conventions and are prevented from expressing their true nature, they can cut themselves off from their life force – there’s no creativity, only conformity.  If, on the other hand, they go deeper and connect with their instincts, it’s possible to feed the soul but it’s inherently dangerous because there is no formula to follow – anything can happen – the “old order” drops away and chaos can emerge.  Fear is what keeps the characters in Mad Men from genuine lives and leads them to grasp at substitutes, whether it be alcohol or consumerism.  Don Draper attempts to stay fixated on externals and selling an image rather than facing his true identity. He functions on the inside of society, spinning out illusions (he’s a powerful force and influence on people’s lives), still, when it comes to his personal relationships and his own inner life, Draper is the ultimate outsider – a living enigma.

As long as Mad Men is able to peel back the layers and creatively express this very human conflict, it will continue to mesmerize (perhaps the word should be intoxicate).  Over the course of multiple seasons Matthew Weiner and his writers have the luxury to explore these characters and their relationship to the times – to get at the truth of their lives.  Mad Men is addictive on so many levels because it’s a psychological adventure, an entry into a tumultuous past that has shaped our current world of mass media - of reality shows and twenty-four-hour news. In this context, it’s not just a joy to watch and a benign habit, but, through the range of its insight, a lush oasis of sanity.

~

Motorcycle Boy, a new contributor to the Lady Eve's Reel Life, is a loyal follower of this blog as well as a family friend. He has worked professionally in the fields of psychology and music, is a longtime resident of the San Francisco Bay Area and a lifelong lover of art and history.

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