By drax on Skatehive
Marriage of Figaro (S1x03) Airdate: 2 August 2007 Written by: Tom Palmer Directed by: Ed Bianchi Running Time: 42 minutes The world, as we are so often reminded, is in a perpetual state of flux, yet popular memory frequently ossifies the past into a monolith of static conformity. Mad Men’s genius, established from its very first frames, is to depict the ultra-conformist cultural stasis of Eisenhower’s America not as a serene, unchanging tableau but as a pressure cooker of suppressed desires and imminent revolution. This tension is rarely overt; it simmers beneath the impeccably tailored suits and the perfectly coiffed hair. In the series’ third episode, aptly titled Marriage of Figaro, these glimpses of tectonic social shift are rendered with exquisite subtlety, observable not through grand events but through the fissures that appear in the meticulously maintained illusions of its characters. For the knowledgeable and astute viewer, this instalment serves as brilliant example of dramat