A wistful final visit to the Museum of the Moving Image's spectacular "Mad Men" exhibition

One of the head-slapping features of MoMI's Mad Men exhibition, which closes Friday, is a re-assembly of two actual sets: the original Draper family kitchen (above) and Don's famous SCP office, each adorned with an adjacent screen showing a loop of scenes that took place on that set.

by Ken

Speaking of the re-assembled set of Don Draper's office in the Museum of the Moving Image's Mad Men exhibition, (produced, as we've noted here, with large amounts of cooperation from the participants, especially from creator-mastermind Matthew Weiner, who seems to have gone all out) at a recent MoMI screening of the about-to-open Queen of Earth at which star Elisabeth Moss -- known to Mad Men fans for seven seasons as rising-star advertising copywriter Peggy Olsen -- and director Alex Ross Perry were on hand for a post-screening discussion, Elisabeth talked a little about her powerful emotional response to her first viewing of the exhibition, in which naturally she and her character figure prominently. She seemed freaked out to find herself on exhibition in a museum. She also spoke about the time-warp sensation of seeing Don's office again -- and the memories it brought back of all the time she spent during production hanging out or napping there.

Another thing we learned is that Alex has worked up a bit of shtick for joint appearances with Elisabeth. When the interviewer gets around to asking about their future plans, he announces that he's looking forward to seeing what happens in the next season of Mad Men. Elisabeth seems to enjoy this less than you might think.


Alex and Elisabeth have now made two films together. (I got to see both at MoMI. Alex's two earlier pictures were also screened, but I couldn't make those.) So tell us, Elisabeth, what does happen in the next season of Mad Men?

But I've gotten ahead of myself. So far this holiday weekend I've faced an almost impossibly strenuous schedule of almost nonstop sitting -- in the darkened auditorium of MoMI, watching the initial offerings in this month's See It Big! New York in Film series. Friday night it was a restored 251-minute version (plus intermission) of Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America. Then yesterday I was scheduled for three Martin Scorsese pix: Taxi Driver, The King of Comedy, and The Age of Innocence (which I was especially curious about, since I'd never seen it, and in the last year I've been doing a humongous quantity of Edith Wharton reading). Today was, by comparison, a piece of cake: just Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.

I may as well own up that although I was scheduled for the three Scorseses yesterday, I bailed out of Taxi Driver -- in part because of blogorific obligations. Skipping it meant I didn't have to be in Queens till 4:30 instead of 2:00, and made the day oodles more manageable. I was sorry, because I don't think I've seen Taxi Driver since it was released, and I would have been curious to see how it holds up. I was also sorry because it would have been interesting to see it along with King of Comedy, as a sort of Scorsese "These Guys Be Nuts" double bill.


Alas, I didn't get to see Travis Bickel say, "You talkin' to me?" My goodness, De Niro looks young! (I guess 'cause he was.) I did, however, get to see him as Rupert Pupkin in Scorsese's later King of Comedy and as "Noodles" Aaronson in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West. I'm not sure there's anything to add to what's already been said about these astounding performances. Luckily, they're there to be watched over and over.

In addition, it would have been nice to have Taxi Driver as the middle link of a triptych of astonishing and utterly different Robert De Niro performances, begun Friday night with Once Upon a Time in the West (all 251 minutes of it!). Then too, Once Upon a Time in America bookends neatly with Do the Right Thing as a pair of New York-centric epic films -- even allowing that Leone's Lower East Side is a figment of his own particular imagination, bearing little resemblance to the real thing at any point in time.

There's lots we could talk about here, but the dominant image I left with today came from one last visit to the spectacular Mad Men exhibition, which opened in March and, after multiple extensions, finally ends its run on Friday. I've paid a number of visits to it, both long and short, and today after the movie, since I didn't need to rush out, I thought I'd give it one last look.

The first thing I discovered is that even after all this time, the exhibition was still packed, and visitors seemed just as absorbed and enchanted as they've seemed in all my visits since March. It's hard to describe the exhibiton without making it sound like just lots of old stuff put out on display. In fact, it's made up of a huge collection of exhaustively researched and fastidiously presented displays of the work process, including the enormous background work and inventive fernebt, involving the entire creative team at all stages of the process, covering characters, places -- including the re-assembly of the sets for the Draper kitchen and Don's office at SCP, not to mention the MM writers' room and such other fascinating items as an actual secretary's desk, showing how the desk drawers were filled with relevant objects. It's explained that Matt thought this kind of attention to detail would help the actors function in the time and place ot the show.

It's a pity it wasn't possible to camp out at the museum for, say, a week, and start fresh each morning exploring a new area of the exhibition. Today I kept seeing all sorts of things I knew I'd seen but that I hadn't properly taken in, as well as all sorts of things I didn't remember having seen or at least taken proper notice of at all.


One thing I lingered over today was the re-creation of the Mad Men writers' room, with its plethora of information about what went on there. It's awesome to think of what came out of that room.

One corner of the exhibition I know was new to me. In one corner there's a little screening area where a series of Mad Men clips are played in endless repetition -- one from each season (including the two "halves" of Season 7), following filmed intros from Matt Weiner. I wandered in at Season 6, the scene in the finale where Don, in front of the clients, to the astonishment and horror of his agency colleagues, tells his own personal Hershey's story -- what a Hershey bar meant to him growing up dirt-poor in the whorehouse, rolling clients' pocket change. And even without available seating until that scene came up again. It was my impression that pretty much everyone who found the little space was doing the same thing. There were all kinds of scenes, all great to watch again, but the draw was the information that came out in those intros.

With regard to Don's performance at the Hershey's meeting, by the way, Matt doesn't think of it -- as a lot of us do -- as a "meltdown." He thinks of it rather as a "cleansing," a coming-to-grips with the Dick Whitman part of him that he's been struggling with all season. Matt says he always thought there would be a scene where Don tells his own past story to Roger and the others. Well, here it is. (In talking about Season 7, though, Matt does acknowledge that the meeting was "catastrophic" for Don -- getting him fired, after all.)

From Season 1, for example, the chosen scene was Pete Campbell's breathless ratting out of Don in Bert Cooper's office, only to have Bert say, "So what?" Matt explains that the writers had made the decision to allow Don's secrets to hang over him, perhaps subject to blackmailing, they would end that plot thread in 15 minutes, and he revealed that their guiding principle in arranging this dénouement had been a line of Japanese-inspired philosoph¥ that Bert in fact quotes -- something like "The Japanese say that a man is the room he's in."

From Season 5 there was the scene where Peggy comes to Don's office to give her notice. In the intro Matt talks about the arc of the Don-Peggy relationship, noting that by Season 5 he had become so hard on her that the writers told him they just couldn't let her keep working there, and Matt agreed. He insisted, though, that Don was no harder on Peggy than he was on himself -- it's just that she's a different person.

I was especially tickled to have Matt set the stage for the scene in Season 4, Episode 12, "Blowing Smoke" (directed by John Slattery), where Don deals with the agency's loss of the indispensable Lucky Strike account by writing the letter "Why I'm Quitting Tobacco," which he will have published as a full-page ad in The New York Times. Matt explains that they always planned to do this as a video collage, which begins with a voice-over as Don begins writing, then has the voice-over continue as we see Don typing and correcting the letter, then opens up to a wonderful assortment of other individuals and groups reading it in the Times.


Don begins writing "Why I'm Quitting Tobacco." You can watch this extraordinary scene here. There's also an Inside Episode 412 Mad Men feature in which John Slattery, who was making his directorial debut, and others talk about the episode.

What tickled me was that I had just come from the nearby Don Draper exhibit, where I had read a posted version of the ad!

The exhibition is not only a glorious tribute to a show that stands as one of TV's great achievements, but an education in what it took that large team of fantastically skilled and hard-working people to produce it. There's so much more I'm sure I could have learned from it. Now I'll have to settle for the shows themselves. I still haven't bought those final two half-seasons, which are incredibly expensive, but maybe it's time for me to go back to Season 1, Episode 1.

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Continuing our 24/7 "Mad Men" coverage: "Mad Men" -- the Alternate Endings (with music cues)

by Noah

All right. Enough of Mad Men. We spent more than enough time wondering how the show will end. Now we know. And, now we can be reminded that there’s more important stuff in the world, really.

The true ending was fine. Whatever. But, I might have liked any or all of these possible endings (below) better. The man known to most as Don Draper very well may have many alternate lives, so why can’t the show that centers on him have many alternate endings? Here are 10.

1. In the very beginning of the last episode, Don crashes the race car on the Bonneville Salt Flats. Being chronically self-destructive, he decides that he has found his true future path, changes his name to Evil Knievel, and buys a motorcycle. Cue: “Born to Be Wild” by Steppenwolf.

2. After spending a few lost months in New Mexico living on peyote and some local blue crystal meth, Don has visions that all of the execs at McCann-Erickson are Nazis. So, he outfits the trunk of his car with a 50-caliber machine gun and drives off to Madison Avenue to save Peggy and make things right, stopping off only in Wichita to beat the shit out of Peter Campbell. The beating of Campbell proves to be the single most popular moment in the entire seven seasons of the show. “Pablo Picasso” by the great Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers is played frequently in the background during this episode.



3. Changing his name to Dan Cooper, D.B. Cooper, as he will forever be known, boards a Boeing 727 in Portland, Oregon, has a quickie mid-flight affair with a stewardess, lights a cigarette, has another drink or two, and then coolly hands her a note. At the end of the show, he has hijacked the plane and parachuted into history with an attaché case stuffed with 10,000 $20 bills. What could be Don's personal theme song, "Flying on the Ground Is Wrong" by Buffalo Springfield, plays.

4. Don Draper is eating a BLT at a diner in New Jersey. A guy, his wife, and their two obnoxious kids are two tables away. He notes that the girl’s stupid name is Meadow. He shakes his head with great contempt. “Don’t Stop Believin’ " is playing while an ominous-looking character walks in.

5. One night, on an LSD trip in San Francisco, Don decides that Joan is the mommy he never had and runs back to New York to tell her of his epiphany. Cue: John Lennon's "Mother."

Mommy!

6. On the way to the meditation center, or whatever it is, Don and his "niece" Stephanie make a wrong turn and end up at the Spahn Ranch. A girl named Squeaky convinces them to stay and Don renames himself yet again, this time calling himself Tex Watson. The Spahn Ranch seems to be a meditation center of some other sort. All the girls want Don/Tex, thus reducing a guy named Charlie to a sobbing, howling, quivering, nonfunctioning mess of jealous vegetating ectoplasm. Camera fades to black as "Never Learn Not to Love,' the Beach Boys song that is a reworking of "Cease to Exist" by one Charles Manson, is playing.

7. During one of the psychological circle jerks or whatever they call them at the "meditation center," one of the participants breaks down. The group leader tells him that he "deserves a break today." Don instantly remembers a little roadside burger place he and Stephanie passed on the way there. Smiling, he decides it's time to go back to the ad agency. Cue: “You Deserve a Break Today," written by Barry Manilow.

8. Don never gets to the meditation center. Instead, he decides to board a mini-cruise, on a boat named SS Minnow. The boat hits a storm and lands, wrecked, on the beach of an uninhabited, uncharted Pacific island paradise. All seven people on board are in one piece. Don immediately takes up with one of the women, an actress named Ginger, but he has already mentally cracked up completely, due only partially to a lack of cigarettes and booze on the island. He starts demanding that everyone address him as Little Buddy. Cue: "Stairway to Gilligan's Island" by Little Roger and The Goosebumps as Don boards the Minnow.



9. After returning to work, Don has not only created the campaign that establishes McDonald's and come up with the "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" Coke campaign, but is winning every advertising award known to man for convincing politicians to finally physically wear the logos of every corporation that bribes them. Capitalizing on his now-massive popularity with American voters and overflowing with marketing knowhow, he runs for president of the United States using "You Deserve a Break Today" and "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" as his campaign slogans. Don wins by a historic landslide. However, he fails to show up for his own inauguration.

10. Following the example of Dallas, badly wounded soldier Dick, aka Don, dreamed the whole damn seven seasons of the show while on morphine in a Korean military hospital. A nurse hears Dick muttering, "The horror. The horror," as "The End" by The Doors plays in the background. When last we see Dick, he is sitting on the porch back home on the Whitman farm, pondering his future. In his hands, he caresses a picture of the horse that kicked his father to death when he was 10 years old.


EPILOGUE: The Soundtrack to "Mad Men, The Final Episode"

The perfect theme for Don? Or what would you pick?

1. "Eldorado," The Tragically Hip
2. "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing," Coke commercial version
3. "Born to Be Wild," Steppenwolf
4. "Pablo Picasso," Jonathan Richman and The Modern Lovers
5. "Flying on the Ground Is Wrong," Buffalo Springfield
6. "Don't Stop Believin',” Journey
7. "Mother," John Lennon
8. "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing," The New Seekers (non-Coke version)
9. "Never Learn Not to Love," The Beach Boys
10. "You Deserve a Break Today," McDonald's commercial
11. "Stairway to Gilligan's Island," Little Roger and The Goosebumps
12. "The End," The Doors
13. "We Gotta Get Out of This Place," The Animals

A MAD MEN REMINDER FROM KEN

I had my say on the final episode last night, in "A wistful but fond farewell to all our friends -- and what it was like watching the finale as part of an audience."

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"Mad Men" Watch: A wistful but fond farewell to all our friends -- and what it was like watching the finale as part of an audience

I've posted a piece on last night's Mad Men finale, and the experience of watching it as part of an audience of enthusiasts, on my Sunday Classics blog. -- Ken

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"Mad Men" Watch: If it works for advertising guys, why shouldn't it work for engineers?

DILBERT by Scott Adams

Dilbert (gasp!) makes his move!

by Ken

As some of you may recall, at the time this post posts I'll be at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens, with as many other Mad Men fans as they can pack into the joint for a celebration culminating in watching tonight's series finale on the big screen. So tonight I thought I'd throw open the question, "Is Don Draper a phenomenon unique to the advertising business, or are there Don Drapers in all walks of life?

And we start with Nerdworld. Here's Dilbert's claim to Draperdom. Picking up from the above:







Generally the results of Don Draper's seductions are a good deal more clear-cut. But in Dilbert's defense, he doesn't seem to have unequivocally struck out. Or at least that's his story. (Would he know?)

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TV Watch: Still reeling from the news about Betty on last week's "Mad Men"? (Yes, we're down to the final episode)

I assumed we could get some sort of relevant clip from the Mad Men page of the AMC website, but right now it's a pile of worthless, stinking crap, at least on the browsers I have available as I write. (Confidential to Web designers who think all of their clients' potential users chase the latest browsers: Get your heads out of your butts, morons. And to the clients thusly hornswoggled: Oh jeez!) So we have to settle for this "cast's favorite scenes" feature, which you should find here. Above, of course, we see Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson), January Jones (Betty Francis), John Slattery (Roger Sterling), and Christina Hendricks (Joan Harris).

by Ken

A lot of Mad Men fans seem to be. And we know that, at least as of the end of last week's episode, "The Milk and Honey Route," poor Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) was still reeling. Whereas, perhaps surprisingly, Betty herself (January Jones) wasn't. Consider that there aren't many people who know Betty better than daughter Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka), and it was Sally who assumed that the news would bring out her mother's drama-queeniness.

Among many other things, it was a big Sally episode, confirming what we've already known and noted repeatedly: how interestingly Kiernan Shipka has grown up over these years, and how ably she can handle whatever series creator Matthew Weiner and his team ask her to do. There was a wonderful low-key ease and playfulness to her long-distance phone conversation with Don (Jon Hamm), high drama in the unexpected visit she received at school from stepfather Henry, the combination of updated ancient routine and event-driven edge as she found herself back in the kitchen sitting with her out-of-the-loop little brothers, and of course the great scene with her mother.

It was all around, I thought, an exceptionally fine episode, with Don off on his quest-or-whatever-the-hell-it-is; Betty pursuing her long-delayed college degree; the left-behinds at what's left of the erstwhile Sterling Cooper team scrambling toward their new lives in the new agency world; and in particular Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), lured into an enervating entanglement with our old friend adman-turned-headhunter Duck Phillips (Mark Moses), deciding to go all out for an unexpected rearrangement of his future.

This last plotline that meant not just for another extendsive appearance by one of the series' most wonderful actors and characters, Alison Brie as Trudy Campbell, but as a mile marker for the life distance we've traveled with the show's characters. We began with astonishment way back when that someone as sane and centered and beautiful as Trudy would want anything to do with, let alone consider marrying, the creepy Pete we knew back in Season 1. Now here we are, all these years later, in which Trudy has worked so hard to wall off her feelings for Pete, and it turns out that maybe she was the only one who was right about him. Is there anyone who doesn't wish that, among the fates series Matthew W has in store for his characters, there's something good for Trudy?

I was so impressed by the episode that I was caught up short but also fascinated by a comment from a legendary adman, Tom Messner, who rose through the ranks at Carl Ally (later Ally and Gargano) before going out on his own (widely remembered as the creator of the advertising that put MCI on the telecommunications map), at a nifty panel put on Wednesday night by the Museum of the Moving Image: "The Real Mad Men: A Discussion with Leading Creators and Executives." Tom had gotten to talking about present-day TV, and said how impressed he is by the production values of current shows like Game of Thrones, and by contrast how meager he'd found the produciton values of last week's Mad Men episode, done mostly in simple closeups and two-shots, looking like it was made with a near-zero budget. The panel moderator, Barbara Lippert, a longtime columnist at Adweek and now editor-at-large at the website Media Post, pointed out that Matthew Weiner has complained frequently about the budgetary economies AMC has forced on him.


Meet Tom Messner in Yahoo's Giants of Advertising series.

Also on the panel was Ken Roman, who rose the rank of chairman and CEO of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide before finding himself at the shaft end of the kind of British-takeover deal that's not unfamiliar to Mad Men viewers, though the MM version, it was suggested was perhaps a decade premature. And providing insighto the TV world's view of the advertising world, there was longtime NBC and RCA high-ranking executive Herb Schlosser (it was under his watch at NBC, and under his order, that Saturday Night Live was created -- though he has always clear that beyond the mandate the actual creation was done by the creative team. And crucially there was Helayne Spivak, who had worked for Tom Messner at Ally and Gargano and subsequenly worked her way up, through, and around the advertising business (she was reported to have told the panel organizers, "I'm Peggy"), and was able to tell us that the show's portrayal of the minimizing and outright abuse of women looked only too familiar to her.

It was a funny and illuminating panel, especially enjoyable for the opportunity to get a little sense of how these four exceptionally successful people had made their ways through their assorted careers. Regarding advertising, one point they agreed on is that they don't recognize the unrelenting angst of the show's portrayal of the advertising business. They did it, agreed all the ad people on the panel, because it was fun. (One other thing the panelists agreed on: None of them was familiar with the term "mad men," which they insist is Matthew Weiner's invention.)

One of the questions that came up was whether in the real world an agency guy could pull a Don Draper and just disappear for a week or a month. Much to my surprise, the general feeling, as articulated first by Ken Roman, was that "those creative types" could get away with just about anything!

In case it isn't obvious, I'm writing today in anticipation of the soon-to-be World of No More Mad Men. For Museum of the Moving Image members, there is at least a grand send-off in the form of a gala celebration Sunday evening culminating in a communal viewing of the final episode, "Person to Person," on the museum's largest screen. I signed up for that as soon as the e-announcement went out, wanting desperately not to be left out. Oh, I'll be recording the episode as well, but I think I'll be happy to see it first in the company of all those other devotees.

For one thing, I'll bet it plays really well on a large screen before an appreciative audience. As I've mentioned here many tiimes, my introduction to The Sopranos was on the not-as-large screen of the not-as-large old Museum of the Moving Image, the summer when the first show's first two seasons were binge-screened (before there was such a thing!) at an eight-episode-a-weekend clip, a project that was curated -- and is, understandably, still fondly remembered -- by the museum's current chief curator, David Schwartz. And wildly fondly remembered by me. For a newcomer to the show, it was an amazing immersion -- seeing not just how remarakable those two seasons' worth of episodes were but seeing how amazingly good they looked on a movie-theater-size screen, and how well they played to a live audience.

I know there's a popular impression that we're now in a golden age of grown-up cable TV drama, but that isn't how it looks to me. The way I see it, there was Oz and The Wire and The Sopranos and Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and maybe a few honorable mentions (Boardwalk Empire had its attractions, and I stuck it out with Tremé, crazy as it drove me at times). And then?

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TV Watch: "Mad Men"'s Sally Draper then and now

Look who's back! Last week Sally (Kiernan Shipka) got an unexpected visit from old pal Glen (Marten Weiner), in No. 3 of the final seven episodes of Mad Men. No. 4 airs tonight.)

by Ken

It must have been at the Museum of the Moving Image's Mad Men exhibition that I ran into someone I know fairly slightly, and on seeing something related to Don and Betty Draper's (or should I say "Don Draper's and Betty Francis's"?) eldest offspring, daughter Sally, and my acquaintance commented how fortunate the producers had been in the way actress Kiernan Shipka had grown up over the course of the show's many years, and of course I had to agree.

This is of course a basic fact of life in a show with kids which has an extended run. You can audition till you're blue in the face to get just the right kiddies for Season 1, but you have no idea what, or rather who, you're going to be dealing with if you're lucky enough to get to a Season 5 or 6 or 7. And while I don't doubt that the Mad Men creative team would have done an excellent job of developing the character of Sally Draper to fit whatever sort of young woman Kiernan grew into, they've taken splendid advantage of the treasure they lucked into in the original casting.

The fact is that Kiernan herself has been a really fine actress at all the ages she has passed through these eight years. I remember being really knocked out by the Season 3 episode (No. 4, "The Arrangements") in which Sally gets close to her creepy Grandpa Gene and then deals with his death. The quality of Kiernan's work has enabled the Mad Men team to do with and for her what the best TV writers always do: incorporate the actor into the evolution of the character. In last week's episode the team had the inspiration to bring back Sally's old pal Glen Bishop, and revealed to us that Sally and Glen have been in close contact all this time. (It can't have been a strain for the casting people to locate the actor who played Glen, since he's creator-showrunner Matthew Weiner's son Marten. He sure looked different, though! And no, that thing between Glen and Betty wasn't forgotten either.)

It made for an obvious time for the AMC blog team to do a new interview with Kiernan, and they had the new interview ready to roll right after the episode aired.

Sally now: Kiernan Shipka in last week's episode of Mad Men

Kiernan Shipka, who plays Sally Draper on AMC’s Mad Men, talks about saying goodbye to her on-screen parents and Sally’s reunion with Glen.

Q: You basically grew up onscreen. Do you still remember your first day on set and that scene with Betty’s dry cleaning bag over your head?

A: I do! I remember it very vividly. I’m lucky – I was six when I started – and all my memories early on are very vivid and I’m so glad I have them.

Q: Sally has certainly gotten sassier over the years and lots of fans love her for that! Where does that sass come from?

A: I think the fact that Sally’s sassy is because she’s a very smart girl and I don’t think she likes to put up with a lot. I think that’s where it stems from and I think it’s heightened usually when she’s frustrated with someone or just having fun. She’s witty.

Q: What was it like to reunite with Marten Weiner in Episode 710? What do you make of Sally and Glen’s friendship?

A: It was great. I love working with Marten. He’s the best. I’ve known him for a really long time. It’s crazy [how] we’ve both grown up so much and he’s at real college now, so that [episode] was cool to do because it felt like a lot of time had gone by. Sally and Glen’s friendship throughout the years has always been a really special thing to both of them because they were there for each other. Sally never really had an adult to confide in or lean on and trust. She loves both her parents, but she doesn’t really feel that comfort to talk to them like she could always talk to Glen. This is such an emotional time for her. She was mad at him, but also sad for herself. She was really losing her best friend.

Q: Sally mentions not wanting to be like Don or Betty, but do you see any similarities that she shares with them?

A: I think that Sally is in some ways like her parents, but I think in general, she’s very much her own person. As an individual, I really just see her as Sally and not a reflection of either of her parents.

Q: Speaking of Don and Betty, how did you say goodbye to your on-screen parents?

A: The last day on set was very crazy and sad, for sure. Throughout the day, the cast members were all making their speeches and it was definitely somber. After everything wrapped, we hung out for a little bit and played Catchphrase and all sorts of other games. That was really fun and it did feel, in a way, like a last hurrah.

Q: We went back and reread your interview when we first spoke to you almost six years ago…

A: Oh my god! [Laughs]

Q: [Laughs] You predicted Sally would go to college and have a family, but now she seems pretty unsure about her future and career goals. If you could offer her any advice, what would it be?

A: I have faith in Sally. I would probably just tell her to do her thing because I think she’s pretty great and very smart and really on the right track. She’s going places.

Q: If you weren’t acting, what would you be doing professionally?

A: I always said I would want to be a food critic. I love eating so much and I love writing, so I thought it would be a perfect combination. It would definitely be something artistic.

Q: Are you still planning to have that full Mad Men series viewing marathon when all the episodes are over?

A: I couldn’t wait! I already did it. It was awesome. It’s really nice because the scenes that I was in are very nostalgic and just watching them as a whole is very special. Seeing the whole picture was nice.

Q: Have you gotten to keep anything of Sally’s? What do you treasure the most?

A: I got to keep Sally’s “SBD” necklace. I was very happy I got to keep that because I feel like it’s a very vital part of her character and her style – which is also something that I really love – and it’s also really cute, so I can wear it.

AND SALLY BACK IN THE DAY

Since our friends at AMC provided the link, we took a peek back at Kiernan's Season 2 interview.

Sally then: Here she is back in Season 2.

Over the course of Season 2, Sally Draper grew up and got into trouble. She visited Sterling Cooper, tried smoking, received a pair of riding boots, and even mixed cocktails. AMCtv.com spoke with Kiernan Shipka, the articulate 9-year-old actress who plays the Draper daughter.

Q: Sally Draper has a lot of personality. Do you relate to her personally?

A: I love playing Sally. She is a quintessential girl of the 1960s. People come up to me and say how much they relate to my character. It conjures up a lot
of memories for them.

Q: Did you study the ’60s to learn what it was like?

A: I talk to my mother and get her advice about what she was like as a girl.

Q: What’s it like working with your TV parents, Jon Hamm and January Jones?

A: They are great. We have fun, and then sometimes, we’re very serious.

Q: The costumes you wear as Sally are quite different from what kids wear today. Do you like her clothes?

A: Sally’s wardrobe is so pretty. I get advice from my fittings all the time! Sometimes I wear clothes that are like Sally’s.

Q: Sally also practices ballet. Do you dance?

A: I love dancing. I dance about 20 hours a week. I play piano, too, but it’s not serious yet. It’s mostly playing around.

Q: In Season 2, your character gets to order room service. Have you ordered room service before?

A: I love ordering room service. It’s my favorite thing to do when I stay in a hotel.

Q: What’s your favorite thing to order?

A: I’m pretty hooked on the French onion soup right now.

Q: At the end of Season 2, your character gets her own pair of riding boots. Do you ride horses?

A: I loved the riding boots. They were really beautiful. I ride Western and English. I would like to do it more.

Q: What do you think Sally will be when she grows up?

A: She could grow up in her mom’s footsteps and go to college and have a family, or I think she could be a dance instructor.

Q: What is your favorite thing about being on Mad Men?

A: I love the cast and crew. They are delightful to be around.

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Sunday Classics snapshots: "Is life a boon?"

Longtime D'Oyly Carte Opera Company principal tenor Thomas Round was not only long gone from the company but, unfortunately, in his late 50s by the time he made the recordings below.

Is life a boon?
If so, it must be befall
that Death, whene'er he call
must call too soon.
Though fourscore year he give,
yet one would wish to live
another moon!
What kind of plaint have I,
who perish in July?
who perish in July?
I might have had to die
perchance in June!
I might have had to die
perchance in June!

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit!
Man is well done with it
soon as he's born.
He should all means essay
to put the plague away,
to put the plague away;
and I, war-worn,
poor captured fugitive,
my life most gladly give.
I might have had to live
another morn!
I might have had to live
another morn!

Revised (standard) version

Thomas Round (t), Col. Fairfax; Gilbert and Sullivan Festival Orchestra, Peter Murray, cond. G and S for All, recorded 1972
Original version

Thomas Round (t), Col. Fairfax; Gilbert and Sullivan Festival Orchestra, Peter Murray, cond. Pearl, recorded in Battersea Town Hall (London), Sept. 12, 1972

by Ken

We'll come back to "Is life a boon?," the song that blossomed from tedium to magnificence when the composer was nudged by his wordsmith partner to start over. But first, let me explain as quickly as possible that it and our other musical snapshot today arise from two convergences:

• While I was waiting for the Museum of the Moving Image screening of Paddy Chayefsky and Delbert Mann's 1957 film The Bachelor Party (an adaptation of their 1953 live-TV version), part of the Matthew Weiner-curated series of films that impacted him in the making of Mad Men, I forced myself to finally finish Ben McGrath's April 13 New Yorker piece on fantasy sports, from which I learned that fantasy sports has pretty well eliminated any connection to the play of sports even as it has exploded all over the place and apparently provided the only reason to live for a lot of people who therefore may be thought to have no reason to live. This was a dangerous convergence because The Bachelor Party depicts a night in the life of five humdrum office mates, where four of them take the fifth out for a bachelor party that unswittingly slipslides into a crossroads that none of them is well-equipped to cope with, at least not without throwing open the question of what meaning or purpose, if any, their lives have.

• And the musical snapshots by that convergence further converged with one of last week's musical snapshots: the tenor's "Ingemisco" from the awesome "Dies irae" of the Verdi Requiem. For me personally, the other peak of Verdi's "Dies irae," the mezzo-soprano's "Liber scriptus proferetur" -- we heard the two together in the April 2011 Sunday Classics post "Verdi blows the lid off the whole Krap Kristian hypocrisy."

So I thought we would just listen again to the three complete performances of the "Liber scriptus" we heard back then -- sung, as I wrote then, by two suitably deep-voiced mezzos (Jard van Nes and Florence Quivar) and a genuine contralto (Lili Chookasian)."(We also heard Ebe Stignani's recording broken into segments.)

VERDI: Requiem: ii. "Dies irae": mezzo-soprano solo, "Liber scriptus proferetur" ("A written book shall be brought forth")

A written book shall be brought forth
in which all is recorded,
whence the world shall be judged.

Therefore, when the Judge shall be seated
nothing shall be held hidden any longer,
no wrong shall remain unpunished.

Jard van Nes (ms); Munich Bach Choir, Frankfurt Singing Academy, Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra, Hanns-Martin Schneidt, cond. Arte Nova, recorded Oct. 30, 1988

Florence Quivar, mezzo-soprano; Ernst-Senff Chorus, Berlin Philharmonic, Carlo Maria Giulini, cond. DG, recorded April 1989

Lili Chookasian, contralto; Tanglewood Festival Chorus, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Erich Leinsdorf, cond. RCA/BMG, recorded Oct. 5-6 1964, Apr. 5, 1965


KEEP THE "INGEMISCO" AND "LIBER SCRIPTUS" IN MIND

We're going to be coming back to them.


MEANWHILE HERE AGAIN IS "IS LIFE A BOON?"

A song of the splendor of (the second) "Is life a boon?" deserves a comparably magnificent performance, and unfortunately I don't have one of those to offer. Still the closest to me is Leonard Osborn's, which for all the familiar problems of his singing is the performance the not only has plenty of real vocal ring but a goodly helping of dramatic importance. Although as I've said I'm not a great fan of onetime D'Oyly Carte Opera Company principal tenor Derek Oldham, I kind of like both of his recordings, though I'm still bothered by the fake-classy verbal frilliness -- much better controlled, it seems to me, in the 1928 version. I suppose Richard Lewis's recording represents something of a compromise between the two, though you certainly can't say it's beautifully sung.

Which is why I've included the remaining two versions, which are both quite prettily sung but don't seem to me to carry any vocal or emotional weight, and pretty much miss the point of the piece.

GILBERT and SULLIVAN: The Yeomen of the Guard: Act I, Ballad, Col. Fairfax, "Is life a boon?"

Is life a boon?
If so, it must be befall
that Death, whene'er he call
must call too soon.
Though fourscore year he give,
yet one would wish to live
another moon!
What kind of plaint have I,
who perish in July?
who perish in July?
I might have had to die
perchance in June!
I might have had to die
perchance in June!

Is life a thorn?
Then count it not a whit!
Man is well done with it
soon as he's born.
He should all means essay
to put the plague away,
to put the plague away;
and I, war-worn,
poor captured fugitive,
my life most gladly give.
I might have had to live
another morn!
I might have had to live
another morn!

Leonard Osborn (t), Col. Fairfax; New Promenade Orchestra, Isidore Godfrey, cond. Decca, recorded July 18, 1950

Richard Lewis (t), Col. Fairfax; Pro Arte Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Dec. 10-14, 1957

Derek Oldham (t), Col. Fairfax; D'Oyly Carte Opera Orchestra, Malcolm Sargent, cond. EMI, recorded Oct. 29-Dec. 4, 1928 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

Derek Oldham (t), Col. Fairfax; orchestra, George Byng, cond. EMI, recorded Mar.-Oct. 1920 (digital transfer by F. Reeder)

Philip Potter (t), Col. Fairfax; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Sir Malcolm Sargent, cond. Decca, recorded Apr. 5-11, 1964

Kurt Streit (t), Col. Fairfax; Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Neville Marriner, cond. Philips, recorded May 1992

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"Most of us are failing constantly. We're looking for forgiveness. We're looking to make a fresh start" ("Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner)

Matthew W says: "I wanted to be in an environment where we're not part of entertainment wish-fulfillment, because most of us are failing constantly. We're looking for forgiveness. We're looking to make a fresh start. And that tradition of humanity on the show is something I'm very proud of. I don't see a lot of it anywhere else."

by Ken

As I noted last night, at the March 20 live event with Mad Men's creator-overseer at the Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Matthew Weiner talked about having been overwhelmed the day before, the first time he toured the museum's Mad Men exhibition (for which he had personally provided a great deal of material in addition to encouraging cooperation from the rest of the Mad Men team), seeing seven years of his life on display. By the second day, he reported, he'd begun to take it in more equably.

Without minimizing the importance of the obviously terrific team Matthew W assembled to produce these seven seasons of the show, there's also no question how much of it comes back to him. So as we approach tonight's launch of the final run of episodes, it's a treat to be able to share this Q-and-A from amctv.com's Mad Men blog, "on the end of an era and the legacy of one of television’s most beloved shows."

Q: It’s the end of an era! What does it feel like to be closing out Mad Men?

A: It sounds terrible but you know, right now I’m not feeling sorry for myself. I’m getting to experience the joy of finishing this — the completeness of it, the gratitude for getting to end it how and when we wanted to. I’m really excited. It’s a very positive thing. Ask me when it’s really over, like a year from now, and I’ll be like, “God, I miss Peggy. I wonder how she’s doing. I miss Betty. I wonder what she’s up to. Did she just drive by?” [Laughs]

Q: You’ve written seven seasons of the show. What’s the best advice you’ve gotten?

A: I got a lot of advice during Season 1 from people who are way more experienced and wiser than I am now… I remember someone saying, “Trust your gut. There’s no right way to do it. You’ll find your own way.” And about six months into the first season, I had a lingering, painful stomach ache every day for a week and I realized that it was from me psychologically focusing on my gut. [Laughs]

Q: You set out to portray the ’60s as one of history’s transformative periods…

A: I believe the show has pointed out that we have been going through a change. But we always are… That period between 1960 and 1965 where we really lived for the bulk of the show was largely forgotten. It was seen as the ‘50s, and people in their mind thought it went right from Fonzie to Woodstock, but it’s a much more gradual thing… The space program with all the beautiful ambition to put a man on the moon was really about a weapons program simultaneously. It was the friendly face of the weapons program. Stuff like that, I learned on the show!

Q: What historical moments did you most enjoy portraying?

A: The show is not driven by historic events. It’s driven by what is going on in people’s lives. Don’s getting divorced. Betty is sick of it. Don is alone. Peggy is sick of Don. Joan is going to realize that her expectations for a husband and a family were thwarted in some way and she has to reevaluate. The history stuff is not important.

Q: Speaking of the space program, if you could only send one episode of Mad Men on a mission to colonize another planet, which would it be?

A: I would send more important things than a TV show to populate a new planet. [Laughs]… And the format is really small, why can’t we send the whole series? I think it would be more valuable if we sent the whole thing.

Q: How difficult is it for you to pick favorite episodes or parts of the show?

A: I get asked all the time what’s my favorite this or that. I lived through all of it. It is tracing the history of both of the companies I worked in. It’s tracing the history of what happened in my life, the writer’s lives, in the actor’s lives. The show is told in the third person in this operatic context to some degree, but there’s so many things where I’m just, “That was a real guy, that was something that really happened to somebody.”

Q: What character do you most miss writing for?

A: I had a couple of ideas recently that were completely useless; one of them was for Roger and one of them was for Don. So I don’t know. I had a story thing and then was like, “Oh wait a minute, I’m never going to do that again.” [Laughs]

Q: Mad Men has impacted so much, from fashion to the quality of writing in television. Which aspect of the show’s legacy are you most proud of?

A: I believe that non-formulaic storytelling — storytelling on a human level with whatever genre that this turns out to be — that adventurousness in the writer’s room to take the risks on telling stories, that’s what I hope the legacy of the show is. That’s what I’m proudest of. And also I’m super proud of being part of a group mindset that’s accepting and nonjudgmental of human weakness… I wanted to be in an environment where we’re not part of entertainment wish-fulfillment because most of us are failing constantly. We’re looking for forgiveness. We’re looking to make a fresh start. And that tradition of humanity on the show is something I’m very proud of. I don’t see a lot of it anywhere else.

Q: Has the Mad Men genre gotten any easier to define?

A: It’s still hard. I have people come up who have no problems telling me they’ve either never heard of it or they don’t watch TV, and all I really want to say is, “It’s not what you think it is…” They’re not apologizing for not watching TV. They’re literally saying, “I’m not part of the lower part of humanity that is part of the mass culture.” And I want to say, “Uh, I don’t know if you know this, but if you’re going to the opera tonight, that was the TV of its day.” [Laughs]

The final seven episodes -- officially the "second half of Season 7," the first half of which aired last April-May -- begin tonight at 10pm (9pm CT) on AMC.

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TV Watch: Seasonal notes -- "Better Call Saul," "The Middle," and of course "Mad Men"

It's the birth of the "real" Mike! (Foolish as those other guys are made to look, I'll bet the actors were thrilled to be doing a scene with Jonathan Banks.) In this corner, the next-to-last episode of Season 1 of Better Call Saul registered as a "wow!"

by Ken

There's been an inordinate amount of crap to wade through on the TV scene, but also some oases. This includes a number that probably deserve -- and may yet get -- individual attention, but which I didn't want to go uncelebrated.


WASN'T THAT AN AWESOME BETTER CALL SAUL?


"You're not a real lawyer," Chuck McGill says to brother Jimmy. And cruel as it seems, is he wrong? Then again, if he hadn't had Jimmy forced out of the case that he found, who knows?

I'll be interested to go back and rewatch all the episodes, which I've enjoyed thoroughly, but which I suspect will prove even more absorbing now that we've gotten to know the characters so much better. This past week's episode, however, "Pimento," the next-to-last Season 1 episode, struck me as a total "wow!," with the biggest payoff we've gotten to date for our investment in these characters -- notably the four central ones: the brothers McGill, Jimmy (Bob Odenkirk) and Chuck (Michael McKean), their lawyer colleague Kim Wexler (Rhea Seehorn), and of course Jimmy's future right-hand man Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) -- the first instance of Mike being Mike.

How great was it to see Chuck fighting his way through his crippling sensitivity to electricity to actually return to HHM? (And the preparations everyone at the firm made, and the reception they gave him?) But more than anything, for me, there were those two great Jimmy-Chuck scenes -- first, as Chuck breaks the news to Jimmy that the two of them can't handle the potential blockbuster class-action case Jimmy has dug up, that there's no choice but to turn the case over to HHM. Already, I found myself remembering that these are two of the all-time great comic actors -- and remembering because there's nothing at all comical about what these guys are doing here. And then there's the scene excerpted in the above clip, as Jimmy reveals to Chuck that he knows it was Chuck who forced him out of the case. Awesome stuff!


MEANWHILE THE MIDDLE'S HAD A "HECK"-UVA SEASON


Sue has figured out that Axl has to be nice to her. (This is the least blah of the three clips ABC extracted for promotion from an episode that had at least 10 splendidly clip-worthy moments. Does the network have any idea what makes this show so good? Could this have anything to do with why so few people know how good the show is?)

I guess it's just a coincidence that ABC's two enduring quality sitcoms, Modern Family and The Middle, both have a daughter facing the agony of college application-and-acceptance. Of course Alex Dunphy (Ariel Winter) and Sue Heck (Eden Sher) don't have much else in common, but both shows have found fresh and engaging angles on the subject. I loved the plot line in last week's Modern Family of Alex's deep depression over her CalTech acceptance. I assumed she had lied about having been accepted, but the actual answer was way better -- especially since it was her grandfather Jay (Ed O'Neill) who instinctively understood, leading to a rare and really sweet moment between them.

For Sue, well, this whole year has been, finally, the Year of Sue. I think it's been wonderful the way the writers have found for her to finally begin emerging from her hard-luck cloud -- in a way that began to allow her to feel some confidence in herself and to imagine some hopes for her future. And that set up the wonderful moment of the Heck family celebration of the fact that -- they're poor! Finally they get to cash in on their financial misery!

It was also an episode that made great use of some of the show's inventory of recurring characters:

• Dave Foley as Dr. Fulton, Brick's (Atticus Shaffer), er, peculiar psychologist-counselor (who might be thought of as either half-hinged or half-unhinged, depending on your outlook)

• Norm MacDonald as Mike Heck's, er, peculiar brother Rusty, with a scene in which Mike (Neil Flynn) suddenly is forced to revisit their relationship through the eyes of a kid brother who worshipped a big brother who pretty much tormented him their whole lives.

• Gia Mantegna as Devin, the latest of Axl's (Charlie McDermott) way-too-good-for-the-jerk-he-is girlfriends, who made it possible for Sue to get some fake but nevertheless demonstrated loving from her tormenting big brother.

And it was an episode in which Frankie (Patricia) performed one of her trademark cringe-worthy meltdowns. Yes, I cringe; this time I'm pretty sure I said out loud, "Stop!" But of course Frankie can't stop. Only this time, with help from, of all people, Dr. Fulton, she fought her way back, and while her effort at mitigating the damage threatened to become as unbalanced as the original wig-out, she got through it, and even saw some payoff.


AND DON'T FORGET, TOMORROW NIGHT IS
THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR MAD MEN


Matt Lauer talks to the Mad Men crew on Today.

Naturally the folks at the AMC blog have some suggestions to prepare for this final run of episodes.

10 Ways to Get Ready for the Mad Men Premiere This Sunday
[from amctv.com -- links onsite]

The Final Episodes begin this Sunday at 10/9c — are you ready? Here are 10 ways to prepare for the beginning of the end…

1. Missed any episodes last year? Catch up with the Season 7 marathon on AMC, beginning Sunday at 2:30/1:30c and running until the premiere at 10/9c. You can also watch full episodes on amc.com (cable/satellite provider log-in required).

2. Relive the whole story with The Complete Mad Men Fan Companion. View props, blueprints, sketches, and photography, which include behind-the-scenes quotes and potent moments from all seven seasons.

3. Watch Matthew Weiner’s commentary on ten Fan Favorite Scenes, including the “Lawnmower Incident,” Lane’s fistfight with Pete, and the reunion between Don and Betty.

4. Take in the cast perspective with the Last Round With the Cast videos: Don’s Secret, Pete’s Life Lessons, Roger’s Awakening, Peggy’s Transformation, and Joan’s Ambition.

5. Get the scoop on all of last week’s Mad Men events, with full photo galleries.

6. See what other fans have to say: Watch the full set of Mad Men Tributes as Gary Oldman, Sarah Silverman, David O. Russell, and others reminisce and say goodbye to a favorite show.

7. Count down each and every punch, cigarette, and affair with Mad Men by the Numbers.

8. Check in on Mad Men: The Fan Cut. Watch fan versions of scenes from the very first episode, and share your favorites.

9. Put your knowledge of Mad Men trivia to the test with all the Ultimate Fan Games.

10. Join the Mad Men Social Club for early and exclusive access to photos, videos, interviews, features and more.

A FIRST LOOK AT THE MoMI MAD MEN EXHIBITION
(PLUS: THE WIZARD OF OZ IN GORGEOUS 3-D)


Don's Season 4 office, one of the two Mad Men sets reassembled in the Museum of the Moving Image's Mad Men exhibition, is apparently featured in this AP video accompanying Frazier Moore's rave review. (Maybe you can get it to play.) There's now a line on the museum's Web page for the exhibition which advises: "To avoid lines on weekend days, visitors are encouraged to arrive before 2:00 p.m.")

Today, following a screening at the Museum of the Moving Image (in Astoria, Queens) of Warner Bros.' spanking gorgeous 3-D digital restoration of The Wizard of Oz (there are daily screenings at 12:30pm through April 12; there's also a daily 45-minute "Wizard of Oz Character Remix" every day 12 2:30pm, recommended for ages 5-10), I finally got upstairs for my first look at MoMI's much-heralded Mad Men exhibition, which runs through June 14 and has been really packing crowds in.

At the wonderful sold-out March 20 MoMI event celebrating Mad Men and creator Matthew Weiner, the honoree tried to describe his reaction to seeing the exhibition, for which he and the rest of the Mad Men team had provided abundant cooperation. He had first seen it the day before, he said, and was kind of overwhelmed by seeing seven years of his life on display. (There are, among lots of goodies, a generous assorment of his notes, memos, and scripts.) Seeing it again that day had made it all a lot more manageable, he said.

The crowd today was so abundant that I focused on the things that were viewable without shuffling through the enormous procession, like the two actual rooms reassembled from warehoused sets: the original Draper kitchen and Don's Season 4 office. Not only has each set been lovingly put back together, but for each there's a screen display with an assortment of scenes shot on that set! Beyond that there's just so much that I know I'll have to clear more time to take it all in.


THAT'S RIGHT, MoMI IS SHOWING THE WIZARD
OF OZ IN 3-D DAILY AT 12:30 THROUGH APRIL 12



And it looks fabulous!

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Frames of reference: I don't know what the hell Alabama Shakes is/are. Do Alabama Shakes connoisseurs know what "North by Northwest" is?

No, you can't click on anything here; it's just a screen grab. If you want to watch the Exclusive New Mad Men Trailer Featuring Alabama Shakes, go here.

by Ken

So I got the an e-mail yesterday. owing to my membership in the highly exclusive Mad Men Social Club (so exclusive that the only way to become a member is by signing up), which contained a tease-and-link for the above clip. No, my blood didn't start racing. Because, keen as I am for the start of this final run of Mad Men episodes (come on, April 5!), I know perfectly well by now -- as we've discussed here so often -- that while Mad Men creator-mastermind Matthew Weiner knows as well as anybody that his product must be promoted, he's not going to let either his own people or the AMC PR corps reveal anything of substance about as-yet-unaired episodes.

(How would you like a PR assignment like that? You've got to try to drive people wild with anticipation without telling them [us] anything that they [we] don't already know.)

I respect the hell out of Matt W and any other responsible parties for this. There are movie and TV promoters who don't give a damn, and we wind up watching the first hour of the movie or the first episode or two of the TV series seeing all sorts of stuff we've already sort-of-seen. No sir, I want my slate for the episodes-to-come to be as clean as humanly possible when they finally come. (Come on, April 5!) Even if right now this is making me just the least bit crazy. Even more so since, as I reported, I zipped through the seven episodes that constituted "the first half of Season 7," as we're committed to calling the episodes that aired between April 13 and May 25, 2014, which sure sounds like "last season" to me. This is one helluva mid-season lull we've been enduring, waiting for the seven episodes that will constitute "the second half of Season 7." (In the event that April 5 ever comes.)

I've seen enough of these phony-baloney trailers to know that they're not going to tell me anything useful. And of course my official position is that I don't want to know anything about what's going to happen until it, you know, happens. It would be different if somebody were to slip me some secret link and maybe accompanying secret code so I could start watching those final episodes, but that's not going to happen. (Is it?)

Which doesn't mean that I didn't watch the damned "exclusive look" trailer. And, as I expected, I didn't see anything that told me anything about anything.

It was only after watching the clip, though, that I looked a little closer at how it was presented on-screen (see above) and then flashed back to how it had been teased in the AMC Mad Men Social Club, like so:



Do you notice anything different?

The e-mail tease was for a "New Trailer Featuring the Alabama Shakes." I didn't linger over it because I knew perfectly well that I had no clue what, or maybe who, "the Albama Shakes" is, or are -- an object or objects, a person or persons, or maybe a debilitating physical condition? I wasn't any the wiser, Alabama Shakes-wise, after watching the clip. But I did notice that here what I was being offered was a "New Trailer Featuring Alabama Shakes," which isn't quite the same thing. At this point I just went to Wikipedia and learned that, as I was coming to suspect, Alabama Shakes is a musical group. They could still be known, of course, as "the Alabama Shakes," just like the Rolling Stones are known as, well, the Rolling Stones, but I gather from glancing through the Wikipeda entry that this isn't the case. I don't rule out the possibility that the person who wrote the copy for the e-mail isn't a lot clearer about who or what the Alabama Shakes is/are than I am.

What we have here is what we might call "a frame-of-reference" issue, and a pretty crude one at that. The promoters of this promotion assume that the promotees will know who or what (the) Alabama Shakes is/are. I describe it as a pretty crude example of a problem with "frames of reference" because pretty obviously the promoters don't care whether I know who or what (the) Alabama Shakes is/are. I am, you might say, safely outside their frame of reference. Fortunately, this isn't exactly the first time I've found myself in this position. I am, by now, pretty well used to it. I'm often more surprised when I'm included "in the frame" of a current pop-cultural reference.


JUST AS OFTEN, I'M ON THE INSIDE OF A
"FRAME OF REFERENCE" LOOKING OUT

Perfect example: Barring unforeseen developments, like maybe getting hit by a bus or maybe the world coming to an end (hey, these things happen!), tomorrow I'm going to be writing a little about North by Northwest. Ohmygosh, do I love North by Northwest, and tomorrow I'm all booked for a real, live big-screen screening of it at the Museum of the Moving Image, the first of the movies chosen by the aforementioned Matthew Weiner for the MoMI film series, "Required Viewing: Mad Men's Movie Influences," being shown alongside the museum's Mad Men exhibition, which opens today and runs through June 14. (I had to skip the "members' preview" of the exhibition last night in order to finish a post, but I should arrive early enough tomorrow, even traveling from my NY Transit Museum tour of the Mother Clara Hale Bus Depot in Harlem, to have a first look through the exhibition before the screening.

Am I psyched for this, or what?

The only thing is, I'm realizing before I even set down any actual words for the blogpost I'm imagining, that I have a whopper of a "frame of reference" problem. North by Northwest came out in 1959. In its time it was, I think, an extremely well-known movie. (Yes, it's a movie, in case you didn't know.) As you would expect, considering that it surely has to rank on any serious list of the Greatest Movies Ever Made. I'm not saying flat out that it is the Greatest Movie Ever Made, though I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just saying that, if you were to try to compile such a list, how it, not only do I not see how it could be left off the list, I don't see by what criteria it could be kicked off as you tried to whittle the list down.

And yet, as I was reminded some months back when I was preparing to take the plunge and was shopping for a Blu-ray edition of the film, and looking at Amazon comments for guidance as to the quality of the versions possibly on offer, a whole hell of a lot of people have, or at least had, never heard of the picture. Quite possibly a lot of people who consider themselves conversant with movies generally, would guess that a film as ancient as this must be in black-and-white -- well, heck, the film Alfred Hitchcock made immediately after North by Northwest, which is to say Psycho, is in black-and-white. And many of those same people might guess that a film of this antiquity may not even have talking. Assuming. of course, that they're aware that there were once such things as "silent" movies.

And wait -- even as I typed the name of Alfred Hitchcock, I was painfully aware that there are a lot of people today who have no idea who Alfred Hitchcock is, or was. No, is, because there seems to me no chance that he will ever be dislodged from the list of the greatest of all movie directors.

Then there are a couple of names that were once as famous as any that have been bandied about in Hollywood -- Hitch's two most frequent leading men, Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart. It was Cary Grant who was cast to play North by Northwest's Roger Thornhill, and his performance is not only the crowning glory in one of Hollywood's most storied careers but a performance of a kind I can't imagine any other actor, past or present, being able to give. I had never known, however, until I was diving into the zillion or so hours of special features that came on the Blu-ray, that as the script was in development, Jimmy Stewart wanted ever so badly to play the role. And while his Roger Thornhill wouldn't have been anything like Cary Grant's, I'll bet he would have been fantastic too.

Now, as I approach writing this piece, I'm inclined to guess that with the DWT audience, I'm probably going to be okay with Hitch, Cary, and Jimmy. How about, say, James Mason and Martin Landau, though? How do you talk about the astonishing achievement of North by Northwest without hailing their stunning performances, making such dazzling use of every second of the limited screen time they have, and making their characters' curious relationship if anything more interesting, if less shocking, in 2015 than it was in 1959?


I put this shot of Cary Grant as Roger Thornhill in Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest atop my earlier post about the Museum of the Moving Image's grand celebration of Mad Men, including the Matthew Weiner-selected film series "Required Viewing: Mad Men's Movie Influences." Now I have to wonder, how many readers today will know who Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock are?


SAY, JUST WHERE IS ALL THIS "FRAME
OF REFERENCE" STUFF COMING FROM?

Very good question! No, it didn't just come to me spontaneously. It was entirely prompted by the latest piece, in the March 9 New Yorker, in John McPhee's ongoing series of "Writer's Life" pieces reflecting on his occupation as a writer: "Frame of Reference: To illuminate -- or to irritate?"

It's not as if I was unaware of the issue, or didn't have it at least in the back of my head with everything I write or edit. What I have to say I wasn't crediting fully enough is just how pervasive the issue can be for anyone who tries to communicate with fellow humans in any medium. John really had me reeling! And so I'd like to talk a little more about his piece in my 7pm PT/10pm ET post.

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TV and Movie Watch: Celebrating "Mad Men" and Matthew Weiner at MoMI -- and even if you can't get there

Escape from Grand Central: In North by Northwest (made only a couple of years before the dawn of the Age of Mad Men), as Matthew W reminds us, Cary Grant plays an ad man named Roger (seen here trying to slip out of NYC by train; the ticket agent with his bald head to us is that long-enduring character actor Ned Glass). We might add that Hitchcock's ad man named Roger has gotten through life trafficking heavily on his charm.

by Ken

After writing my Sunday Mad Men-themed post, as some readers may have noted from my initial updatings of the "On Demand" CC situation, I proceeded to zoom through Episodes 1-5 of Season 7, and last night I had to restrain myself from watching Episode 7 as well as 6, mostly in the interest of salvaging a bit more sleep than I'd managed Sunday night.

The reason I'm returning to the subject so soon is that time could be a factor for readers within striking range of NYC's Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria (Queens). As you'll see in a moment, there is one more day (Wednesday) left of members-only registration, before sales are thrown open to the general public, for an even that looks to be the biggest deal since that historic night when MoMI had David Chase on hand for a screening of the first and last episodes of The Sopranos, namely:

THE EVENT

Our Matthew on-set with Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson)

Screening and Live Event: INSIDE MAD MEN:
A CONVERSATION WITH MATTHEW WEINER
A conversation with Matthew Weiner and a guest moderator (to be announced)

Part of Required Viewing: Mad Men's Movie Influences
Friday, March 20, 7pm

Matthew Weiner, the creator and showrunner of Mad Men, will discuss the influences and inspirations behind the series, talk about his creative and collaborative process, and give a look behind the scenes of the remarkable film series Required Viewing: Mad Men’s Movie Influences. Special guest moderator to be announced.

Tickets: $25 public ($15 members at the Film Lover, Dual, and Family levels / free for Silver Screen members and above).  Members at these levels may reserve tickets in advance.  Tickets will be made available to the public on Thursday, February 26 at 12:00 p.m.

The David Chase extravaganza not only sold out, but sold out a simulcast presentation, with large numbers of Sopranos fans still turned away. And despite the truly tumultuous storm that night, I think everyone left feeling that it had been a glorious, not-to-be-forgotten evening. NYC metro-area Mad Men fans who aren't already members may want to think about joining by tomorrow to assure themselves of members' access to tickets. (Yes, I'm pretty sure you can join and buy your ticket in the same operation.) What's more, members at the "Film Lover" level and above have free access to nearly all of the films (now with online registration access) being screened in the MoMI film series Required Viewing: Mad Men's Movie Influences, as chosen by Matthew Weiner himself -- about which more in a moment.

THE EXHIBITION


That guy standing all by himself way off to the left of the set is literally out of the picture.

As part of its celebration of the culmination of Mad Men, MoMI has an exhibition opening in a couple of weeks which looks to be at least as exciting as the museum's 2013 Breaking Bad exhibition, which I found pretty darned exciting.

Exhibition: MATTHEW WEINER'S MAD MEN

March 14-June 14

This new major exhibition explores the creative process behind Mad Men, one of the most acclaimed television series of all time, now launching its final seven episodes on AMC. Featuring large-scale sets including Don Draper’s office and the kitchen from the Draper’s Ossining home, more than 25 iconic costumes, props, video clips, advertising art, and personal notes and research material from series creator Matthew Weiner, the exhibition offers unique insight into the series’ origins, and how its exceptional storytelling and remarkable attention to period detail resulted in a vivid portrait of an era and the characters who lived through it. The Museum’s exhibition marks the first time objects relating to the production of Mad Men will be shown in public on this scale. The Museum will also present An Evening with Matthew Weiner and a film series featuring movies that inspired the show, selected by Weiner.

The exhibition Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men will be joined by other initiatives around New York City celebrating the series. Mad Men’s final seven episodes will air on AMC on Sundays at 10:00pm ET/PT, from April 5 through May 17. Visit amctv.com for more information. 

Matthew Weiner’s Mad Men is presented with generous support from AMC and Lionsgate.

THE FILM SERIES


Shirley MacLaine and Jack Lemmon in The Apartment, which "completely engaged my imagination as a representation of office and sexual politics at the time" and "blends humor and pathos effortlessly.

Central to MoMI's Mad Men celebration is a mini-festival of films chosen by Matthew Weiner himself as cinematic influences on the show.

With its richness of detail and depth of characterization, Mad Men has an artistic ambition that reveals many influences. Series creator Matthew Weiner drew from literature, cinema, fashion, photography, architecture, music, and more, to help create the world of the show. His goal was not just to give us a realistic depiction of the period, but to delve deeper, to take us into the inner worlds of the show’s characters, into the obsessions, desires, and dreams that lie beneath the surface. For this film series, Weiner has selected ten movies that had an important influence on the creation of Mad Men, movies that made a deep impression on him and were required viewing for people working on the show. The films in this series all played an important role in making Mad Men such a great accomplishment as a narrative of America in the 1960s.

The comments below are all Matthew W's own brief descriptions of how each film influenced him and Mad Men. Note that he'll be presenting The Apartment himself, at a separate event immediately following the "conversation and screening" event on March 20, and for that, everyone has to buy tickets, though MoMI members get a discount. All the other screenings are free for members at the "Film Lover" level and above. Advance reservations can be made online.

"REQUIRED VIEWING: MAD MEN'S MOVIE INFLUENCES"

Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959). Saturday and Sunday, March 14 and 15, 5:30pm)

This film became an important influence on the pilot because it was shot in New York City, right around the time the first episode takes place. While more overtly stylized than we wanted to imitate, we felt the low angles and contemporary feel were a useful reflection of our artistic mindset. I had studied the film in depth at USC film school and absorbed much of its “ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances” narrative drive. It is worth noting that Cary Grant is playing an Adman named Roger, who is forced to assume another man’s identity.

Billy Wilder's The Apartment (1960), with Matthew Weiner in person. Friday, March 20, 9:15pm

I had seen this for the first time in film school and was bowled over by the dynamic writing and the passive nature of its hero, Jack Lemmon’s C.C. Baxter. It is definitely a story of its times, firmly rooted in a Manhattan where seemingly regular men behave unscrupulously, and it completely engaged my imagination as a representation of office and sexual politics at the time. It blends humor and pathos effortlessly.

Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). Saturday, March 21, 1:30pm, and Sunday, March 22, 4pm

Released to negative reviews, it now ranks for many as the greatest film ever made. I had not seen it before the show began, but finally caught it on a break after the first season. I was overwhelmed with its beauty, mystery, and obsessive detail. I remember watching the camera dolly-in on Kim Novak’s hair and thinking, “this is exactly what we are trying to do.” Vertigo feels like you are watching someone else’s dream.

David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1987). Saturday, March 21, 4pm, and Sunday, March 22, 7pm

Remarkably original for its time, this film had an impact on my generation that can’t be underestimated. I saw it as I was finishing college and applied to film school soon after. Indefinable in genre, Blue Velvet moves from murder mystery to film noir to black comedy to coming-of-age story, almost from scene to scene. With stylistic richness and psychological complexity, it celebrates the horror of the mundane and is filled with reference to a kitschy and ironic “’50s” milieu. This incredible observation informed much of the 1980s and became an inspiration for the series and its attempt to equally revise our mythical perception of the period.

Claude Chabrol's Les bonne femmes (1960). Friday, March 27, 7pm

I first saw this in film school and shared it to help the production design of the pilot because it was shot in the streets of Paris, with little embellishment, at exactly the time we were trying to recreate. The thematic aspects were valuable as well, as the film tells the everyday story of four bored working women led astray by their romantic fantasies. My favorite sequence, a kind of postscript to the whole film, is particularly relevant to the series as it features an unknown woman looking right down the lens at the audience.

Fielder Cook's Patterns (screenplay by Rod Serling, from his 1955 TV version; 1956). Saturday and Sunday, April 4-5, 4pm

I saw this film version as a child on sick day from middle school; it was originally written and produced for live television in 1955. Rod Serling ingeniously creates a boardroom passion play with a chilling first-person climax that I never forgot. We used it often over the life of the series to get a sense of the real offices and to see how virtue and ambition can clash when the older generation is pushed aside and ruthless business confronts humanity.

Delbert Mann's Dear Heart (1964). Saturday and Sunday, April 4 and 5, 7pm

Stumbling upon this film gave me the impetus to finally write the pilot. I was taken by this mainstream Hollywood film that reflected a very casual attitude towards sex, something that seemed uncharacteristic to my preconceptions of the era. With its glib bachelor hero and dowdy, conservative ingénue, it tells a tale of moral corruption and heartbreaking duplicity in the form of a light comedy. As Glenn Ford tries to change his ways and take responsibility for his meaningless romances in glamorous Manhattan, I found a jumping-off point for the series.

Delbert Mann's The Bachelor Party (screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, from their 1953 TV version; 1957). Saturday, April 11, 4pm

Originally written and produced for live television in 1953, this film reteams writer Paddy Chayefsky and director Delbert Mann, and reflects the painful realism of their previous collaboration, the Oscar-winning film Marty. The “swinging bachelor” was a trope of fiction at this time, but this film poetically undoes the clichés of male camaraderie and presents both the issues of fidelity and loneliness with an unflinching eye.

Jean Negulesco's The Best of Everything (1959). Saturday, April 18, 2pm, and Sunday, April 19, 3:30pm

A highly stylized and star-studded adaptation of Rona Jaffe’s 1958 best-seller, this film became part of the group mind-set for the pilot. Although I felt that it was a visually glamorized, and extremely melodramatic, I could see that its story was a well-observed representation of working women in New York at the time. The workings of the office, the romantic complications, and the living situations all smacked of the truth. Like many popular films of the time, it helped to inform our characters—they certainly would have seen it, and it would have had an impact on their real expectations.

Arthur Hiller's The Americanization of Emily (screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, 1964). Saturday, April 25, 2pm, and Sunday, April 26, 1pm

I saw this first in film school and was taken immediately with Paddy Chayefsky’s ironic and rhythmic dialogue and by its deep anti-war sentiment, which was shocking because it was rarely discussed in the context of the allies in World War II. James Garner’s portrayal of Charlie, a callow and glib womanizer who has given up on humanity and is then forced into heroism, influenced our attempt to recreate the mid-century male mindset and its relationship to existential absurdity.

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