Falling Down
Warner Brothers Pictures
CAST: Michael Douglas, Robert Duvall, Barbara Hershey, Frederic Forrest,
Tuesday Weld, Rachel Ticotin, Lois Smith, Michael Paul Chan, Raymond J. Barry,
D.W. Moffett, Brent Hinkley, Dedee Pfeiffer, Vondie Curtis Hall, Jack Kehoe and John Diehl
DIRECTOR: Joel Schumacher
RATING: R
RUNNING TIME: 115 minutes
1993
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Written as a deconstructive application of Russian literature, Vladimir Propp's “Morphology of Folklore” became the first tome to consider the fairy tale as a stylized mirror image of popular culture. By proposing that folklore utilizes foreign influences to corrupt a story, Propp also suggested that the classic fairy tale must move past the boundaries of the authentic… and into the realm of the fantastic. Two children get lost in the woods and stumble upon a witch's house; A little girl visits grandma, but discovers a wolf in disguise; Unemployed defense worker treks across big city and uncovers the festering boil of modern America.
Although promoted as a vigilante picture upon initial release, the complex and challenging Falling Down offers considerably more to the cinematic palate than merely a 90's Death Wish redux. Courtesy of an edgy script by Ebbe Roe Smith, Falling Down is actually a cleverly disguised cinematic thesis on modern American folklore that burns with relentless intensity.
Michael Douglas portrays California Everyman William Foster, a seemingly nondescript white-collar worker whose personal motto (and inner rage) is emblazoned on his license plate as: D-FENSE. Being a character that is forever reactive to the increasingly absurd situations facing him, the moniker D-FENSE is not just a warranted example of the filmmaker's dark wit; it's an essential ingredient to the base structure of the story. Just like the fantastical literary inventions that Propp unearthed in his tome, the arc of Falling Down thrusts D-FENSE into a world in which the boundaries of reality are stripped away one encounter at a time.
In Joel Shumacher's perfect homage to Fellini's masterwork 8 ½, the simmering rage explored in Falling Down begins proper during the opening titles as D-FENSE finds himself stuck in traffic. Amidst an overwhelming cacophony of blaring horns, sweltering heat, shouting children, squawking radios and buzzing flies, this atypical moment of Everyday Life is the film's central catalyst. It's disturbing because it's familiar.
Leaving his car idling in traffic, D-FENSE makes his way to the side of the road as an irritated fellow motorist asks him what he's doing. “I'm going home” is Douglas's exhausted reply, a statement that has much literal meaning as it does a symbolic one. In this case, “home” is explored as the many altered perceptions of American life: the convenience store; a fast food establishment; a golf course; marriage. That each of these acts as a disguise for heated relations (both racial and prejudicial) is at the very core of each mini-parable illustrated within the film.
Hampered by a pair of unnecessary and distracting subplots, Falling Down ultimately achieves greatness by the sheer forcefulness of Michael Douglas's performance, and the utter certainty in which we believe that D-FENSE could, at any time, be us.
“Once upon a time…” never sounded so dangerous.
--Yim Kip
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