Day: September 30, 2010

Mad Men Season Four, Episode 10: “Hands and Knees”

By Jennifer Baldwin. Mad Men is not what one would call a “plot heavy” show. It’s more like a series of character studies — an exercise in atmosphere and style — and less a wham-bang, action-packed thrill ride. But every few episodes a season, Mad Men lets loose and the stuff really hits the fan. Secrets are revealed! Violence breaks out! Babies are born! Geopolitical events cause everyone to freak out!

Episode 10, “Hand and Knees,” is one of those “plot heavy” episodes. And yet, while everything seemed to go down in this one, nothing really came of it in the end (or at least, nothing yet…).

Lane got whacked with a cane by his stern father, so he’s going back to England. But the ramifications of this are still unclear. Joan, presumably, had Roger’s baby aborted (though there was debate at my viewing party over whether she went through with the procedure or not). But on the surface, Joan seems to have gone back to status quo.

Roger and Lee.

In probably the biggest plot development of the episode, Lee Garner Jr. told Roger that Lucky Strike is moving to a new agency, but again the effects of this shake-up are yet to be felt, since Roger hides the news from the other SCDP partners.

Even Don’s storyline, in the end, amounted to nothing (for now).

Everyone was on their hands and knees — some literally, like Don vomiting in his bathroom or Lane after the cane-thwacking, while others only figuratively, like Roger, pleading with Lee to give SCDP one last chance with Lucky Strike — but everywhere, these characters were falling down, weakened, reduced to the level of servants and criminals. And yet, all of these “hands and knees” moments happened in private — in those secret, almost clandestine moments between intimates that no outsider is privileged to see. I think this calls back to the theme in Episode 7 — that issue of intimacy, of and what it means to know another person — only this time we’re seeing the truly dark side of things, those relationships and aspects of the characters that are too horrible to let escape beyond the confines of an apartment living room or a private booth in a restaurant.

Joan and Roger.

Lane’s cruel humiliation at the hands of his father; Don’s complete breakdown at the thought of being arrested by the feds; Roger’s final failure as a business man with Lee Jr.; Joan’s face-saving lie in the abortion doctor’s office — all of these moments of humiliation are kept secret by the characters involved, none of them willing to let others know the depths of their shame and failure. In fact, when Lane reveals the secret of his relationship with Toni to his father, he’s “rewarded” with violence. By the end, in that last scene with the partners, Lane has learned to hold his tongue and keep his private vulnerabilities to himself.

Even Don is still burdened by secrets, still wearing the mask. He tells Faye the truth about his identity — she’s been granted special intimacy — but Don’s not ready to reveal himself to the world. He was on his hands and knees for most of the episode, but he’s not ready to stay there.

The theme of the episode couldn’t have been more obvious thanks to the music selection over the closing credits: an instrumental version of Lennon and McCartney’s “Do You Want to Know a Secret.” Everyone’s got secrets; everyone’s hoping they won’t get found out. But the meaning doesn’t stop there. A closer look at the lyrics reveals a more sinister tone:

Listen. Do you want to know a secret?
I promise not to tell.

There’s a slyness to this lyric, an implication that secrets will be told, it’s only a matter of time. The promise not to tell is empty. Who will be betrayed?

Closer. Let me whisper in your ear.
Say the words you long to hear.

Pete.

This suggests that the words the characters long to hear are not the words they need to hear. Don hears Faye say everything will be alright, he gets reassurances from Pete that everything’s been taken care of at the Department of Defense, but are these just empty words? Can the secret go away this easily?

The episode ends with a whimper and not a bang; most secrets stay hidden. But I have a feeling these secrets won’t last more than a week or two. Nobody knows much for now, but I get the feeling things are about to explode, much like the crowds at Shea Stadium when the Beatles took the stage. After all, there are only three episodes left.

Posted on September 30th, 2010 at 6:10pm.

Tony Curtis, 1925-2010

Tony Curtis.

By Jason Apuzzo. I wanted to say a few words about Tony Curtis, who sadly passed away today at age 85.

Tony Curtis was something of a fixture in my household growing up – he almost seemed like part of the family. Isn’t it funny how movies stars can become like part of your family? Back when classic movies used to run on television much more frequently then they do now (classic movies having been – for better and for worse, relegated completely to Turner Classic Movies), Tony Curtis’ cherubic face and delightfully unsoftened Bronx accent would appear all the time on TV – and my father would stop and point at the screen and say, “Look – there’s Tony Curtis!” And I would look, and smile, and always for the same reason: that it just seemed so improbable that this charming, ethnic kid from the Bronx with the soft face and jarring accent would actually be a movie star. And married to Janet Leigh. And would be someone who played heroes, such as the the Viking Erik in The Vikings. All of it seemed so improbable – the kind of thing that could only happen in America.

He seemed to be living The Dream.

Only years later did I learn that things were much more complicated for him – that Tony Curtis (born Bernard Schwartz) grew up desperately poor, speaking only Hungarian until he was age 6. His father was a Jewish tailor, and the family lived in the back of the shop. His mother was apparently a somewhat abusive figure in Curtis’ life; she was at one point diagnosed with schizophrenia, a mental disease which may have been passed on in some form to Curtis’ brother Robert, who was institutionalized. Things were basically very tough for Tony Curtis in his young life. How tough? He and his younger brother Julius were at one point placed in an orphanage for a month because their parents couldn’t afford to feed them. Four years later, Julius was struck and killed by a truck.

This was his young life.

It seems like the movies were his solace. Apparently he saw Cary Grant in Destination Tokyo and Tyrone Power in Crash Dive, and this led him to enlist in the Navy and serve on a submarine tender. The funny part of it is, years later he would ‘serve’ on board a submarine with Cary Grant in Operation Petticoat, and also pull off a delicious Cary Grant imitation in Some Like It Hot. I guess that was his way of thanking a guy who’d inspired him, who’d helped pull  him out of what had been a troubled and desperate life.

Tony Curtis as Erik in "The Viking."

You were always rooting for Tony Curtis in his movies. The reason, I suspect, is because he never quite seemed as handsome as Kirk Douglas, as commanding as Burt Lancaster, as volcanic and sexual as Marlon Brando, as brilliant and subtle as Laurence Olivier, as ruthless and passionate as Anthony Quinn. Tony Curtis was more like the rest of us, a regular guy from the Bronx who might easily be working (a lá Marty) in a butcher shop – except that this Jewish kid from the Bronx had make it big in Hollywood.

A few thoughts on the The Vikings, my favorite Tony Curtis film. So much of what makes that film compelling is how awkward Curtis seems – like a misfit – in the macho world of the Vikings. Kirk Douglas and Ernest Borgnine seem completely in their element in that film. Tony Curtis? Not so much. The cast of The Vikings is filled to the brim with people who are, alternately, either too beautiful or too sophisticated for Curtis to cope with – the impossibly gorgeous Janet Leigh as Princess Morgana, the cunning and wicked Frank Thring as Aella, or James Donald’s crafty Lord Egbert. [And don’t forget Orson Welles’ basso profundo voice narrating the film.] Curtis basically seems to have nothing going for him in this film except a Bronx accent and a grudge.

Having fun with wife Janet Leigh.

And yet … as the story unfolds, we gradually realize that there’s something we’ve underestimated about Tony Curtis’ character: his tenacity, a tensile inner strength – a passion for justice, perhaps? – that drives him far beyond what he initially appears capable of. Curtis’ ‘Erik’ character carries around with him an inner resource of integrity – nicely symbolized by the royal pommel stone around his neck – that will carry him through thick and thin, and against adversaries far more powerful and cunning than he is. This is the side of Curtis that always comes out in Act 3 of his films – the survivor, the tough Bronx kid who climbed out of a tragic life and made it to the top.

And so the character who begins the movie as a pitiful slave will eventually win both the throne of England – and the lovely Princess whom he prizes above all else. And all of it is credible, because Tony Curtis transforms himself convincingly over the course of the film from desperate schlemiel to bad-ass Viking conqueror, a hardened rival to Kirk Douglas’ fatally sentimental ‘Einar’ character. Does Tony Curtis give a great performance in the film? You bet he does – in fact, it’s iconic. I’ve always suspected, in fact, that the big emotional cues from The Empire Strikes Back were borrowed more or less unaltered from The Vikings, and from Tony Curtis’ performance specifically. If you’ve seen both films, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Govindini and I had the chance to meet Tony Curtis a few years ago. He was, as you can imagine, courtly and old-school. He had a kind of impish charm that carried over from every movie performance I’d seen him give as a kid. You had the sense standing next to him that he’d lived a great life, and was grateful for the opportunity that America and Hollywood had given him. Even though the industry had to some extent forgotten him, he was neither bitter nor remorseful – the twinkle was still very much in his eye, and he was still living The Dream. Hell, what did he have to complain about? The man had enjoyed six wives – from Janet Leigh to Jill Vandenberg! Not bad for a Hungarian kid from the Bronx.

As we were chatting, he smiled at one point, looked Govindini over, and kissed her hand. Then he winked at me. I laughed. He looked and acted like a sweet young charmer that day, and I’ll bet he still is. I imagine he’s chatting up Janet Leigh somewhere right now.

Posted on September 30th, 2010 at 2:08pm.

Houellebecq

By David Ross. With John Updike, J.G. Ballard, and David Foster Wallace gone to their reward, I have settled on Richard Wilbur, Thomas Pynchon, and Michel Houellebecq as my favorite living authors, though not without reservations. French debauchees with middling literary talent at the sentence level are not my usual cup of tea, but Houellebecq is such a savage hater of modernity, such a mordant, devastating analyst of European ennui. He understands that the collapse of our master narratives leaves us only a few squalid makeshifts in place of the old meaning of life, and he definitively presents, like a head on a plate, the spectacle of rootless, mindless, affectless post-Christian Europe (see here for my previous comments). I appreciate his honesty, his disgust, his discerning sense of cultural calamity.

The Paris Review has published a long interview (see here) that includes several comments worth pondering. It has often occurred to me that Houellebecq is fundamentally conservative. Certainly his critique of European post-modernity (post-humanity?) aligns him with a certain kind of conservative anti-modernism, including my own. Houellebecq gives this account of himself:

Paris Review: They say that you are on the right politically because in The Elementary Particles you seem to be against the liberalism of the sixties. What do you think of that interpretation?

Houellebecq: What I think, fundamentally, is that you can’t do anything about major societal changes. It may be regrettable that the family unit is disappearing. You could argue that it increases human suffering. But regrettable or not, there’s nothing we can do. That’s the difference between me and a reactionary. I don’t have any interest in turning back the clock because I don’t believe it can be done. You can only observe and describe. I’ve always liked Balzac’s very insulting statement that the only purpose of the novel is to show the disasters produced by the changing of values. He’s exaggerating in an amusing way. But that’s what I do: I show the disasters produced by the liberalization of values.

Houellebecq is indeed a chronicler of “the disasters produced by the liberalization of values,” and his books, I would say, belong to the literature of trauma. His rigorous amorality and joyless pornography are likely to appall conservatives, but the impulse to “observe and describe” – and sometimes satirize – must not be confused with acceptance or even celebration of a society reduced to hedonism and social atomism. Disporting with Thai prostitutes is to make the best of a fallen world, or perhaps to rub one’s own face, not unpainfully, in the impossibility of something more or better.

Another important self-insight:

Houellebecq: It may surprise you, but I am convinced that I am part of the great family of the Romantics.

Paris Review: You’re aware that may be surprising?

Houellebecq: Yes, but society has evolved, a Romantic is not the same thing that it used to be. Not long ago, I read de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. I am certain that if you took, on the one hand, an old-order Romantic and, on the other hand, what de Tocqueville predicts will happen to literature with the development of democracy taking the common man as its subject, having a strong interest in the future, using more realist vocabulary you would get me.

Paris Review: What is your definition of a Romantic?

Houellebecq: It’s someone who believes in unlimited happiness, which is eternal and possible right away. Belief in love. Also belief in the soul, which is strangely persistent in me, even though I never stop saying the opposite.

Houellebecq’s identification with ‘the great family of romantics’ is a sly bit of self-understanding. He belongs to what I call the school of thwarted aspiration, following in a line that includes Wordsworth, Byron (in his primary mode), and Tennyson. In this tradition, the poet yearns desperately for transcendence but lacks the imaginative energy or ingenuity to realize his desire (“I don’t have any interest in turning back the clock because I don’t believe it can be done,” as Houellebecq says). The thwarted poet may ponder the psychology of his own failure (Wordsworth passim); descend into insincerity and evasion (“Hide me from my deep emotion, O though wondrous Mother-Age!” cries Tennyson); adopt some consolatory strategy (Wordsworth’s feeble embrace of the “still, sad music of humanity”); or harbor an implacable, sullen resentment against the limiting order of nature (Byron, George Sand’s Lelia). Houellebecq embodies a combination of these poses. His libertinage affords both escape and consolation, though this consolation, like Wordsworth’s, is always self-conscious and melancholy; his libertinage also functions, much like Byron’s, as a protest, a gesture of disrespect and disobedience – a poke … well, not in the eye.. What makes Houellebecq unique as well as perplexing is the near-complete submersion of his romantic aspiration (“I never stop saying the opposite”), which speaks to the impossibility of enacting or even expressing a romantic program in the postmodern context.

While on literary subjects, I want to say a word about Jonathan Franzen. Several years ago, I tried to read The Corrections. It was so shabby and brainless l that I could manage only ten pages. The Atlantic has come around to my view and takes a vicious clawed swipe at Franzen (see here). Is The Atlantic morphing into a conservative New Yorker? Maybe so. More and more it seems to be filled with politically incorrect raised hackles. I will have to pay more attention. I look forward to a similar article on Dave Eggers, the most foppish and ridiculous of literary impostors.

The Boston Globe, finally, has this fond piece on David Markson’s library and the strange afterlife of authors’ book collections. Markson, who died in June, was a legitimate loss. His novel Wittgenstein’s Mistress (1988) has a gradually waxing reputation as a minor masterpiece. David Foster Wallace listed it among his five direfully underappreciated U.S. novels (see here). It’s been on my reading list for fifteen or twenty years. Markson’s death has prompted me to jump it to the top and I hope to read it soon. I primarily know Markson as a scholar and advocate of Malcolm Lowry, in which capacity he did yeoman’s work.

Posted on September 30th, 2010 at 10:19am.