The Lindsay Brothers

Author: shanelindsay

  • Don Draper’s Back Story

    Like most red-blooded American males, I think Mad Men is one of the finest shows on television. It’s a time capsule brought to life, a nostalgia-tinged journey through the Sixties. The costumes, the attitudes, and the smoke — the smoke! — create a world both alien and familiar. And it has some of the best writing on the planet.

    Only one thing gets me, and I wonder if the writers knew what they know know about the show’s success, would they do things differently? It has to do with Don Draper’s back story. For those of you unfamiliar with the show, Don is the hard-drinking, hard-smoking tough-as-nails creative director of the ad agency. He’s the star of the show, and he’s far from perfect. Donald Draper is mesmerizing that the show suffers whenever he’s not on camera. It’s precisely because of his flaws that he becomes such an intriguing character. Gifted, brilliant, and capable of self-destruction — if his iron will ever cracks.

    Don harbors a secret which was there from the beginning. I’m going to tell it to you, so avoid reading further if you plan to watch the series from scratch, but I’m really only spoiling a few episodes of Season One.

    Don Draper is not this man’s real name. He is actually Dick Whitman, a deserter from Korea, who managed to steal the identity of another fatally wounded soldier and create a different life for himself on Madison Avenue. Don/Dick is haunted by his past, and it informs several episodes with different plot lines.

    But the series didn’t need it.

    I suspect that the show’s creators really didn’t know what they had. The stolen identity angle sounds like an idea for a series pitch meeting, something to provide a bit of intrigue, when what you’re really selling is the mystique and flavor of a lost period of Americana. A show set in an office building probably doesn’t sound too dramatic on paper. Like the characters in their story, the creators needed an idea to suck people in. In this case, TV executives.

    Once the show found its tone and hit its stride, the Dick Whitman plot just seems superfluous. Mad Men is at its best when it showcases Don, Roger, Pete, Betty, Peggy, and Joan struggling to keep clients, navigate relationships, generate the next new idea. A thriller mystery thread just diverts attention from the real action.

    It’s not that the Dick Whitman back story is poorly executed. It just doesn’t fit as well as everything else. And I think this pertains to all back story. In the end, only what’s happening to the characters right now really matters. The rest belongs on the cutting room floor.

    This man stole your identity and became the world's greatest advertising mind. Don't you wish you had LifeLock?

  • When Star Wars Kicks Into High Gear

    So it’s been awhile for you loyal readers, and I have to admit this blog is still casting about for its true identity. This blog is like Jason Bourne. There’s a killer idea somewhere inside it, but first you have to sort through the jumbled memories and the missing passports and a sinister Brian Cox. And why do I always get him mixed up with Brian Dennehy? Did the world really need two grumpy old character actors named Brian?

    What I’d really like to do is talk about is the art of crafting a good story. As a writer, it’s a subject I find endlessly fascinating. So many tunnels to explore. So many hidden passages. So many dead ends. My life is one big exhibition hall for this topic. I come into contact with stories every day, either things that I watch or read, or things that I’m writing myself. It seems there’s a lesson to be learned in all of them.

    Take Star Wars. It has a reputation as an action movie, but it actually takes its time to develop. In the first hour, there are only a handful of sequences that can be considered action. An opening space battle, good. Ben cuts off a guy’s arm. Han shoots Greedo, then later blasts some troops as they take off from Mos Eisley.

    When it comes to conflict, mortal danger is one of the most extreme situations a character can find him or herself in. So far, Luke and Han haven’t really seen a lot of action. But once on the Death Star, consider this escalating series of events, each of which puts our heroes lives on the line:

    • Han, Luke, and Chewie open fire in the cell block trying to rescue Leia.
    • Troops show up and pin them in the corridor.
    • Leia blasts an escape route into the trash compactor, where Han nearly kills them all with a ricochet laser bolt.
    • Luke then gets sucked under water by a snake creature.
    • Then the walls start closing in.
    • C-3PO rescues them, but troops show up immediately and they are forced to separate to avoid getting killed.
    • Luke and Leia get trapped on a tiny platform above an endless pit.
    • Troops try to blast them from across the pit.
    • Luke and Leia make a daring swing across the pit.
    • Han and Chewie run into an entire garrison of troops and run for their lives.
    • Ben ends up in a lightsaber duel to the death with Vader.
    • The rest of the heroes shoot their way back onto the Millenium Falcon.
    • TIE Fighters pursue them and Han and Luke have to shoot them down in order to escape.

    That’s a lot of potential death scenes. Ben didn’t even make it out alive. And they come at you one right after another. Boom! Boom! Boom! What started as a search for lost droids on a sleepy desert planet has suddenly turned into Die Hard on a Death Star, and I think it’s a big reason why fans fell in love with the movie. It put the characters in a series of escalating conflicts, in which one wrong move could end them.

    What strikes me is that none of these action scenes is especially imaginative. Big pit, deadly snake, troopers with guns. The setting makes them unique, but there’s nothing we haven’t seen before (the magnetic shield that causes the ricochet laser blast comes closest). What makes them fun is how one follows another, without letting up. Once this action sequence kicks into high gear, you don’t get a breather until the heroes are on their way to Yavin, to prepare for the final battle.

    I think the lesson here is that you don’t have to always invent new ways to endanger your heroes. You just have to keep your foot on the gas.

    Stormtroopers are apparently equipped like Batman

     

     

  • Hoffa

    On the one hand, HOFFA is a sprawling epic about the labor battles of the early Twentieth Century, featuring Jack Nicholson in epic, sprawling nose makeup. On the other hand, it has Danny DeVito as Jimmy H’s chief right hand thug — which for all of Danny’s tough-guy persona (and his acting is fine), often feels a lot like going into a street fight against a cadre of Wicked Witches, with only the Lollipop Guild as your wing man.

    DeVito also holds directing honors, working from a gritty script by Hollywood genius David Mamet, and he displays a deft touch, aside from his casting decisions regarding himself. The movie is briskly paced, and full of wonderful period details. Not too many tough guys today running around in berets and suspenders. Nicholson is in fine form, and while he still chews scenery, he at least has the decency to swallow it. The film could have gotten bogged down in too much of the political nonsense around Hoffa’s ascent to the head of the Teamsters, but it wisely stays in the gutter, as DeVito and his thugs start riots, firebomb offices, and stare down mobsters.

    Interwoven through the entire film is an extended sequence of Jimmy Hoffa waiting at a truck stop, in what is clearly meant to be the twilight of his career. The film doesn’t shy away from the mystery of Jimmy’s fate. The solution may not be as earth-shattering as everyone imagines, but it’s true to the story. This intercutting does tend to draw out the length of the film, and they probably could have used another round at the editing bays. But all in all, this is an entertaining drama with excellent acting in the lead roles, and a biting script by Mamet.