Falling Down was PROPAGANDA

On a sweltering summer morning in downtown Los Angeles, William Foster sits in traffic, slowly losing his mind to all appearances. He's a totally normal worker heading to work surrounded by the chaos and noise of the city and a million other people, all trying. Doing the exact same thing is claustrophobic it's oppressive the frustration and senselessness of the situation slowly reaches a crescendo in Bill's head until finally overwhelmed he abandons his car one of the drivers behind him starts yelling at him but Bill barely seems to hear him. Upon returning home, he shouts over his shoulder, if only it were that simple, that's how Bill Foster's work day begins.

He odysseys to return to his family's home, the story of which is told in Joel Schoemer's 1993 film Falling On His Way Home He Will Meet Bill. all the trivial flaws of American Life Bad Manners, the misleading advertising of fast food, but also other problems that are not so trivial and, little by little, Bill will begin to end his cooperation and tolerance of all these minor torments, but As he begins to retreat, his rebellion becomes A darker and more dangerous ending finally with a confrontation with the police and the iconic lines. I'm really the bad guy, how did that happen?

In fact,

falling

on its surface is not a very complicated movie. Bill Foster is a fallen man. luck may be terminal and one day he reaches his limit and decides he's not going to take it anymore, but by the end of the movie he's on the wrong side of the moral line, not to mention the law, and he pays the price, the message It was clear. Modern life isn't perfect, but that doesn't give you the right to lose your mind and start blowing up simple things, right? But there's always something in the final scene when Bill is confronted by detective prer PR prender grat, oh my God, this goes. being the long PR detective p and some of the dialogue they exchanged that left me with a bad taste in my mouth seemed to go beyond the simple message seemed to suggest something that was even darker than Bill's transformation into what I was Every time watching this movie I felt like there was something moving beneath the surface, that there was a deeper level of analysis that everyone was largely unaware of, and that beneath the surface of that analysis was something that I didn't like for years: It bothered me, but I've never sat down and tried to figure out why until recently, and what I've realized is that while most people see Fall as a fairly simple film that explores the plight of the little guy, the truth is a little more Sinister but to explain why we're going to have to delve into the weeds if that's not your thing, no problem, consider this your warning, but if you're still interested, I'll show you why

falling

is not the movie.

That's what you think is after abandoning his car. William stops to make a phone call, but when the woman we assume is his wife answers, he doesn't say anything and instead hangs up the phone, then starts to make another call, but stops. realize. He doesn't have enough money and heads to a convenience store to get change. He's not doing well. The store owner refuses to give him change and insists that he has to buy something. This scene captures so many themes of this film during the American attitudes toward immigration in the 1990s were extremely negative, possibly the most negative they have ever been, but while it might be tempting to attribute this scene to racism, the conflict between Bill and the fish really illustrates is a collapse of social capital. as the networks of relationships between people living and working in a particular society that allow that society to function effectively, involves the effective functioning of social groups through interpersonal relationships, a shared sense of identity, a shared understanding, shared norms, values shared, trust, cooperation and reciprocity, basically it is that feeling of being able to leave the door open or stop by your neighbor's house for a cup of sugar or whatever.

Social capital is what you get when people trust each other and feel a shared sense of identity and shared values ​​in the year 2000. Seven years after the release of Falling Down, Robert Putam would publish his study Landmark Bowling Only, which demonstrated the precipitous fall of social capital in the United States. Williams' trade request is the kind of thing that wouldn't be a problem in a high-equity situation. low-risk type of favor that costs the merchant nothing but the man refuses. Foster tries to buy a Coca-Cola but the price is too high. he understands 85 Cent 885 Cent 85 cents that doesn't give me enough money for the phone call.

The discussion quickly changes. to cultural issues with Foster complaining that he can't understand the man's accent it's a fi I don't understand an f there's a v in the word it's five you don't have this in China not Chinese I'm Korean come to me These men not only don't share any ethnicity, but they barely share a common language, the confrontation escalates and the shopkeeper goes for a bat, but Foster seizes it and takes it. He calls the store owner a thief for charging 85 cents for a soda. and he starts walking around the store complaining that each of the products is too expensive and comparing them to pre-inflation prices and then destroying the merchandise when the owner tells him the real prices.

I'm taking prices back to 1965, what do you think? that six-pack of Donuts how much doll 12 too many but, of course, this type is not the reason why the products are more expensive, but because of political decisions made by people in positions of power and influence. Foster's statement about pre-1965 prices is almost certainly a reference to the Great Inflation, a period between 1965 and 1982 in which exceptionally bad monetary policy caused the largest and most consistent increase in the inflation rate in the history of the world. country after destroying a guy's store. William gets him to agree to sell the pooke. who started all this for 50 CS pays takes the change and leaves he takes the bat with him on the way out he says it has been a pleasure to frequent your establishment it has been a pleasure to frequent your establishment and the interesting thing is that this is not just any A phrase in the style of the 80 to rub in this guy's face how badly he just got owned, in a sense, Bill really means it or means it, this line ironically contrasts the scene that just unfolded with the ideal Foster longs for.

Because you want a world where saying this on your way out would make sense. This is the kind of world you long to return to. But you're missing part of the picture if you don't see that Bill himself would be out of place in that world. This is not a natural feeling. For him, it is a solution, it is a lar, he tries to make his call again but the line is busy and he continues walking while these events happen. We are also introduced to Detective Prendergast played by the incomparable Robert Duval Pendergrast Pendergrast. Pender prr is about to retire from the force, in fact, today is his last day of work on any film.

This is basically a promise to the audience that this guy is going to die, and it's refreshing that the movie acknowledges this Trope with everything. of Printer Grass colleagues continually referencing his impending death even though he intends to spend all day behind a desk far from being a cardboard cutout, although Prast is a strange inversion of the clichéd stereotype of the policeman who even He dislikes her for that, in fact. his captain, who is actually that stereotype, explicitly despises the prograph. I never liked you. You want to know why you don't curse. I don't trust the man on top of that brrast he is a man whose life has been affected by the tragedy that he lost. a child a few years ago and his marriage is unhappy.

Over the course of the film, we learn that his wife was once a beautiful woman, but as her beauty faded, she became increasingly needy. and neurotic. She is the reason Prast retires early and goes to a rural backwater, even though it means he won't receive his full pension, she doesn't like his job and fears he will get hurt, but this understandable concern has been put to rest. It has become too intense and has begun to suffocate her husband, whom she calls her own. office all day and we get the feeling that prast has to devote a lot of emotional resources to killing her and comforting her no matter how embarrassing it is for him to feel better no, I don't feel better London bridges are falling down she's jealous, childish and whiny but can also become poisonous and demanding at any time, as fate dictates.

The last day of Printer Grass is deeply intertwined with Bill Foster's brain after he gets caught in the intensified traffic jam that Foster creates by getting out of his car to meet the dealer. in a unique position to identify this series of seemingly random acts of violence, as the work of a single man talking about Bill takes a moment to rest his legs, has a gaping hole in his shoe and covered it with a piece of cardboard . I don't normally obsess over Craft, but this is a nice touch because it subtly foreshadows upcoming plot points. Why would a man with a white-collar job be walking around in well-worn shoes?

It hints that there is something more going on here than initially appears. but only if you stop to think about it for a second, the movie itself no longer draws your attention as he sits, Bill is accosted by two gang members. Here again, Bill is seen as the everyman fighting against the forces of social decay that have allowed this type of behavior. Bill agrees to leave the area, but the two thugs demand that he pay a toll and tell him to give them his briefcase. He should pay a toll. How about that man with the briefcase?

Good idea, give us your briefcase. This is something strange. To try to steal, you would expect them to ask for your wallet. the wallets have cash and credit cards inside the briefcases simply have the substance of a man's work at this point we don't know what Bild does for a living, but it seems unlikely that the contents of his briefcase could have so much value to thieves. What's strange about the lawsuit is an indication that the briefcase has to have some kind of symbolic value that we should pay attention to, but what's even stranger is the fact that Bill refuses to part with it.

I'm not giving you my damn briefcase, whatever's inside is important enough to Bill that I'm willing to risk his life for it. One of the guys pulls out a knife, but Bill defends them with a bat that he took from the shopkeeper later. the thugs flee, he throws the bat at one and now takes the butterfly knife, although I personally believe that a bat is a more effective weapon than a butterfly knife, this illustrates the next escalating theme of the film. Bill stops at another pay phone and finally gets to his wife Beth and we find out how bad things have gone in the Bill Foster family.

He and Beth are divorced and she obtained a restraining order against her that prevented him from seeing her daughter for any length of time during the phone call Beth makes. Noticeably cold and uncaring, refusing to offer even a shred of empathy even though Bill sounds like a man at the end of his rope, he asks about his daughter and Beth says she's fine without you, an exceptionally cruel thing to say unless have a very good reason and we, the audience, wonder what that reason could be as they talk, we see that the gang members from before have regrouped with their friends and are looking for Bill, they see him and just as Bill hangs up the phone , they act. a drive-by shooting, the shooting hits several bystanders, but does nothing to stop them, who barely seem to notice, then the gang crashes their car.

Bill approaches and finds one of the men who confronted him earlier lying on the pavement unable to move but still conscious. next to him is a gym bag full of weapons Bill grabs a submachine gun that you missed, he says and tries to shoot the thief, but hits the car instead. I miss too, I miss too, he says with a slight laugh before reloading and trying again. At which point he hits the man in the leg and then takes the bag full of weapons and simply walks away, continuing towards his house only to have his progress blocked by some type of construction work for the second time at the beginning of the film, the traffic jam was also the consequence of a different construction project that closes the lanes when it comes to analysis once it may be chance but twice it is a reason the construction work presents a real material obstacle in the Here and Now of the film but also It is a symbol of growth itself.

The construction Bill encounters is not an expansion of the city into new areas, it is the type of construction that must be undertaken when the population of an urban area has exceeded what it was designed for, like a man loosening his grip. the belt after a big meal. Then he goes to Beth's house where some police officers ask him about Bill, the officer asks him about the restraining order that Beth has placed on her ex-husband andShe confesses that a judge had encouraged her to get it to set an example. Bill had a terrible temper and I just didn't know if a restraining order was a good idea, but the judge said we should make an example.

She then admits to the officer that Bill had never hit her or her daughter. she simply felt that it was possible that he might think the officer is responsive, and an awkward silence engulfs the conversation, as it's clear that the officer isn't entirely convinced that Beth is right. Here Bill continues through a park where he is approached again. This time, a man asking for change tells Bill a story about how he's from out of town and was stranded here and just needs a couple dollars to help pay for gas to get home, but Bill isn't having any of it. and ask.

He looks at the man's driver's license to confirm that he really does not have a driver's license. What do you want to see my driver's license? You're from Santa Barbara. I have your address. I won't do it. I do not have a driver's license. He drove from Santa Bara without a license. The man says he doesn't have a license, but Bill continues to pressure him. Finally, the guy admits that the story was a lie and changes TCT to claim that he is a veteran, but this story falls apart too. He then states that he just needs some food because he hasn't eaten in several days even though he is halfway through a burger he is currently holding, gradually the entire conversation descends to the man madly demanding that Bill give him something, anything without importance. reason except he wants it money man just give me some money no, how about the change in your pocket?

I don't care if it's a dime, give it to me. I won't give you money. Do you have a cigarette. No. smoke, oh come on man, you gotta give me something, yeah, why don't we see a strange inversion of the logic of begging that has morphed into a perverse sense of entitlement? The man ends up pointing out that Bill is carrying two bags and that Justice Big Air quotes around this dictate that he should give up one of them. My park and two bags. You have two bags. I dont have any. It's fair. Hey? What's in those bags?

Anyway. Hey? Give me one of those bags even though this demand is crazy. Bill, after thinking for a moment, nods and hands him his work briefcase. This is a strange change considering that Bill was willing to risk his life for the same briefcase a while ago. couple of hours I don't need it anymore he says and the The man is ecstatic, but after opening the briefcase he discovers that there is nothing in it except some chips, an apple and a crushed sandwich, instead of carrying important documents of some kind . Bill's briefcase is just a glorified lunchbox, so why did he fight for it before the The answer is that the briefcase was a symbol of the type of man Bill identified as a productive and valuable member of society;

It was part of the identity Bill had created for himself over the years and his willingness to give it up now is itself a sign of his growing alienation from society and also the unlikelihood of his return, he is leaving behind this identity now, instead of his empty and totally symbolic briefcase, he carries the bag of weapons that he collected from the gang members and, unlike his briefcase, the weapons are not symbolic, they are pure utility, he only cares about them. because they seem useful in one of the film's most iconic scenes. Bill stops at a McDonald's clone to get something to eat, after all, here he again gave up his lunch with a briefcase.

There is a tension between the obvious absurdities of contemporary life and the lengths to which Bill is willing to go to fight them. He approaches the counter and says that he wants to have breakfast, but they tell him that he is 4 minutes late. Without a doubt, the majority. If not all of us have experienced this frustration maybe you even thought about insisting on making a scene maybe you even made a scene but what you probably didn't do was pull out a gun, this last option is the one Bill chooses and immediately the restaurant is engulfed in chaos for the first time, a third party becomes involved in Bill's drama.

Up to this point, he has only experienced the journey he is on as an encounter between himself and the grotesque failures of modern society, but now he is presented to the public. from other people who may witness him and what he discovers is that, although they should be on his side after all, they are denied something as simple as breakfast due to an arbitrary time limit imposed on when it can be ordered, it is imminently ridiculous something that should not be accepted, but is accepted by the people around him, so Bill's resistance, especially in this tone, is considered terrifying even as he tries to assure them that he is not going to hurt them.

Bill is not antisocial, he is fundamentally prosocial. His enemy throughout Falling Down are the antisocial elements within society with signs of decay and the collapse of social capital that have made it increasingly uninhabitable. The tragic irony is that his crusade against these things is experienced as antisocial by the people around him precisely because they have accepted these absurdities. Bill changes his mind about breakfast and decides to buy a hamburger. He brings it to her and notices how pathetic it looks in contrast to the advertisement. Can anyone tell me what is the problem with this image? He asks and they answer.

Silently, he turns to the crowd of diners and asks again, and the scene ends with a little boy raising his hand to answer the question. We then cut to a scene in a restaurant where Printerr explains his retirement situation to his attractive young partner. They discuss his wife's weaknesses and insecurities and how he was basically forced to make this decision before another cop written to be the most unbearably jock thing in the '80s comes and takes his partner away, but before she can leave, he leaves her alone. Of course one more thing: he loves his wife. something about my wife maybe I never mentioned I love her, come on, the movie then cuts back to Bill, who walks next to a man who is protesting at a bank, holding a sign that says it's not economically viable as the man explains despite Having been a loyal customer for 7 years he has been denied being alone with the excuse that he is not a financially viable candidate, now because the man is black, he may miss that in all other respects he is visually identical to Bill, in everything from the white shirt and black pants to his slip.

The ties with the pins in the pockets of his shirts are intended to demonstrate a connection between these two men. Everyone else tries to ignore the man with a sign, but Bill continues to watch him while he buys a birthday gift for his daughter. A snowball. The police pick up the man and put him in a car and as the car drives away, it stops for a moment and the man looks directly at Bill and says, don't forget me, don't forget me and Bill nods sincerely as he sees the man. once again he witnesses what other people don't want to see or acknowledge, the veil is slowly being lifted for Bill anyway, he remembers that hole in Bill's shoe, well he finally had enough and stops at a surplus store of the army to replace him.

The store is run by a neo-Nazi who shows his colors by intentionally throwing out a couple of gay men, apparently his only customers besides Bill. He has been listening to the police scanner all day and has realized that Bill, the man at his store, is the man who has been causing all this chaos when the printer's partner enters the store asking if he has seen someone who fits Bill's description, the man lies and covers for Bill, and finally sends the woman off with some ISM casual sex and then tells Bill that he is his friend. and escorts him back to his private hideout and equips him with a rocket launcher.

Bill wants to know why this man is helping him and realizes that it is because the man assumes that Bill is on a racial rampage killing minorities. I'm with you. You are the same you and I are the same you and I he says to Bill, but Bill quickly disabuses him of this notion you are not the same I am an American you are sick then he tries to leave but the Neo-Nazi points a gun at him and He suddenly directs even greater hatred than he has for minorities toward Bill. He goes through Bill's bag, finds the snowball, and breaks it.

What is this doing there? He then tries to attack Bill while he tells him to imagine who he is. being raped in prison by a black man is ah, it's an uncomfortable scene, it's uncomfortable to even talk about it Bill uses the butterfly knife he still has, stabs the man in the shoulder, then takes a gun and shoots the man, okay It is worth noting that the neo-Nazi is the only person Bill intentionally kills in the entire film and the purpose of this scene is to explicitly differentiate Bill from Nazism. He is not involved in a racial vendetta and does not believe in his cause.

He just wants to go home. he calls his ex-wife again and this time the conversation is noticeably creepy and threatening and again it seems like the movie wants to create confusion about whether or not Bill is a good guy going through something or a villain, obviously this uncertainty is intentional. but it's also forced and unconvincing. This bill doesn't feel like an organic evolution of the bill we saw earlier in the movie. He feels that the writers are now leaning on his character to make him behave unnaturally. Bill leaves the store now dressed in black. military uniform that visually indicates the changes he is undergoing and for the third and final time his path is blocked by construction, a lazy-looking Ru worker tells him that he will have to turn around, but this time Bill does not detour and demands Be what's wrong with the street Look, I don't think there's anything wrong with the street.

I think you're just trying to justify your inflated budgets. You're crazy? No, I know how it works, the other guy is dismissive at first, but when Bill blinks. Upon reading his piece, he becomes frightened and finally admits that there is nothing wrong with the street and that the bill is essentially correct. Bill tells him that he is going to give him something to fix, takes out the bazooka and blows up the construction site that he has now managed to identify. Bill and have tracked down his home address, they discover that Bill now lives with his mother whom they visit and see that Bill's father, also named William, was a decorated soldier who even received a purple heart for being wounded in the service. of duty.

Bill's family. has personally sacrificed for his country, discovers that Bill is an engineer who builds weapons that were used to protect Americans during the Cold War, then gets his partner to call the company and they discover that Bill was fired a month earlier, when we get up to date. Bill is passing by a Fincon golf course and a couple of older men become enraged at his desecration of the club. One of them is so angry that he tries to hit Bill with his Drive. Bill dodges the ball, but returns with a shotgun and confronts him. the man responsible for this horrible, greedy waste of resources should have kids playing here he should have picnicking fame he should have a fucking petting zoo he shoots the men's car and it rolls into the lake now the man who tried to hit him starts having a heart attack and Bill asks what he needs and the man says my pills, where are your pills?

Bill asks and the man points to the car that is currently sinking into the lake, well I guess you're out of luck, aren't you? Are you sorry you didn't let me come to your golf course and now you're going to die with that stupid little hat? How do you feel? The next station on Bill's journey is a beautiful mansion with a large garden and a large swimming pool. He finds a family there, but realizes that the man is just a caretaker sneaking his family into the facility to show them a good time and give them a taste of the luxury that wealth and exorbitance can provide. .

He will ask what the owner of the house does and the man tells him that he is a plastic surgeon a plastic surgery he is a plastic surgeon Bill confesses probably for the first time that he lost his job I lost my job I am overeducated not qualified maybe it is someone else the other way around I forget but I'm obsolete Bill finally realizes that the family is afraid of him. What do you think? Do you think I want to hurt your family? I have a family of my own and we see the toll this transformation is taking on Bill.

He is reaching his breaking point and begins to fantasize. about Oblivion and possibly taking his family with him then when it got dark we would all go to sleep together, we would all sleep together in the dark and everything would be as it was before here again, the writer's touch is far from light. This monologue is here for no other reason than to try to give some verisimilitude to the end of the film, Bill finally completes his journey home, but his wife and his daughter flee their home and go out to the dock. You'd think this was obviously a stupid idea and it is, but whatever it is, it's a plot device meant to isolate the ending of the movie before following them.

Bill stops by his old house to watch some home videos, in the videos he finally confronts himself when he sees that sometimeshas been mean to his daughter and his wife, the movie is clearly trying to draw some kind of parallel between Bill's previous idiotic behavior and today's events, but it completely fails in that regard. However, one way it works is when we see a scene where Bill is trying to get his daughter to get on a toy horse, here we go, she doesn't want to and Bill starts to lose his temper, he starts cursing and complain about how he bought her the damn horse, so she needs to cooperate with Bill at the current moment.

He lowers his eyes in shame as he somehow realizes that the same illness he battled today was also in him even in his relationship with his daughter on the pier. Bill holds his daughter and his ex-wife tells him that he needs help because he is sick. who you want to see sick, asks him to take a walk through this city that is sick, at this point progress intervenes, lulls Bill into a false sense of security and then helps the ex-wife and daughter escape, then tells him He tells Bill that he, like Bill, was going to kill his wife and daughter, what are we going to do?

I don't know, I don't know what I'm going to do, oh guys, like you always say, you don't know what you're going to do until you do it. I think you know exactly what you were going to do, you were going to kill your wife and your son, oh yeah, like I said, this has no setup other than the dialogue at the plastic surgeon's house. Understandably, Bill reacts with confusion. I'm the bad guy, yeah, how did that happen? The printer tries to persuade Bill to turn himself in, but Bill refuses, he has gone too far and has nothing left to come back to because he tells Prass that he still has a gun, let's take it out.

He suggests that it is a perfect showdown between the sheriff and the bad. It's lovely. The printer tries to dissuade him, but Bill approaches him and only after the printer shoots him does he realize it was just a toy water gun, but wipes a splash of water from his face as Bill says and says with a He would have had you smile before he falls into the water below Prast and then returns to Beth and his daughter. There are children gathered outside his house. The birthday party guests finally arrived. Beth. She asks him if she should tell her daughter what happened to her father and he tells her to let her enjoy the birthday party.

The camera follows one of the police officers into the house and then moves away into the living room where the home videos that Bill had been in are located. As they watch still playing on the TV, some images zoom in of Bill, Beth and her daughter happily reunited in the shot, a happy American family now ruined and only one question left: who's to blame? No analysis of the fall would be complete. Without a literal discussion of my characters, as far as I can tell, the whole phenomenon really took off in 2018 with this meme showing a skinny teenager with glasses on his computer looking at a variety of iconic antiheroes and stating wow, this is literally me now.

If you just walked away from this image, you would assume that the intention here is simply to mock the lack of self-awareness of the boy who doesn't seem to see that he is nothing like these men. but that's a bit of a strange objection if you think about it, we generally don't expect teenagers to have the same qualities as men in their twenties and that's what those years are used for. There is another version of the same basic concept. which showed many of the same characters with the text reading, you missed the point by idolizing them and here the PA issue is raised.

The point being made is that these characters should not be identified with, above all, they should not be treated as aspirational. They were meant to entertain as part of the entertainment industry, but if they are removed from the game of fictional stories, they should be viewed with suspicion and fear, they should be threatening because they are dangerous and the problem is that they are also really cool, some people are prone to complain about how these characters have been romanticized in popular culture, a complaint to which I say it's because they are romantic idiots, that's what the word means and in recent years the very appeal of these characters has become is a problem and that is why there has been a lot of controversy surrounding the growing interest in these characters, especially among young men.

Nowadays, people who write for publications like the Daily Star are very, very worried about literal "I" characters emerging as often as people want. To say, relax bro, it's just a movie, a lot of these same people seem to be very concerned with these movies and these characters and the fact that a lot of men, especially young men, are connecting with them, but what's the problem here? ? Why isn't it just another one? Only in a film situation, the answer to that question lies in the nature of the characters literally and the reasons why people relate to them.

What is a character literally me? Obviously, you'd assume he's a character that viewers identify with in some special way or to a greater extent than usual, but that's a pretty bad description after all, almost all movie protagonists, if they're written well , they're easy to relate to, otherwise the audience probably won't care too much about their story and the movie is going to fall flat on its face What makes the characters in Literally Me unique is what it means to identify with them with what A person is identified when he or she identifies with a literal self.

In addition to being all men, what these characters have in common is that they have all placed themselves outside of conventional society in a radical way, they do not care about conventions, manners or white women's sensibilities are openly hostile or at least indifferent to the dominant culture and that alone wouldn't be that big of a threat after all, all Blockbuster bad guys and Hollywood terrorists are equally antagonistic to the dominant culture and in We don't actually find them as threatening as Outsiders who are only there to be taken down and affirm the justice of the cause, but I am literally an Insider. native son and that's fine, he's gone off the reservation so to speak, he's seen what society has to offer and said he's not good enough, this immediately makes him subversive to that social order, his rejection points the way towards alternatives, other ways of being the most convincing, literally.

My characters may even have their own vision of those social alternatives. Damn, since the 20's project can have about murder, the buildings are empty, security maintenance, all our people, we're not killing anyone, man, we're freeing them and usually these movies are destined. To persuade viewers that those alternatives must be rejected, I must literally reconcile with society or die because it won't be and that's what people mean when they say that if you don't get the point, you don't understand the intention of the people. filmmakers, but at the same time, the people who say this are missing the point, these characters are usually responses to some force in society that they find alienating, maybe it's the bland corporate nihilism of office work or the barely contained barbarism of modern life, but each of these characters represents a response to some failure in society, they are the embodiment of a criticism and the typical purpose of the film is to absorb and refute that criticism.

William Foster is not your typical literally meaty character, unlike Tyler Duran or The Driver, anyone. to begin with, he is in danger of idolizing Bill, he is not young, he is not romantic, for God's sake, he carries pins in his shirt pocket, he is not an idealist, at least not by much, he is close to 40 and has a family, or at least he had one. a job or at least he had one he's not Tyler Duran he's just dad he doesn't want to make waves he just wants to be on the boat he may be an idiot but that doesn't make him wrong and he really understands this movie It means being able to see beyond the crude manipulations that aim to turn him into a villain.

The critique that Bill represents is a critique of American culture and its management class and how they have altered society in the name of increasing economic production. His journey is a The journey of discovery ultimately leads to a question that is never asked, but is implicit throughout the film. What has happened to the American dream? Its place in the canyon of American literature, the story follows the final days of Willie lman, an elderly salesman whose life is imploding in a world that has eaten the best of him and is content to throw the rest of him away. rubbish in his twilight years.

The tragic flaw is that he cannot understand that what he has dedicated his life to, the rat race and the Eternal Mirage of the American dream, was essentially a hollow scam, that the business in which he spent the best years of his life working As a slave he doesn't care about anything. at all for him and that he is the involuntary author of his own exploitation in the same period. Miller also wrote the essay Tragedy and the Common Man and in this essay he stated that the nature of tragedy lies in man's refusal to accept his own degradation.

The tragic flaw or crack in the tragic hero is really nothing and need not be anything more than his inherent reluctance to remain passive in the face of what he conceives as a challenge to his dignity. Many without AC of retaliation are perfect, most of us are in that category. The tragic hero's efforts to gain dignity and the fact that he is destroyed in these efforts are meant to express a type of injustice in the world. The man is a flawed man. His destruction was and remains a similarly iconic indictment of American consumerism. Falling Down is a story about a man who follows the rules, does everything right, and ends up losing anyway.

He seems to fit perfectly into the role of Tragic Hero, his dignity as a man and as a human being has been assaulted by his Society's failures to fulfill the promises they have made to him, but the funny thing about falling is that all his structure is organized to undermine In this connection, its only intention is to weaken Bill Foster's tragic critique. Bill is not allowed to be a tragic hero, although we are meant to sympathize with him at several points. It's clear that he's ultimately the villain, but how legitimate is this change? Bill's last conversation with Printer Grass tells him that he used to build weapons to use against foreign threats.

You should be rewarded for something like that. He says they give it to a plastic surgeon instead. He surely must speak of some kind of social perversion. when the person whose job involves satisfying people's vanity, carving bodies to better fit superficial standards of beauty, is rewarded with incredible wealth, while the person whose job protects a nation from threats abroad becomes incapable of even supporting his own family, even if the movie's intention is to ignore Bill's points. It is difficult to watch it to the end without coming to terms that the society Bill has moved through is indeed sick, but what is the nature of this sickness as was the case with Bill's complaint?

As for inflation, the problems posed by a Bill sale are not inevitable and are largely the result of specific policy decisions that prioritize economic growth at the expense of social stability. Construction that is so often hindered. Bill's progress is itself a symbol of the country's economic growth. The country and its economy, but not everyone has been able to enjoy the fruits of this economic growth bill, is one of those that has been left behind in a society in which everything is increasingly win-or-take and in which Erosion of Social Capital makes life increasingly uninhabitable. because the loser bill and his father before him represent a certain spirit of patriotism and self-sacrifice and this is a spirit that has no place in Slick's fluid and universally fungible relations of mega big cock consumerism as the man outside the bank it has become. economically unviable, abandoned without remorse by the very country that once depended on his services, on top of this, he lost his family due to a messy divorce.

California was the first state to legalize no-fault divorce in 1970 and it was not universally legalized until New York adopted it. In 2010, in previous times it had been considered contrary to the public interest to allow people to break marital bonds without either party having betrayed those bonds in a significant way, such as abuse or adultery, unsurprisingly, this led to an increase massive divorce rates that were a source of controversy for many years to make matters even worse, Bill has a restraining order preventing him from seeing his young daughter despite having no history of abuse and not even alcohol abuse , and why because some enforcer of a dubious legal code decided to make an example of him if Bill's storyIf it were just an isolated case, it could be one thing, but unfortunately Bill is far from an isolated case in the crumbling 2012 book.

Sociologist Charles Murray documents the stories of two Americas at work. in the upper class over 50 years, from 1960 to 2010, the picture it paints is disturbing, as it shows that these two groups have radically distanced themselves not only financially but on a wide range of social measures, while the destinies of those in the upper and managerial classes have steadily increased those in the working class have fallen sharply this fall has included higher divorce rates higher crime rates increased births outside of marriage increased numbers of people in prison decreased labor participation decreased community participation decline in religiosity and Taken together, we see the story of Bill Foster RIT in an increasingly unstable society in which families and individuals have to work harder and harder under conditions of increasing competition. just to keep afloat public goods that could previously be enjoyed by all as The gifts of a society with large amounts of social capital are increasingly privatized now.

If this is progress, it is a very curious kind of progress, and one that is very similar to any historical example of a small group of aristocrats accumulating for themselves as much wealth and privilege as they can. They can, discussions about social mobility have only hidden this fact behind the idea that supposedly anyone can enter this Elite cast if only they had the common sense and skill, in reality, although the chances of being able to do so are reduced with every p in the year. a fact most easily seen in the increasingly absurd nature of job requirements, even for entry-level positions, and the diminishing value of education.

Those already within this privileged class go to great lengths to ensure that their own children can stay on the merry-go-round instead. Instead of relying on a crumbling public education system, they send their children to the best private schools and ensure they have access to sophisticated preparatory training classes to ensure they do well on entrance exams. Bribery is another route that is sometimes taken. They lied to me, says Bill. I finally did everything they told me. Did you know that I build missiles? Yes, I help protect America. You should be rewarded for that. He said they gave it to the plastic surgeon.

You know they lied to me and he is right, like so many others, he was sold. based on a myth of how his country worked, he has grown up with an understanding of America that provides certain guarantees, that if you work hard, if you do the right thing, you are guaranteed a level of material comfort, stability and happiness. What is promised is essentially a certain type. of morality, but Bill is beginning to wake up to the reality that these promises are actually empty and that America is in fact a place dedicated to maximizing economic growth and doing so in such a way that it is guaranteed to produce a certain number of losers. that they are not economically viable and Bill's complaint is not only understandable, it is undeniably correct and this means that it has to be answered and that is why what follows Bill's Declaration of the sins of society is such a strange bit of dialogue What I'm just going to let it in is that what it comes down to is that you're angry because they lied to you, they lie to everyone, they lie to the fish, but that doesn't give you any special right to do what you did today, what you did today.

The only thing that makes you special is that girl now let's go in Plato's Republic he outlines the concept of the noble lie the noble lie is a kind of founding myth propagated by the social Elites and has the function of legitimizing the status quo falling describes what happens when a no - the elite realizes the lie in many ways, the viewer tends to identify with Bill, so much of what he rejects are things that we ourselves have probably noticed and been irritated by. Rising inflation, false advertising, scammers, general unrest of people in urban areas, so it is very interesting that Bill's Avatar the audience ends up being shot down as a villain and transforming Bill into that villain is the main focus of the film's third act.

In this act, Bill is recast as an antisocial mad dog and the audience is asked to transfer identification from him to the printer. Both Bill and Prast are men who have had some problems in their lives at the beginning of the film. Prast is the butt of every joke, no one respected and constantly embarrassed by his domineering wife like Bill. He is also about to cease being useful to society in this case upon retirement, but as Bill's life falls apart, the printer improves, and he becomes more assertive with both his wife and his co-workers demanding the respect that they have been denying him.

You know when the hell you're coming home no one, shut up, this the movie implies is the acceptable way to reject if you're not satisfied with your life, what you need is to alter your personal relationships by becoming more active and assertive within yourself. By the end of the film, Printerr has regained his charm and has even decided that he is not going to retire after all, affirming his continued usefulness to society, but there is a problem with this message. All of the confrontations Bill has had today also started out as simple cases. of him asserting himself in personal interactions with other individuals, it's just that the nature of Bill's confrontations pointed to broader social issues rather than personal issues.

Bill's fight with a merchant and gang members involved political issues related to the economy and immigration. Constant construction points. to corrupt incentives within the city's political structure, his realization of his own economic unviability points to perverse incentives in the market, his relationship with his ex-wife speaks to the legal system and its changing priorities, and finally, his recognition of his own His failures as a parent implicate the entire American lifestyle, but none of this matters in the end, it's all put aside so Bill can be safely labeled a maniac and his complaints dismissed as the complaints of a maniac.

But Bill's transformation into a deranged psychopath capable of killing his own daughter is incredibly sloppy. We basically get three scenes: his phone call to his ex-wife after killing the neo-Nazi, his strangers together on the dark line at the plastic surgeon's house, and his callous response to the dying golfer, and none of these scenes are very good, the dialogue It's inorganic and has a distinctly made-for-daytime-television feel. Generally, this type of bad writing is a sign that the writer has to sacrifice realism to achieve a plot point and that's the case here too, but more importantly, this transformation ignores the fact. that Bill is essentially prosocial, he is not a mad dog, he has specific grievances against specific aspects of the society he lives in, furthermore, these grievances are substantial and principled, but the film ultimately combines these grievances with a generally antisocial attitude. and murders, which makes Bill a pretty reasonable guy who asks for pretty reasonable things in a psychopath and in doing so it's like the writers are trying to say did you start snooping around this system, did you start calling, did you start asking? why your products are more expensive or your cities. are more dangerous or their lives are less stable, then he would be putting himself on a slippery slope that would turn him into a psychopath willing to murder his entire family.

The overall effect is to replace the complicated socioeconomic critiques that Bill's diary has revealed with an extremely simple moral message: you were going to kill your daughter and your ex-wife and that's bad, at the end of the movie you're supposed to get out of it. movies or getting off the couch or whatever, thinking that fighting certain social evils is a slippery slope. pending which would be better to never take the first step if you started complaining about inflation, how long will it be before you are a threat to the people you love and the police have to come and arrest you, but if anything?

That can be called progress; it seems to depend quite a bit on the idea that the individual has an unviable right to fight against the injustices of society. In the end, falling does not mean supporting the little one's struggles, but rather undermining. Associating them with mental illness and antisocial attitudes means telling all those whose well-being has been sacrificed for the sake of increasing GDP that they have no right to take action against the forces that have done this to them and From the moment you start to the moment you You start to think about it, well, you've already become the bad guy.