Mindless Mad Men #11 – Commissions and Fees
June 8th, 2012
This post has moved to Adam and Amy’s new Mad Men tumblr, She’s an Astronaut, the new home of all their Mad Men posts.
http://shesanastronaut.com/post/47395391411/commissions-and-fees
16 Responses to “Mindless Mad Men #11 – Commissions and Fees”
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June 8th, 2012 at 1:36 pm
“The fact that Lane couldn’t even manage to kill himself in the Jaguar, thus creating a perfect anti-advert for his life, his firm and his ambitions”
My Lord, I just realized what a disaster it would have been for the agency if one of their founders had killed himself in a Jaguar! My Lord, I’m actually relieved he didn’t! What is wrong with me!
June 8th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
Good call! Bloody hell, that would’ve been a disaster.
To quote Don in an earlier scene “what if a client found out”. Indeed!
June 8th, 2012 at 3:31 pm
‘When Don offered Glen the possibility of doing “anything” he was trying to create a perfect moment. Imagine: anything you want! It’s like a wish coming true. Something that will shine brightly the rest of your days. Maybe Glen got that, maybe he didn’t.’
And how perfect that Don and Glen reached their arrangement off camera. In an episode that –more so than most– was about the limits of what we can create for ourselves, what we want v. what we can get from the world, it’s funny to think that Glen’s ultimate wish could have been something pitched to him by Don, or at least a fantasy informed/imposed by television. Advertising in particular.
June 8th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Yes, I think that’s part of what was perplexing(?)/disturbing(?)/disappointing(?) Don
June 8th, 2012 at 10:57 pm
“These characters are so much more alive because we all have such contrasting ideas about them.”
Not only that – these characters are so much more alive because they all have such contrasting ideas about themselves, first and foremost. A character that is truly alive contains everything in the universe, and creators who know that (and struggle to remember it at all times) make, at least to me, better art and better entertainment than the ones who do not.
Mad Men is currently the most impressive show on TV because it dances with order and chaos, embracing and loving both.
June 8th, 2012 at 11:08 pm
“I don’t know whether Don will manage pitch his way into the Brotherhood of Evil in the end, but he hit this note so forcefully that I can’t imagine them being unmoved by the idea that they deserve more of everything than they already have.”
Reminds me of Polanski’s work, for some reason. The near-camp seduction by the forces of evil (The Ninth Gate), and the way almost everyone at SDCP doesn’t (or, in some cases, doesn’t want to) see the evil until it’s too late (Rosemary’s Baby)? Must be something more than that, right? Or is it that obvious?
June 9th, 2012 at 12:50 am
“A character that is truly alive contains everything in the universe.”
Absolutely. This is something I’ve said about Mad Men again and again, that it gives you just enough to get a feel for character, but leaves just enough out so that you’ve got a person.
June 9th, 2012 at 11:37 am
The absolute lack of irony or humour almost transcended itself in that scene. Almost.
Don’t think any Polanski link was deliberate but I know what you mean about The Ninth Gate. That’s some hardcore horror campery right there.
June 10th, 2012 at 10:14 pm
Weiner talks to NYT about this season:
http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/10/mad-men-creator-matthew-weiner-reflects-on-the-season-so-far/?smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto
June 11th, 2012 at 8:35 am
I’ll read that when I’ve seen the last epsiode!
June 11th, 2012 at 12:40 pm
I thought Lane fucking up with the Jaguar was directly linked to his fucking up with Joan on his way out. It had this horrific “third time’s the charm” quality to his engineered self-destruction. Poor chap couldn’t get the upscale Other Woman to work for him in that fashion, because he wasn’t savvy enough to realize that the fantasy of this vampish woman or luxury car didn’t hold up to the reality that it takes a special touch to get either one of them started up.
So he had to settle for the old rope, kind of a mid-level, unspectacular note to go out on. Even his method of death is uninspired.
The specter of death is going to be huge here, but Cosgrove’s always been a favorite of mind (counterpoint to snot-nosed Pete) and he had a good showing here. With two characters gone (at least, ostensibly Peg), he’s the most obvious choice to fill the character slot.
June 11th, 2012 at 12:53 pm
I’m not sure I like the idea of perpetuating the link between Joan and Jaguar cars. It makes sense within the very narrow confines of a very particular conversation, expanded beyond those horizons things start to go wrong very quickly.
Lane failing to get the car started was just another fuck up. Joan being hurt and appalled by his horrid comment was another. Writing that cheque was the king of them all.
June 11th, 2012 at 2:35 pm
Yeah, I dunno RetroWarbird, I didn’t exactly come away from The Other Woman convinced that thinking of Joan the same way you’d think of a flash car was a particularly healthy or desirable state of mind.
You could maybe argue that Lane thought of Joan that way, but for all that he was complicit in that particular bit of bad business (conducted “at a very high level”, remember), I get the feeling that he viewed Joan differently. His misguided affections might have curdled in their last conversation, but prior to that I got the feeling that he’d mistaken Joan’s genuine friendliness towards him for something grander, more romantic. Which is to say: no horrible car metaphors were required for that particular misfire – a misfire that, as Ad has already noted, was just one of the many fuck ups that led to Lane’s suicide.
June 13th, 2012 at 3:46 am
[...] * On the other hand, I never miss a Mindless Ones Mad Men post, like this one on last week’s ep. [...]
June 15th, 2012 at 4:59 am
I just discovered this Harold Pinter quote in Charlie Kaufman’s BAFTA Speech on storytelling, which is by the way one of the most brilliant speeches I ever read/heard:
“There never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art, there are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.”
I bet Weiner read this quote years ago.
June 15th, 2012 at 7:57 am
Certainly sounds like it.