'Falling Down' - Analysis

The title ‘falling down’ refers to the mental collapse of the main character, which is taken from the nursery rhyme "London Bridge Is Falling Down", this is a recurring motif throughout the film. A middle-aged man, is dealing with both unemployment, divorce and is having a bad day as his car breaks down on the middle of Los Angeles motorway. Tension begins to build up and his stress becomes noticeable where a series of violent encounters, both trivial and provocative, cause him to react.


Falling Down tries to make a commentary on a society in decay. In the process, it oversimplifies reality and makes sweeping observations lacking in wisdom and nuance. While I empathize with the character's difficulties, I’m not impressed with how he deals with them. I find his inclination to see himself as a victim annoying and yet, there's also real tragedy in this story. This man lived such a repressed life, so in denial of his own challenges and needs that in the end, he figures it's not worth it.



The main character, Michael Douglas, is portrayed much like a victim whose buttons have been pushed one too many times. I think the opening sequence accurately represents a normal person’s situation when even the most trivial of unfortunate of events start to build up, and you can feel your temper rising, your patience growing thinner by the minute- and I think we can all say at some point in our lives we’ve had a day where everything has gone so wrong.

The opening sequence is filmed with a constant ‘sandy’ filter, which suggests a hot environment. It takes place on a road where a traffic jam has occurred. We do not know what has caused this delay, and from the ambient sounds of car horns beeping, general chatter and commotion, is seems the characters in the story are also unaware.


From this opening sequence, the main character is quickly identified- a seemingly normal man stuck in this traffic jam, who connotes importance in his job due to the denotation of his suit, and beads of sweat are visible on his face, which adds to the ‘sandy’ camera filter effect symbolising heat, and could also possibly emphasize his rising temper.


 
The mise-en scene, camera angles, and camera shots in the scene shows his increasing irritation at the situation he is in: where small trivial events such as a fly buzzing around, children screaming and laughing, and even just a stuffed toy hanging in a window build up to become an increasing annoyance to him. This is shown by a build-up in the ambient diegetic sounds, and a sequence of quick cuts alternating from various things around the man to close ups of his face showing blatant annoyance, until he has had enough and gets out of his car to walk home.