Analyzing Mad Men
"The pull-out and the push-in fit Don Draper like his two best Brooks Brothers suits," argues Jefferson Robbins in his masterful video essayanalyzing the cinematography of Mad Men on The Film Freak Central Blog. The six-minute short brings together a series of shots from the hit TV show with Robbins' voice-over commentary, showing and telling how these two moves, when the camera dollies in on a character, or when it rolls back, often framing people, especially Draper, within the boxy constraints of doorways or windows. Robbins notes that the show's cinematographers avoid the now common handheld, frenetic camerawork in favor of older, more stately techniques as they are more suited to the era of the show, and he makes a convincing case for the rationale behind the pull-out and push-in. More significantly, though, the short video essay illustrates the power of the form. Journalism can, and should, be visual, and as the tools - in this case to rip the media, edit it together, and combine the footage with the voice-over and other sound elements - gets increasingly easier to use, our ability to write with images, and to craft more compelling critical analysis, has to follow. And now I'm off to practice ripping...
