Mad Men
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Smoke Gets in Your Eyes starts with a definition of Mad Men.
After a pause it adds, They coined it.
Control of the image.
The tale is told in accordance with the rules of the society in which it takes place.
Screenwriter and series creator Matthew Weiner and director Alan Taylor are controlling storytellers.
They dole out facts about the ad agency Sterling Cooper and its employees on their own timetable.
Even though we get to observe intensely private moments, were always on the outside looking in.
Our peeks behind the curtain are not comforting.
The portrait of Don is the best example of the wayMad Menreveals itself.
Hes one of the most powerful characters on the show, but we cant access his interior.
Who is Donald Draper?
We dont know yet.
When will we find out?
When the show is ready to tell us.
The details arent filled in, but are slowly unveiled.
These men are complacent about being on top.
The new secretary, Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), exemplifies the episodes storytelling approach.
It places viewers on the outside.
Peggy doesnt just feel like an outsider, sheisone: a woman in a mans business.
Peggy arrives from the outside, knowing only that this is her new workplace.
Its a white-collar cattle pen, with boxy desks and featureless columns and walls largely devoid of art.
Secretaries bang out away under rectangular light panels.
Switchboard operators connect the firm to the outside world.
She also lays out what she considers an ideal future.
Also: She needs to show more leg.
Joans not just telling Peggy how to do her job.
In the scene where Pete peals, Ready to sweet-talk some retail Jews?
he refers to Peggy as Dons little friend and asks her if shes Amish or something.
(Im from Brooklyn, she replies.)
At Joans urging, Peggy visits a gynecologist.
The new vantage point makes it look as if Peggy is in the preferred birth-giving position, circa 1960.
Supine, subservient, helpless.
I really am a very responsible girl, Peggy says, in a faraway voice.
Everywhere you look, men are making jokes about having women, as they might have lunch or drinks.
Whether the women want to be had is immaterial.
Its all part of a script that men and women know by heart.
The entire setting is theatrical, and not merely because it is a cabaret.
The waitresses and the performer are playacting a certain ideal of femininity.
The men are playacting the rituals of moneyed urban masculinity.
Do you have a girlfriend, Salvatore?
Come on, Im Italian, he says, an ad-libbed nonanswer that leaves the evenings script undisturbed.
A lot of the dialogue in Smoke conflates sex and ownership, women and property.
Although the dialogue sketches the characters in brisk strokes, its never purely functional.
Consider the agencys condescension to Rachel Menken.
Its about controlling a story and an image.
Rachel wants to change the stores image because its narrative has grown stale.
When Rachel balks, Don tries to shut her down by invoking her father.
Her unflappability would be impressive even if she werent the only woman in the room.
Rachel has punctured Dons sense of entitlement, and it stings because hes not used to that.
Im not gonna let a woman talk to me like this.
This meeting is over, Don says, and storms out.
He and Rachel find common ground during an amends-making dinner.
Their conversation is charged with sexual possibility, but Dons presumptions dampen it.
(This is another moment where Smoke condescends to the past.)
Roger, a master diplomat, blames media manipulation for the industrys troubles.
Lee gripes about government regulators.
Theyre both miffed that they cant do business exactly the way they want to.
Theyre the most entitled people in an episode filled with entitled people.
So Don comes up with Lucky Strike: Its Toasted.
Dons speech justifying the slogan is the most powerful moment in Smoke.
Don says that all advertising is based on one thing: happiness.
Smoke is the hair dye, the makeup, the camera face, the good side.
What is his story?
How did he get to be so persuasive?
The first time we see him, were looking at the back of his head.
Subsequent shots reveal a circa-1960 dreamboat throw in along the lines of Rock Hudson or Kirk Douglas.
His hair looks Brylcreemed.
Theres an empty glass in front of him.
Hes scribbling notes:Brand name.
Old Gold.He stays seated as he interviews a busboy (Henry Afro-Bradley) about his smoking habits.
We never see Don from head to toe in this scene, only in close-up.
How tall is he?
What kind of shoes is he wearing?
Does he carry a briefcase?
In the next scene, hes introduced in a slightly blurry profile close-up, knocking on Midges door.
Finally, theres a cut to a wide shot of Don entering Midges apartment.
Its the first time that we see all of him.
The glimpse lasts a few seconds, and then again were looking at the back of his head.
Throughout the rest of the episode, its work, work, work and words, words, words.
Don chooses his words carefully, to sell pitches to clients and his image to colleagues.
He rarely reveals more than he wants to.
Is Don as selfish, cold, and reactionary as he seems?
His scenes with Rachel suggest otherwise.
And his final scene with Peggy very nearly confirms it.
What little weve learned about Peggy makes us think that this is anathema to her.
Shes only doing it because its the kind of thing that Joan advised her to do.
First of all, Peggy, he says, Im your boss, not your boyfriend.
Peggy apologizes for letting Pete in, then assures Don that shes not that kind of girl.
Dons boss mask fallsbut only for an instant.
Of course, he says.
Go home, put your curlers in.
Get a fresh start tomorrow.
Excerpted with permission fromMad Men Carouselby Matt Zoller Seitz.
