"Falling Down"
Joel Schumacher's 1993 film, "Falling Down," provoked controversy in many sectors upon its release. Among those who objected to the film were those who found it overtly racist, as well as those who felt the film composed a thinly veiled political allegory lamenting the loss of white-male global domination. As with any work of art, the urge to identify a specific "moral" or set of ethical assertions for "Falling Down" is as demanding as it is tempting. The film most certainly deals with racial issues, most notably with the concept of "white rage" or "white anger" and also with issues of social neglect and economic disparity.
Central to film's visual, dramatic, and thematic impact is the depiction of the city of Los Angeles; at issue is the question of whether or not Schumacher's apocalyptic and angst-ridden portrayal of Los Angeles was intended to be a realistic depiction of life and conditions in this city and, if so, whether his attempted realism was successful. To determine the latter it is necessary merely to note Schumacher's images and scenes and compare them to established data on crimes and with psychological profiles of actual vigilantes and serial killers. To determine the former, it necessary to closely inspect not only the structure of the film's events, but also the film's plot and character development. It is within these cohesive elements that it is most likely for a viewer or critic to determine whether or not the city of Los Angeles, as depicted in "Falling Down" represents the director's attempt at a realistic vision.
At first glance, the film certainly seems to be attempting a realistic and socially relevant depiction of Los Angeles. The gritty, violent and weapons-ridden city seems to be yanked directly form the newspaper headline of 1993, many of which were devoted to riots and urban-decay. Gun-control and violent crime, always crucial issues in American society, seemed at a crescendo during the era of the film's creation. However, the film is after-all a story and not a documentary, so the viewer may question whether there is anything immediately discernable in the plot which would indicate something other than a naturalistic or realistic approach on behalf of the film's director. One feature of the plot springs to mind: that it happens to be an inordinately hot day, not just any normal day. In one of the opening scenes there is the line "Anything can happen today,"which also sets the film's events on a unique trajectory, informing the viewer to expect the extraordinary, the unusual.
During the film's initial scenes, the action looks and seems very realistic. There are crowds of poor, drug-addicted minorities and sarcastic cops, noise, pollution, degeneration of property, traffic, and fear. But, like the fact that the day is inordinately hot, Bill Foster's early confrontation with gang-bangers in a territorial "dispute" evokes an allegorical or mythic progression. This stylization is evident in the spoken exchange between Foster and the gang-bangers:
Foster:
This is your home. . . and your home is your home. I respect that.
So if you would just back up a step or two. . ..I'll take my problems elsewhere.
Fair enough?
Gang-banger:
You should pay a toll.
Obviously, one would rarely expect an inner-city gang-member to say "You should pay a toll." The stylized language cues the viewer in that Schumacher's film is intended to be a study of the quest-motif--- one which undoubtedly employs the techniques of realism and verisimilitude, but nevertheless is a film which is more interested in revealing the progression of a symbolic character than in representing a realistic urban landscape, per se. The fact that "Falling Down" employs intense realism throughout its allegorical and symbolic story is a testament to the director's resourcefulness in convincing his audience to suspend their disbelief, thereby becoming more receptive to the thematic and social commentaries he intends to show through the film.
Rather than representing a realistic city-scape, "Falling Down" presents a sort of mythological Los Angeles, although it is a dark and foreboding myth of alienation and personal disintegration. Fast-food, drive-by-shootings, guns, homophobia, racism, unemployment -- even golf , all are compressed into Schumacher's mythic L.A., with the most high-profile and topical national issues compressed into his fictionally portrayed city. Foster's odyssey represents the symbolic and if you like, allegorical, progression of hoe to ruin and idealism to suicide; however, the backdrop against which this epic (if classically inspired) is played out is one of invention, not documentation.
The scenes leading up to the suicide-by-cop denouement of the film which brings the film's main characters together for the first time in the story offers this line from Foster: "I'm the bad guy?" That line meant to incite profound ironic resonance also sheds light on the merged techniques of myth and realism employed by Schumacher. Foster's vigilantism takes place over such a short span in actual time that such a profound state of self-realization seems entirely unlikely in realistic terms. In symbolic of allegorical terms, the line makes perfect sense: the character of Foster as it stands for good "old America" and for the ideals of family and self-protection, have resulted in the state of the ruined city previously depicted throughout the film.
The ruinous landscape through which Foster journeys, then, represents not only physical space in the film, but psychological (or perhaps even spiritual) space as well. As such, the depiction, while partaking of realism at times is not strictly realistic. Foster terrorizes a work-crew in the street, the inhabitants of a golf-course, his ex-wife, and finally, the LAPD who must confront him with force. The odyssey he embarks on is psychological and emotional and thus, the cit as depicted in the film moves with similar imagery depicting the progressive deterioration of Foster and his correspondent increase in weapons and armaments.
This same progression takes place in the imagery and setting of the scenes until finally, in ironic fashion, Foster winds up on a private golf-course which a set which mocks his former "repsonsible" life. This is a symbolic progression of American society and politic history, allegorically represented, with Foster's arms corresponding to America's arm's race with the Soviet Union and the ever-increasing faith in American military power while the rest of the world (here represented by the city) crumbles into pieces.
Foster's conversation with Detective Martin Prendergast evokes (allegorically) the specter of nuclear holocaust, far departing from a realistic depiction of event sin Los Angeles, and clearly indicating something more symbolically resonant:
Foster: I got lots of guns.
Prendergast: Stay there. Don't move.
Foster: You wanna draw?
Prendergast: Let's not. Let's call it a day.
Foster: Now come on. It's perfect. Showdown between the sheriff and the bad guy?
In a final gesture of irony, Foster is depicted as being of more use dead than alive, with the insurance money from hsi death benefiting his daughter. The symbolic association seems to be that renewal is also possible for the hellishly depressed and crime-ridden city depicted in the film. The film-maker's close depiction of genuine urban conditions and circumstances depends upon dramatic exaggeration and compression. The events and conditions of cities throughout America and the events within them spread throughout populations of millions are compressed by the film-maker to produce a work of art which distills the myriad images and events to their essentials and compressed into the events of a single-day.
One should not mistake Schumacher's film for social-documentary. That, despite the film's realistic imagery and social themes, would result in the possibility of extending the sense of endemic realism to the film-maker's explicit and personally held political and social beliefs. In that case, the film's perceived realism might actually serve to obfuscate the very social and political issues it most certainly seeks to elucidate. For despite any degree of realism in film-making, a film can only represent a slice of true reality and can demonstrate only a subjective perception for any given subject matter or theme.
In conclusion, while Schumacher's film employs techniques of realism and offers timely and headline-driven events, the depiction of Los Angeles in the film represents and artistic and expressive vision, one in keeping with the film's symbolic and allegorical themes, rather than a document of true-to-like conditions in the real world city of Los Angeles in 1993.
