I was thinking about how memory works, and asking myself, Do I have flashbacks the way Don does?
Nope.
I started chewing on this thought, and I actually asked Jon Hamm the question: Does he have memories like that? He said, sure sometimes there are flickers, images, but not narratives. And he quickly pointed out (and I agree) that some of it is because Mad Men is a television show. The inside of my brain is less cinematic, the set designers are less thorough.
The best filmic depiction of memory is surely The Limey. Terence Stamp’s title character remembers a tiny sliver, and then later remembers a moment before that sliver, and then the sliver again. These tiny moments later flesh out into a full conversation, and then he remembers the next sliver. And then in a later scene he goes back further, and so on. Out of sequence, snippets, and it all adds up to memory. (Must-see movie, by the way.)
But for Don’s memories, I think there’s more to it than simple television convention. I think Don’s memories are more intense, more compelling, and more narrative because Don never shares them.
You and I tell stories about our lives to the people we love, and sometimes to the people we know casually. These stories gain narrative flesh & bones in the telling. Just last night I was telling someone about my family, and a whole sequence of events that happened in the ’70s came out; events I hadn’t thought about in years and would barely have remembered if we hadn’t been swapping stories. Don never does that. Don’s memories stay quietly untold, burning inside whether with pain or ordinariness. So when they come out, I think, they come out in the story untold, colored by the details remembered, and capturing his attention.
My story last night surprised me. Don doesn’t share his surprise, so he can stare, drugged, and laugh in a motel room, or let milk boill over, utterly lost.
26 Responses to “Flashbacks”
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My memory flashbacks aren't cinematic either, but I will sometimes see something from a certain era, in a film or TV program, that will stir up some memories.
It happened last night while I was watching the 2006 Matt Damon film, "The Good Shepherd". A scene set in the early part of the 1960s in Washington DC, showed an AB&W Transit Co. bus.
I don't know where the producers managed to obtain it, but it was completely authentic, right down to the style of the vehicle and the color scheme of the logo and paint job. It was exactly the type of bus I rode to elementary school, beginning in 1960 and just seeing it, brought back memories.
One memory was about one of the advertising posters that you would see inside, along the top of the wall of the bus, above the seats.
A pretty scary one for a first-grader to see, was a "public service" ad that showed an angry-looking Soviet Premier, Nikita Khrushchev, fist raised, with the caption: "We Will Bury You!". I think it was an ad for Voice of America, or maybe, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. This was at the height of the Cold War, and such things were commonly seen back then.
Sometime, reading here on this blog and of course, MM itself, gives me pause to remember some vignette from my past. I love that about the show and this site!
Now that's interesting, because sometimes my memories ARE like Don's flashbacks. It's as if I'm re-telling the story inside my head, narrating it to myself as it were.
I think that's what Don's doing (to the extent that it isn't simply a TV-script device to tell us the story). He doesn't tell anyone else his stories, so he tells them to himself. And maybe they aren't even necessarily accurate down to every detail – they might change and morph a bit with each re-telling, adding little details that maybe weren't really there, changing little bits of dialog to make the story more real or more fulfilling for himself.
He IS a naturally gifted storyteller, after all (something Betty was ultimately deeply disturbed by). That's what makes him so good at his job. He knows how to spin a compelling narrative, weaving in bits of truth and wish-fulfillment for himself and for other people.
I actually have aural versions of the type of flashbacks Don has in MM – the one I remember best was when watching Ken Burns' Baseball documentary. He was covering the 1975 World Series between the Red Sox and the Reds, particularly the famous game 6, when Carlton Fisk (my favorite player) hit a home run in the 12th inning to win the game.
What I had completely forgotten was the role Bernie Carbo, a pinch hitter, had in the game, because he tied it up with a homer in the bottom of the ninth. Until the night I saw the documentary, if you had said that name to me, I wouldn't have recognized it. But the minute I saw the footage, I could hear my father, clearly in my head, yelling "Bernie Carbo?! Who the f___ is Bernie f___ing Carbo?!" – he was clearly exasperated with the team's manager. When Carbo hit the home run, though, he yelled basically the same thing, but in celebration and I heard it as clearly as if he had been in the room. Very cool.
I did have to check with Dad to be sure it happened, and he remembered it as well, because my mother yelled at him for swearing in front of us.
Wait, are you saying that DD has narrative flashbacks not because he's a tv character, but because he's some kind of special snowflake? There I would have to disagree with you.
We all have memories we don't share, especially if they are like the ones we see from Don. His aren't little anecdotes, they're soul shattering revelations. And many of them aren't actually memories or flashbacks, but hallucinations or reveries. Most people don't share those with anyone.
I have no problem granting Weiner the latitude of using some conventional methods of revealing character. Except, actually, flashbacks are overused on this series. Hamm is a great actor, you don't really need them.
@ 5 Donnybrook, I disagree that the flashbacks are overused on MM. I think that, although Jon Hamm is a great actor, actually seeing what Dick Whitman experienced as a child (or Don's memory of what happened) add a great deal of subtext to the story and, for me at least, add a great deal to how we see him interact with the world and why he does what he does. We don't get that with the other characters, and as it was pointed out in the symphathy/empathy post, some of think that is why we give Don so much slack for his bad behavior that we don't give to other characters.
Memory is a strange thing, it changes over time, and even though we might swear that we are remembering something 100% accurately we may be shading it with our current state of mind, other things that happened after that memory, or even the limited view of what we saw. I think the reason we have seen so many variations on the movie Rashamon in so many tv shows (especially it seems in the late 70's early-mid 80's) because it is amazing how differently we can all see the same events. It seems that some of the flashbacks we are clearly seeing as Don flashing back, like the warm milk flashback of his birth-date, that we can give only so much credence to b/c we know it is not only just a memory and not a true snap-shot of the past but also these are things that occured before he was born and when he was a baby so could not have remembered, so they are based on what he was told . While other flashbacks seem to be the silent ominiscient narrator or objective eye of the story telling us what happened in the past as it happened, much like the many things that we see on the show where Don isn't there and we are definitely not seeing it from his eyes and we know they are trustworthy.
I also think that memories can depend on what you are remembering and why. Sometimes when I'm alone I have longer memories than others and seem to sort of see and hear what I remember of an incident and other times they are just slivers, so I suppose it could be either way. Don might be an exceptional remememberer b/c of his creative gifts and his rarely sharing his memories with others, or it could just be the way tv and film-makers make their art. Of course we are all very different and experience things so differently, much like Don and Suzanne's discussion about the color blue, so even though we all have a common notion of what a memory is, how we actually experience it, how vivid it is are probably very, very different. What great food for thought this post was, thanks Deb.
The reasons I think the flashbacks are overused are:
1) It's way too maudlin and Dickensian. Prostitute, mean dad, mean stepparents, kills a guy and takes his identity? Yeah, a little over the top.
2) It's too obvious a ploy for sympathy. Whenever Don acts like a total asshole, they balance it with some other horrific childhood "memory" or story. It's becoming too transparent.
3) Again, Hamm can win sympathy for Don through his performance.
4) Our imaginations can dream up stuff even more horrific (to us) than showing something explicitly. Just ask Hitchcock (for one example).
5) Redundancy. Pretty much all the flashbacks in S3 were stuff we already knew about Don. The only new piece of info I can think of is where the name "Dick" came from (which, again, is over the top).
I think that the flashbacks on Mad Men are a narrative device: present not necesarily to illustrate that Don has detailed powers of recollection, but because they help advance the story.
In short, I think the flashbacks are there for us.
I read somewhere that each person's memory is kind of a lockbox, full of gossamer stuff — and that each time we recall a memory, we change that memory in some way. Polish it, if you like: make it more what we want it to be. If we polish this stuff enough, it becomes part of what we can call "declarative memory": the things we tell, are used to telling. Our story.
I am sure that I saw part of this recovery process in action, when I asked my father to tell me what had happened with his mother (who died when he was young). I was in my early 20's when I asked, and it was just the two of us, alone at dinner. The poor man had nowhere to go.
What he dragged out and reluctantly showed me were only the most shattered shreds of a narrative. It was obviously something my dad had had to go through once, and hoped to never experience again. I was instantly sorry I had asked.
I never thought I'd see anything like that again — until Jon Hamm got so damn close, in "The Gypsy and The Hobo". Right down to the tone of voice: that stricken whisper.
Jon Hamm may be the best actor in the medium, right now.
I on the other hand am not much of a daughter.
Well, call me maudlin, sentimental, whatever, but I really like the flashbacks. They flesh out the story, and they reveal more about Don's character. I suppose they could have just used the device of Don telling the story to someone else, like when he told Rachel about his parents, but I don't see the flashbacks being any more gimmicky than revealing his story that way.
I don't think over the course of 3 seasons they've overdone it. How many have we seen?
Here's the list of the flashback scenes I remember (not necessarily in order):
1) Meeting the hobo
The circumstances of Dick's birth; Dick is adopted by Abigail & Archie
2) Korea- Dick gets off the truck & meets Real Don; the explosion kills Don; the Purple Heart hospital scene; Dick/Don on the train when his family receives the casket
4) Dick falls down the stairs, Adam is born
5) Don the car salesman meets Anna
6) Don confesses to Anna that he is Dick
7) Don & Anna, Christmas 1953 (?) Don tells Anna he's marrying Betty
9) A hallucination of Archie in the motel room (not exactly a flashback)
10) Archie & the cooperative
11) Archie is killed by a horse
Did I miss any?
That's over 39 episodes.
Grrrrr. Hate those accidental emoticons.
I actually enjoy the flashback scenes. They give us background information in a much more interesting way than if Don simply relayed the story to someone else (which, of course, he would never do). While it is possible that the writers may do this in part to soften Don's image whenever the audience has become disgusted by some of his actions, I think more likely that the writers do this simply to explain why Don is the way he is. Don's disconnected and troubled childhood simply helps the audience understand why he is disconnected and aloof in his present day life. Although, I don't think his disconnected childhood explains his philandering. A philanderer is a philanderer and I certainly don't think Don is a philanderer b/c he is looking for the love he didn't receive as a child.
Flash backs are a sympton of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. When these happen the feelings you experience are *real*. It is like you are at the scene of thing you're remembering. It's pretty awful.
Well, I wouldn't go so far as to say Don's flashbacks are PTSD-style flashbacks. I think they are truly memories, and they are presented as such. I don't think he's having any problem separating his memories from reality, in the sense that he in some sort of dissociative state, actually reliving the event as if it is actually happening again.
I certainly don’t think Don is a philanderer b/c he is looking for the love he didn’t receive as a child. I agree- with the exception of Rachel, and possibly Suzanne (as a Suzanne critic, I can't believe I'm saying that!) it doesn't seem like Don is looking for LOVE exactly.
But having said that, what IS he looking for in these affairs? And will it be different once he's single again? Hmmmm….
ann marie- oops- to finish my though here — WE call them "flashbacks" to describe the dramatic device employed by MM of showing re-enactments of Don's memories, but I don't think we (me, anyway) mean that term in its true clinical psychiatric use.
#13 gypsy howell. I agree with you about Don's relationship w/Rachel. There was some thing more to it than just an affair. However, I am not so sure it started out that way or those two people connected on some deeper level just up to or during their affair. She certainly felt it was something more than an affair b/c she discussed it w/her sister during that one lunch scene. I'm not sure I agree with you about his relationship w/Suzanne b/c even though Suzanne discovered that she wanted something more, I don't believe he did really. It just never felt as if the actors in their characters connected, you know? So, is Don looking for something in his affairs or is he just that kind of a man who has affairs b/c he "wants what he wants when he wants it?" What about Midge? Don seemed to be able to go to her w/work problems but readily let her go when he realized she was in love with the beatnick (is that the right thing to call him?). Doesn't this suggest that his affairs are something more meaningful? I'd like to know whom his first affair was with? Then, you know the old saying: "once a cheater, always a cheater…"
#15 Suzanne – it's interesting that (as far as I can remember) Rachel is the only person Don ever felt comfortable enough opening up to about his birth and childhood.
Was it love? I think you're right- it was definitely love for Rachel — all those conversations with her sister, and then when it was over, she was extremely upset – upset enough to have to leave her business at a very critical point to take an extended leave of absence.
Was it love for Don? I think to the extent that he's loved anyone besides Betty, it was love. In that little scene at the speakeasy with Roger & Freddy, the pseudonym that popped into his head was Tilden Katz — not the kind of thing that would happen if he were over Rachel and had moved on.
Be interesting to see how easily he "moves on" from Betty too, or whether it will hit him hard emotionally. Maybe he'll find he misses her. Or will he just miss the idea of the perfect family life?
I come down in the middle on the flashbacks. Sometimes they seem flat out corny and too broadly acted — I'd put many of the Archie related ones in this category. Others are handled with a more subtle touch, like those featuring Anna. Now that we've had three seasons full of flashbacks, they're an established device. But use them too much, and they become like Wayne's World, and easy for SNL and others to mock.
As for myself, I don't have full blown flashbacks, but I have many sensory memories. When I hear "Silver Bells" I remember walking amid Christmas shoppers at a very young age, holding my mom's hand and hearing the song on a department store loud speaker. And the aroma of the Paris Metro brings back my first trip there when I was 16.
Some of Don's "flashbacks" aren't so much flashbacks, but scenes he's pieced together of his past, either through memory or what someone has told him. Certainly the scene at the very beginning of S3, about Dick Whitman's birth, is not something Don actually remembers. Either it's the way he pictures things went down, based on the information he was given, or the writers are filling us in on what actually happened as Don is thinking about it, knowing things that even Don doesn't know. (Did he actually know his father didn't have an extra 15 cents, or whatever it was, for a condom? Who would have told him such a thing?)
Similarly, in long flashbacks like the Korean War sequences, does he actually remember every single line of dialogue, word for word, that everyone has said? It's doubtful. Of course, when he was remembering the Korean War scenes, he was stoned, so it would have been easier for him to "re-invent" what was actually said to him during a long reverie. But it doesn't feel like a stoner's daydream; more likely, Don was having the flashbacks in fragments out of sequence, like most people do, and what we saw was what occurred in real time.
Deborah,
I loved your thought provoking post.
I'm so glad you liked "The Limey". One of my favs. I especially liked the fact that the Terence Stamp character's flashbacks featured real movies of the young and very handsome Terence Stamp in a hoodlum acting role (don't remember the movie). The flashback movie was from the early 1960s I believe.
I like the flashbacks on MM. Don's backstory is one of the pillars this series is based on. It has to be told.
The movie is "Poor Cow."
Well, I had a dream recently in which I was president of the new ad company Don formed. Though I slowly realized I had no power since all I did was sign documents for approval; eventually Don started giving me his mail and things to photocopy. I think they figured out I was going to mess up everything else but could not fire me.
I think the fact that I was not given an office should have tipped me off. It didn't so I don't blame them at all.
Hey, I'm surprised nobody caught my goober, which I just realized rewatching S1. It was actually Hobo Code where he was stoned and remembering being on the train going home from Korea, not NvK where we saw the actual Korea scene where he switched the tags. I'm not up to NvK yet, so I don't know what the transition was to that particular flashback.
Meh, forget what I just said. I'm getting my episodes scrambled, forgive me.
OK, I think I have it straight now. Hobo Code is the episode where he gets stoned and remembers the scenes with the hobo from when he was 10. That's where I was getting mixed up; I knew there was a stoned flashback in there somewhere, I just crossed up where it was. (I swear I'm not actually stoned myself.)
I just dropped by to borrow a cup of sugar. We’re mixing up Sidecars next door.
I like the post and I want to comment while I’m in the room. I personally don’t have a problem with flashbacks when they’re used to reveal more detail about past events and to flesh out a character’s back-story.
I agree with those who don’t like them when they’re used to convey a different mood subtext; something that may not have been well presented or hinted at in the main story, (it feels to me like the director is trying to recover from “ineptitude with insufficient cover†in those cases) or when they’re used to express emotions that a more skilled actor might have given us in the main narrative.
But I certainly don’t feel either of those two conditions apply to Don’s flashbacks, so I am content.
Oh yeah, before I depart, I want to compliment you on the spiffy new header. That’s a great photo; it projects an honest sense of community and the spirit that will be needed to get Sterling, Cooper, Draper and Pryce off the ground. It’s feels both hopeful and practical; and fun too. Hope Rich forgives you for the decapitation, though. Hey, everyone can’t get a pony, buddy; be reasonable about it.
I noticed the new image earlier in the week but literally just now read the caption. May I just say the copy sings? (!!!!)
I really like it and it has the bonus charm of being the truth.
Smiley emoticons all around!
@8 Anne B, I wanted to send this last week but the site kept timing out on my work computer and I am still waiting for Santa to bring me a new laptop (think I shouldn't hold my breath on that one
). Anyway, I don't think you are or were a bad daughter at all. To me it sounds like you are a loving daughter who not only wanted to know more about your father and his life, you wanted to know someting about your grandmother; that is not a bad thing. I'm sorry it made your Dad so sad to talk about it, but I know that sometimes, at least for me, when something has really bothered me and hurt me (though I'm fortunate enough to not have experienced such a tragedy especially so young) it sometimes really helps to get it out even if it is tortured at first. I had some stuff happen in my life at one period that made me feel awful and sub-human and one of the first times I talked to someone about it, I was almost HYSTERICAL, but I felt a little better later and now I can talk about it and it isn't so bad. I dont' know if that was the case with your father or not, but I don't think you should feel guilty about asking. I'm sure he wasn't upset with you he just still misses his Mom so at least you know that your grandmother was very loved and probably a good person.