Falling Down: D-Fens Quixote

An image from the incredible opening shot. The camera starts on
Michael Douglas' lips, flies out of his car, allaround it, and settles on
him again. This was before computer graphics made this easy.

A recent re-watching of the 1993 Joel Schumacher film Falling Down (it was a homework assignment) turned up a number of fascinating elements— some of them unadulterated 1990s values, some modern re-evaluations, and at least one new definition. Falling Down, it turns out,  is a lot of different things.

Synopsis. William Foster, recently fired from his aerospace job, walks away from his car in a Los Angeles traffic jam. He embarks on a city-spanning adventure: he is trying to get to Venice for his daughter’s birthday party, despite the fact his ex-wife has a restraining order against him. What follows is a series of obstacles to his goal, all challenges to his worldview, one that is fading away. While he is being pursued by Detective Prendergast (Robert Duvall) the protagonist’s quest becomes a path of increasing violence and destruction across the city.

Parable of White Victimization. Time has not been kind to many of this film’s themes. The most obvious one, the one pursued in the press at the time: D-Fens was a “latter-day prophet, denouncing the hypocrisy of our times.” White men were losing ground in an ever-more-diverse America. At the time, when Hollywood and popular culture was basically white men as well, this crisis was internalized.

The staff of Whammyburger, being told they make a lousy product
by a man waving a TEC-9 around. Dede Pfeiffer (center) is the
completely unflappable counter girl. She's a hoot.

D-Fens establishes his “everyman” credentials by constantly questioning things many people at the time questioned as well. Those questions start out picayune: Why does a can of Coke cost 85 cents? Why doesn’t Whammyburger serve breakfast past 11:30? Why can’t I just sit here and catch my breath?

Vignettes are sprinkled throughout the film that reinforce his “angry white man” perspective. Urban decay. Police harassment. A homeless white guy holding a begging sign, next to industrious Latino men selling goods on the street.

Beth (Barbara Hershey) realizing she may have had a hand
in the victimization of a 1990s American white male--
the least victimized sort of person there is.

Later, his questioning veers into more sweeping social criticism. While cutting across a golf course, D-Fens wonders why the vast green space isn’t open to the public. He later hides in the pool house of an immense mansion, and finds out (via a family of poor tenants) that it is owned by a plastic surgeon. At the time, these observations struck close to home: Was D-Fens a victim?

The film went a bit further than that to indemnify William Foster as a victim of his times. When the police interview his ex-wife Beth (Barbara Hershey) she admits her reasons for placing restraining order on him were spurious. He had a temper, but he didn’t drink and never struck her or her daughter, and the judge who set the order “wanted to make an example of him.” As the interview progresses she looks increasingly distressed and embarrassed.

Joel Shumacher and screenwriter Ebbe Roe Smith crafted Falling Down to channel “White Male Paranoia.” The reason the image of Michael Douglas — buzz cut, broken horn rims— made the cover of Newsweek is this film successfully captured a moment in history. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the breakup of the Soviet Union, George Bush scaled back defense spending on a massive scale. Military installations were closed. Aerospace companies like Grumman and Lockheed closed down facilities all over the United States: Southern California was hit hard. William Foster’s job is obviously part of this loss, part of the USA’s military-industrial contraction as the cold-war era was coming to an end. To the people who ran the show back then— middle-class white men— they saw it as something that was happening to them, and they were the victims.

(As an aside, my mom worked for Lockheed for 30+ years, and I was an eyewitness to the post-cold-war wave of defense industry layoffs. It was as bad as it came off in the film, and it didn't just affect white men.)

D-Fens as Anti-Antihero. This is not just wordplay for a villain: it’s the best way to describe him. A character can be categorized by two criteria: deeds and thoughts.

A HERO is a character who does heroic deeds and embodies heroic qualities. Captain America, Indiana Jones, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Joan of Arc, Robin Hood: all embodiments of positive values and behaviors.

An ANTIHERO is a character who does heroic deeds but does not embody heroic qualities. Tom Jones, Tristam Shandy, Deadpool, “Mad” Max Rocketanski, Rick Blaine and the nameless protagonists of Sergio Leone’s and Akira Kurosawa’s films fit this description. They do not obey any rules of lawful conduct, are often transgressive or violent, but in the end their acts resolve into a greater good.


A VILLAIN is a character without redeeming qualities, who actively oppose the efforts of heroes and the greater good. Darth Vader, Sauron, Noah Cross, Norman Bates, The Wicked Witch: all are engaged in selfish ends that will cause great harm if they succeed.

But William “D-Fens” Foster is something else. He is a regular man, down on his luck and emotionally unstable, but not extraordinary in any way. Throughout the film he voices reasonable opinions, social commentary about the crumbling world around him. His goals are not intrinsically villainous: he merely wants to go home, and is forced by all manner of extraordinary obstacles to adapt ever more violent methods to achieve his goal.

D-Fens does not aspire to heroic status. He merely wants simple, basic needs filled: change for the phone, breakfast, a moment to rest in a vacant lot. These simple goals are always thwarted— so as the film progresses he cares less and less about behaving in a lawful manner. In his eyes, all he sees are forms of injustice, large and small: overpriced soda, gang territoriality, pointless road closures, obnoxious golfers. In his eyes it’s all injustice against him and the world he comes from.

But in the end, when Prendergast pulls a gun on him on Venice Pier, D-Fens looks at all he has wrought— family running, police clearing the area— and finally comes to the realization that according to the rules of the world he now lives in, he is the bad guy.

"I'm the bad guy?"

He is an ANTI-ANTIHERO: A character who understands morality and justice, but is incapable of any form of heroic action, and in the end acts against the greater good. The anti-antihero is distinct from the antihero by their mindset: they believe their goals are for good and believe are working toward the good, but are blind to the destructive nature of their actions and in the end do no good at all.

Michael Corleone was a decent example of an anti-antihero: he wanted to do good, become legitimate, but in the end (of Godfather 2, at least) was incapable of saving his family or himself.  Perhaps the all-time greatest anti-antihero ever created was Walter White. Every move he made was designed to get himself out of a bad situation (poverty, disease, anonymity, humiliation). By the end he ends up destroying everything he loves. Viewers of “Breaking Bad” rooted for him every week, because he was a likable, normal guy with relatable problems. Every week he slipped further and further away, to a place where there was nothing left but violence and revenge.

The Episodic Journey. Jim Bisso pegged Falling Down precisely: it’s Don Quixote, Western literature first modern novel, and it pulls two elements from Miguel de Cervantes’s 17th-century work. In form, both center on a wandering protagonist in a series of disconnected encounters. Don Quixote also shares an important trait with D-Fens: both are delusional. Quixote overdosed on tales of chivalry from the past and has come to believe they are quite real. D-Fens is also obsessed with a past where he was the hero of the American narrative.

The difference is in the final details: Don Quixote’s quest takes years and in the end he recovers from his delusions. D-Fens's wanderings take place over the span of one day, his violence and delusions only get worse, and in the end is killed via “suicide-by-cop.*”

1993 vs. 2020. D-Fens is not some sort of MAGA prototype: He was a product of mid-century values who is finally being forced to deal head-on with the reality of the post-Cold War world. He looks like the sort of gun-toting bigot we see on the news in 2020, but he isn't.

In one episode D-Fens stops to buy his daughter a gift— and watches black man picketing a bank across the street. His sign says “Not Economically Viable.” The man is shouting that he was denied a loan due to the color of his skin. He is then arrested and taken away. D-Fens sympathizes with him, even going as far as repeating the sign’s slogan.

Later D-Fens is sheltered from the police by Nick (Frederick Forrest), the deeply bigoted, racial-slur-slinging military surplus store owner. Nick admires D-Fens's violent spree and exclaims “I’m with you! we’re the same!” Nick shows D-Fens some Nazi artifacts and gives him a LAW rocket launcher (talk about Chekov’s gun!). But D-Fens is repelled by Nick’s white supremacy. D-Fens ends up stabbing Nick to death to prevent his likely rape— which informs the trope that virulent homophobes are latent homosexuals.

It may be a 1993 cultural assumption at play here, but William Foster is not a white supremacist, He is not comfortable in multicultural America, and is clearly nostalgic for the days of unquestioned white hegemony before the 1990s, but racism is never his core motive.

We can look at Falling Down in 2020 and see D-Fens as the unsprouted seed of the MAGA mindset. It would take 20 years of union-busting, opioid addiction, corporate offshoring, a drastic loss of economic status and constant watering by conservative news for this seed to bear the fruit we see sprouting everywhere today.

* Japanese literature and cinema feature a “Ronin Character.” This is an antihero protagonist who, when freed of the considerable restraints of society, openly criticizes and challenges the status quo. But the cost for such freedom is always the same: they die by the end. Falling Down fits into this concept well.

(h/t to John for the title.)

North Korea Now Runs Hollywood

The Sony Pictures hacking and shut-down of the release of The Interview is the first truly successful cyber-attack-- and one of the most remarkable events in media history.

This is not the first time this has happened: In 1976, an extremist group staged an attack in Washington, DC to prevent the release of Mohammad: Messenger of God. They believed (without having seen the film) that Anthony Quinn was playing The Prophet on-screen, a depiction forbidden by Islamic law. He wasn't, of course-- but the premiere got pulled and the movie never recovered.

As a cyber-attack, the timing and roll-out was breathtakingly effective. They got into Sony's system via stolen admin passwords, pulled out every juicy document and let Gawker and TMZ do the rest. Only after the damage was done did the hackers state their intentions: Cancel The Interview, or else. Distributors freaked out and cancelled bookings: Sony was so demoralized by then they just went ahead and pulled it. I would not be surprised that we find out later that there were direct extortion attempts between the hackers and Sony execs even before the leaks started.

All you see of Mohammad in this film
is the end of his camel-driving stick.

This is one long bad event for everyone it has touched: Bad for Sony Pictures and everyone mentioned in every catty email. Bad for Hollywood in general. Bad for free speech. Bad for the US government, which needs to create a proportional response to this attack. It's even bad for North Korea, who did the goddamned thing in the first place-- and will catch hell for it. Point-to-point:

• The behavior of Sony Pictures in this whole episode has been nothing short of completely typical Hollywood: Fearful, herd-following and craven. Obama himself said canceling the release of The Interview was a mistake. Craven-- but not out of character.

The Interview is now fully and officially buried: All press materials and trailers have been withdrawn from public access. The hackers got everything they asked for, and then some. People are calling Sony spineless for caving to an unseen, unknown hacker threat, but really I see no deviation from how Hollywood usually works. As an example, it came to light today that Paramount has ordered the next Star Trek movie reworked to be more like, you know, Guardians of the Galaxy. Yikes.

The socialist-realist style poster for The Interview.
hilarious.

In a perfect world, a world where the brave people stand courageously for their principles (like most of the characters in the comic book movies that are keeping the lights on in most Hollywood studios) Sony would have told the hackers to fuck off, and seen-- as most of us can conclude-- that the threats to moviegoers had no real credibility, and released the film. But even if these feckless execs grew spines, the movie was doomed: Sony does not control distribution. Theater chains have everything to lose and nothing to gain if something bad happens during a screening of The Interview. Imagine if it actually got released-- it would be a field day for every lone dumbshit out there to call in a bomb threat for the sheer fun of it.

• Seth Rogen and James Franco are going to lose most of their shot-calling power for this. They'll still be in movies, but I sincerely doubt if they will have any juice to get anything greenlighted for quite a long time, if ever. All this over a film that early reviews and pre-release reviews called a mediocre and unfunny comedy. It's a shame-- not because they're amazing, magical talents (they aren't) but because the movie that will stunt their careers was so inconsequential.

• This is all and entirely North Korea's doing (maybe with the help of some paid proxies in China, which has experience in such things). But: why do this? Why risk an international incident and retaliation over some dumb comedy with weak prospects? There are two possible reasons:

Scene from The Interview where Kim Jong-un
(Randall Park) gets immolated. quite the laugh riot, no?

1. Western media is easier to access in North Korea than ever. Which means that it is quite possible for the wretched masses toiling under the ruling regime to get a chance to see this film-- a comic take on the assassination of Kim Jong-un. If this regime is in a vulnerable state, even something as frivolous as The Interview could upset the fragile ruling junta.

2. Kim Jong-un, the leader of North Korea who is the target of assassination in this film, is a movie buff. In his youth he would sneak into Japan to go to Disneyland. He knows how powerful movies can be-- and he probably took this film as a sort of personal betrayal.

But why would a sovereign nation even bother to instigate a hack on a private company to specifically force a lame-looking comedy film to go dark?  Because Kim Jong-un isn't Hitler or Stalin or even Mao: He's Tony Soprano. As the late Christopher Hitchens observed, North Korea is run by a "militarized crime family that completely owns both the country and its people." Extortion isn't what nations tend to do-- but it is exactly what gangsters do.

Polanski - Letterman Double-Header

David Letterman. Roman Polanski.

Hm.

Roman Polanski. David Letterman.

Hm.

One guy did something shockingly illegal some 30 years ago, and has finally been nabbed by the long, long , really really long arm of the law.

The other one did, by his own admission,"terrible" things over many years, but "terrible" is a self-description: It hangs a lantern (hah!) on a career-long habit of dating co-workers. It certainly isn't illegal. And he got blackmailed for his troubles.

I'm rooting for Letterman. I'm not rooting for Polanski.

To make the case that David Letterman did something illegal would require that someone find him guilty of sexual harassment: That is, coercion or promotion in exchange for sexual favors. It's true that Letterman has long dipped his pen in company ink, but he's been on top of his game for over two decades, and I doubt he would ever put his career in harm's way for a fling. He may seem all aw-shucks and Heartland charm, but we don't know the man. Hell, I've been watching Dave since 1983: I won't even pretend to try.

I will venture an opinion, though: He'll escape any personal prosecution. He's either so friggin' smart that an overture he makes to comely staffer begins with legal paperwork being signed. Or he really is so gee-whiz and awkward that his crushes are of the schoolboy variety: boyish and insecure (and insecure celebrity: how 'bout that?) to the extent that philadering and quid pro quo are far off the table. Again, it's all guesswork.

As for Polanski: Lock his ass up. I'm not coming from a right-wing, absolute justice angle here. I actually believe the 13-year-old girl he raped has come to forgive him. I also believe he has shown some small amount of remorse for the act.

What drives me absolutely crazy about this case is the resurfacing of celebrity exceptionalism. Everyone from French lawyers to petition-bearing Hollywood types are making a passionate case for his release, on the grounds that... that... that he's a great filmmaker, and it's been, like, a really long time. I think that's the case being made.

Well, the first part, that Polanski is a great filmmaker, I do not disagree with . I saw A Knife In The Water in film school and was transfixed by it's artistry. Chinatown is still one of my favorite films. Roman Polanski is, in my personal opinion, without reservation or doubt, one of a few truly important filmmakers of the last part of the 20th Century.

This fact places him above the law? This fact gives him immunity from prosecution? This fact makes the quite terrible thing he did to a girl 31 years ago palatable?

Lock his ass up.

As for the argument-- argued quite well by Ronald Sokol-- that this late, late prosecution is, by virtue of it's immense delay, tantamount to legal revenge, How's this for a reply: Revenge is a dish best served cold.

ADDENDA: I know Daniel wrote earlier that we wouldn't be doing this sort of crap. I did get the memo. This whole thing got just a little too big and weird to ignore, is all.

"Mad Men:" An Advert For Your Rights

I was tempted not to join in all the general noise about "Mad Men," AMC's excellent alternate to their usual fare of Chuck Norris and John Wayne movies. It's so good I can't help myself.

If you're not watching this show, grab the DVDs for seasons 1 and 2 and catch up now. You will not find such excellent televised storytelling anywhere else-- basic, broadcast or premium. There is a specific aspect of "Mad Men" I find fascinating and unique. It seems to be somewhat under-reported, so here I am.

"Mad Men" lovingly recreates the world of America in the early 1960s. But it goes much further than the visual, skinny ties and Herman Miller chairs and extremely complicated women's underwear. It sends us a message about us, and what we, as a society, have lost.

Every period film or TV show is a reflection of the era when it's made. For instance World War II films have evolved over the years from propaganda (30 Seconds Over Tokyo, 1944) to nostalgic comedy (What Did You Do in The War, Daddy?, 1966) to sober moral equivalence (Letters from Iwo Jima, 2006). In Rio Bravo (1959), Dean Martin and Ricky Nelson rode the wild West sporting sticky-looking Elvis pompadors.

The characters in "Mad Men" live in a world that is, in the details, quite different from our present. Everyone smokes and drinks. There were no warning labels on anything. Raw eggs are cracked into caesar salads. Kids play with dry-cleaning bags and romp freely in moving cars. If some of these little bits of Kennedy-era life were seen enacted out in the open in 2009, they could lead from anything to meddling to outrage to actual arrest.

I've noticed that when reviewers or online commenters note these details, they tend to look at these 1960s foibles with amusement, bordering on horror. I think they're missing the point "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner is trying to make. The characters on this show live in this unregulated world and do things we would consider unhealthy and dangerous-- but there are never any consequences. Sure, Roger Sterling has a heart attack in Season Two, but he rather righteously claimed he was scrupulously following medical advice-- advice current in 1962 (i.e. A rich diet can ward off high blood pressure). "Mad Men" makes a point of showing normal people with what we now consider unhealthy and dangerous personal habits-- and thriving nonetheless.

The social mores on display show an American society without helicopter parenting, nanny government, NIMBYism, or class-action lawsuits. It shows a well-functioning (if still wildly unequal) society that values individual liberty and personal decision making.

Every time we pass a Megan's Law or ban smoking outdoors or require children be strapped into seats until they are high schoolers we surrender a small bit of our freedom for collective safety. Sometimes the act of yielding is benign: other times, these little impositions cut little pieces out of our constitutional rights. Think about this the next time you take your shoes off at the airport or a strobe on a robotic traffic camera goes off as you cruise through an intersection.

Daniel related a recent incident on his other blog about being pulled over on suspicion of DUI. (His headlights were off. There was a cute German girl in the car with him, so I can see why.) He beat it, of course, but If he decided to have a second Rob Roy he would have wished he lived in 1962. Back then, a DUI first offense was a simple moving violation. Now, that first-time DUI can lose you your car and your license, make insurance unavailable, wreck your credit rating (!), cost thousands, and generally ruin your life. I'm not saying we should repeal DUI laws, but I am saying it's the overly enthusiastic enforcement of those "motherhood" issues-- DUIs, child safety, anything that makes people go all Maude Flanders and wail, "What about the children?" -- that creates a creeping effect on every other personal right we hold dear.

Like I said, movies and TV shows are contemporary reflections, regardless of period setting. "Mad Men" makes a point of showing, by raw comparison, how unfree we have become in 2009, and maybe that will make us more aware of just how important it is to defend our dwindling right to be left to our own ends.

--Skot C.