I enjoyed the first episode of AMC's "Mad Men" last night. It tells the story of an ad agency in the high modern Manhattan of the 60s: jet set style, skyscrapers, steel and glass, and skinny ties.
Unfortunately the shows greatest weaknesses are also its supposed strengths: the period smoking plays like Brazil style satire, the ad agency brainstorming runs the danger of turning into Shakespeare in Love style serendipity (Lucky Strikes are toasted to be tasty, hey that's good!). Additionally, the conceit that "behind closed doors, things are not what they seem", tells us a lot less about the 60s (or life in general) than the show thinks it does. It also borrows pretty heavily from the 50s era domestic dramas that Far from Heaven payed tribute to, including the closing scene where our hero returns home to wife and children in suburban Connecticut.
What the show does well though is give us interesting characters and places them in visually interesting situations. Maybe it's the fact that Christina Hendricks's green dress stole every scene it was in, but I couldn't help but think that the look of the show was much more inspired by the 40s and 50s than the 60s. For example in this painting by Edward Hopper:
Also notice in this shot the way they use the furniture and windows of the office to highlight the increased isolation and internal conflict of Jon Hamm's character:
As in this painting:
In both instances, the placement of the person within the scene is both visually pleasing and psychologically interesting. Lost in thought, the character is isolated from the world around him as well as from other people, and perhaps life.
It is this attention to the characters and the way that the scenes are shot that makes Mad Men successful. I'm looking forward to future episodes.
