That Time Period Accuracy Though

I recently started watching the show Mad Men and was simply floored by the aesthetic and production design. In making a period piece you have to be extremely attentive to even the smallest details. A visual that doesn't match the time could cause a jarring halt to the audience's immersion.

As I was looking up pictures of the set this one really caught my eye. If you are at all familiar with Piet Mondrian's work you can easily spot similarities. In a large selection of his artwork he focuses on using only primary colors and bold simple lines in his compositions. This classic combination of red, blue and yellow is seen everywhere from advertisements to IKEA furniture (and even the set of Mad Men!)

Composition II in Red, Blue and Yellow, 1930

Other than the set following famous artist's concepts, the costume design is extremely on point. It is always matching the year the show is in. My roommate is obsessed with this show and explained to me that you can actually see the fashion evolve as time passes throughout the seasons. When they start in 1960 the 'wet look' is very prominent with all of the men's haircuts slicked back. As it progresses they have softer almost feathered hair. With the woman's clothing you can see how the dresses became shorter and shorter, revealing more skin. Just see how flawless they all look: 

It took me awhile to get into the show because, to be honest, it's quite a slow start. But with how many awards Mad Men has won it is now apparent to me why the completely deserve it. If you watch you'll definitely appreciate the painstakingly details put into every aspect of the show's design.  

About Chinatown

So I took Arturo's advice and watched Chinatown over the weekend. I just got to say that If you guys are interesting in watching one of the most developed story lines you will probably see in the movie industry, this is your movie. A brief review, directed by Roman Polansky, Chinatown tells the story of private investigator, Jack Gittes (Jack Nicholson), as we tries to unveil a conspiracy to steal the water supply of the city of Los Angeles. I know this storyline sounds kind of dull and overdone, but I think that Chinatown is more than that. The plot for this story unfolds by itself. The audience goes along with the movie as this reveals every key point of the story. This type of storytelling is so subtle that you don't even realize the complexity of it until you are done watching the movie. It just flows very naturally. I don't want to spoil the movie, but the big theme of the story (the water supply stealing) ends up being not as important as the story lines between the characters develop and overshadow the water supply storyline. I also think that it's really impressive that Polansky only use the main character, Jack Gittes, as his only mean to reveal the plot.

Chinatown reminded me of Dexter. In this show we also get a lot of information from Dexter's point of view. Dexter is also a suspenseful drama where the audience follows him as he investigates his different victims. For example, the way both of this characters sneak around to get the information that they need is pretty similar.

But coming back to Chinatown, its composition is pretty interesting as well. There is some pretty cool shots in this movie. Especially when Gitter is observing or hiding from someone, which brings me back to the story being tell only through Gitter's point of view.

I think that this movie is worth watching. I'm not really into movies from the 70's and early 80's because they tend to be pretty cheesy with the music and the general mood (and I did see some of this in Chinatown, especially during the credits), but I guess that was the style back in those days. But you should definitely watch this movie since it's a great example of storytelling and direction.