Acting for Memes
Reflections on the Succession’s Third Season (SPOILERS)
I think it was David Mamet who first articulated for me why still photographs of actors acting always look awkward – because they freeze moments designed for transition. This is less a problem online, where animated photos and very short video clips are widely shared on social media.
People who make shows, well, people who market them, love when moments turn into memes and Succession is an animated gif-machine, full of over-the-top explosions of rage, violence and ego, as well as helicopter rides, boat trips and outlandish birthday celebrations and weddings. While The Middlebrow says this with love, Succession’s third season seems too aware of its meme-a-bility. The writers, directors and actors might be seeking digital memorialization to the detriment of the show’s storytelling. In the hunt to become a meme, every moment must be a big moment and that compromises build and pacing. In Succession a lot of big things happen, only to be rendered unimportant soon after.
SPOILER: In the final scene of the season’s penultimate episode, Kendall (a drug and alcohol addict) passes out in a pool, face down on a float, beer in hand, while attending his mother’s wedding and with his ex-wife and children in tow. The scene, where Kendall loses grip of the beer and then slides unconsciously into the water, is shot from beneath and evokes Billy Wilder’s 1950 classic movie, Sunset Boulevard.
By the start of the next episode (Middlebrow warned there would be spoilers and this is the last warning) Kendall is fine, rescued off-screen and resuscitated by his chief of staff. So what the viewer gets is a big, visual, GIF-worthy cliffhanger of a moment that is immediately rendered insignificant.
Consider Logan Roy, patriarch of the family and founder of its News Corp-like media business. Logan’s health is the inciting incident for the whole series. A stroke in the first episode mobilizes his daughter and three sons to compete for control of the company. That Logan is aged and mortal gives urgency to the whole series. Some investors will only support the family if they believe Logan is in good health and running things. Others will only invest if they believe Logan will soon die or retire. Logan’s health seems to fluctuate based on the needs of the story of the moment. A weak heart foils a long walk when he needs to look strong, but he displays coiled animal vigor an episode later. A urinary tract infection renders him doddering in one episode and he’s a flawless tactician the next. While it’s true that geriatric health fluctuates, Logan’s seems to function as the show’s go-to McGuffin.
Rendering drama from business is tougher than it seems, since most of the action in a real-life office is administrative and guided by rules and procedures. The antics of The Wolf of Wall Street are all true, but that’s because Jordan Belfort’s brokerage was founded and run by uneducated, corrupt children. In the Middlebrow’s journalism days he worked on a story about legendary Lazard Freres banker Michel David-Weill. We opened with a well-sourced anecdote about how he once began a meeting with his executive team by pointing to each person in the room with his stubby cigar and muttering, “I don’t need you, I don’t need you, I don’t need you.” That we printed this scandalized them. Middlebrow has no doubt it was a true story, but it was unusual and passes for high drama in the staid world of an investment bank. Middlebrow once worked for an asset manager where the CEO, in a fit of temper through his cell phone at a portfolio manager. This made The Wall Street Journal. “I don’t need you.” A phone as projectile. That’s what passes for drama in an office. There’s nothing quite like Logan’s “boar on the floor” where he made his supplicant underlings beg for sausages like penned pigs.
Which is not to say The Middlebrow wants Succession to realistically portray business. That would be boring. It was to be heightened and exaggerated to grand guignol. But that needs to be in the arc of storytelling, not in every line.
If every moment is a big moment, no moment is a big moment. If every cliffhanger is soon written off, there are no cliffhangers. Middlebrow looks forward to a fourth Succession season, and hopes the show’s creators are taking a nice holiday break from their online fans who crave too much from every utterance.