Nah, Cartman's initial conception was literally "Archie Bunker as a third grader."
Thoughts On 1993's "Falling Down"
- Thread starter Resetta Stone
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I always saw it as two extreme vs each other, the main character was the guy sick of the sicknesses in society and reached his breaking point and went on a rampage, and the retiring police guy who stopped him is like the other side of the same coin; tired and worn from the pleagues of society but kind of deals with it and conforms (which isn't great either). Thought the film was pretty good.
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Uwe Boll's 'Rampage' is a far better depiction of a man going on a homicidal killing spree. 'Falling Down' was a film packaged with all the social commentary tropes, yet felt extremely dishonest in its messaging.
I don't know about Archie so much, but he is based on the British character Alf Garnet in the BBC's comedy show Till Death Us Do Part. Created by Johnny Speight and played by actor Warren Mitchell, both socialists, Alf is a caricature of a bigoted working class conservative British voter. Needless to say, the satire passed straight over the heads of its targets, who took Alf as their hero.
Don't forget Goodfellas and Passengers
I'm sure there's evidence for people who actually agree with Sen. Armstrong at the end of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, or Batman's Surveillance Supercomputer at the end of the Dark Knight - Maybe just Batman in general depending who's writing him (Mostly thinking Frank Miller)
Great film. The rant he goes on at the fast food restaurant is classic.
I've always kind of hated Michael Douglas but 'Falling Down' is a great film.
I've always kind of hated Michael Douglas but 'Falling Down' is a great film.
I did. And I didn't agree with it. But I'm sensitive to when I'm supposed to agree with the protagonist and I don't. It really bugs me and tends to make me hate the character writing cause I'm argumentative and it brings that out in me (it makes me want to bitch at how wrong the character is. I don't tend to do that as much if the character is supposed to be seen as bad).
I didn't get that at all. I mean, look at the iconography. This guy blows his top at the slightest provocation and never shows any sense of responsibility. Over the course of the film we learn that everything he says about himself is a lie. His own closest family are afraid of him. He initiates a bizarre armed confrontation, terrorising staff and customers in a restaurant, just because he wants an item that isn't on the menu. The film is not feeding you this guy's viewpoint, it's going out of its way to depict him as volatile and beyond the reach of reason.
I got the impression when watching it that we were supposed to identify with his rants and this was what we were supposed to secretly be ranting inside anytime we encountered scenarios like that. It came off like it was supposed to be a black comedy that we were supposed to find funny because it let us vent safely the things we were supposed to identify with. Except I didn't. Many of his rants were stupid and unempathetic (to be fair I can only remember my impressions because it's been a long time since I saw the movie so I don't remember specific rants).
It sounds like you weren't the targeted audience? Other than that, you should rewatch it. Maybe you can identify now.
At the time, if you were a white person, you would identify with his rants, since most of the confrontations in the movie were riffs on things that older white people were always bitching about.
The difference is that the movie gets you to identify with the character, but it also sets up a tension within the viewer—who hasn't been exasperated by the stupid breakfast time thing (the movie amps up the absurdity by showing it's only 2 minutes past 10:30 and he can see breakfast sandwiches on the warmers, to really rally the audience), but then he pulls a sub machine gun in the hapless counter worker. But wait, that's something a crazy person does.
Or, the movie asks, who wouldn't want to finally show those cholos who's boss? Those people are really just thugs and cowards, all it takes is for someone to finally stand up to them and they'll just go away. But wait, if you think through this a bit, chasing people off with a baseball bat is kind of stupid and doesn't really accomplish anything, other than brief emotional satisfaction.
What's up with prices on shit going through the roof? Soda was like .50 a can a couple years ago and here's one of these fucking guys charging a $1.50? But wait, you don't go around smashing up the guy's store, that's kinda fucked up.
So as these scenarios play out, a tension should be present in the viewer who identifies with the common bitching points, but uncomfortable with seeing the fantasies play out and escalate in front of them. D-Fens is contrasted with the cop, who initially comes off as weak—he's quiet, he's too wishy-washy with his wife, etc. In any other context, we'd see him as a good-natured guy just doing his job, but being introduced after D-Fens—a man of purpose and action—he looks weak.
Eventually, the movie actually starts letting you off the hook by dropping hints during the cop's investigation that D-Fens has character defects (he's divorced, has a restraining order, doesn't pay child support). It allows you to start disassociating with him. You might share the same frustrations, but this guy is clearly has some issues, so we're not *that* alike, after all.
By the end of the movie, your initial views of the cop and D-Fens should've swapped. The cop is the calm, reasonable, mature guy who knows how to make compromises and get through life like an adult (WWII generation), and D-Fens is a caricature of the typical baby boomer who gets mad and throws a fit when the world isn't catering to them. The movie's basic judgement of D-Fens, and the people who sympathize with him, is: Yes, you're a bad guy, but you're also a baby who should've learned to suck it up and deal with it.
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Years later I had to deal with a similar situation, except I was at Waterloo station and my kids wanted familiar burgers but the place was geared up for breakfast. I hadn't realised until that point that they couldn't serve the regular menu alongside the breakfast menu, and I was a bit upset because I had hungry kids. But you know, we went down the escalator to another restaurant and bought something suitable. My Uzi was in for servicing that day, anyway.
I got that message. Though a boomer myself, I really identified strongly with Sergeant Prendergast (Duvall). Douglas, who played Foster, had played sympathetic characters, especially a young police officer alongside Karl Malden in the television cop drama series The Streets of San Francisco, but by Falling Down the audiences knew him best for his film roles in Wall Street and Basic Instinct, in each of which he plays a very self-centred and unlikeable character. Duvall has often played heavies in his long career, but he is charismatic and can play very effectively against type as he does here.
I've always agreed with the interpretation that the film initially strings the viewer along with Foster, encouraging the audience to sympathize with him entirely in the context of black comedy. It becomes less of a comedy and more of a straight drama as Foster's madness become clear as the underpinning for his emotional breakdown.
I think, as details about his history are gradually revealed, it is clear that Foster began "falling down" years before the opening scene. Thus the everyday hypocrisies of life cause Foster to explode in the movie's present, while presented as sincere observations on the state of the world, are just excuses for Foster.
Another key difference between Foster and Prendergast isn't just that the latter maintains his maturity; it's that the Prendergast long ago realized society was unfair and corrupt, and chose to do the best he could with what he had. Foster by comparison represents the self-entitled person who believes that they are supposed to get the life they were promised in the marketing material without having to really understand how the world works or why anything around them is actually happening. The things he rants about are real, but even as he goes off it becomes increasingly clear he doesn't actually get the root cause of most of it.
So in that sense, despite his own troubles, he is indeed the bad guy - it's not enough to be mad at shitty things in life. That's easy. The harder part is getting mad at the right people. Otherwise one becomes little more than an angry fool that leaves a path of destruction and accomplishes nothing.
I think, as details about his history are gradually revealed, it is clear that Foster began "falling down" years before the opening scene. Thus the everyday hypocrisies of life cause Foster to explode in the movie's present, while presented as sincere observations on the state of the world, are just excuses for Foster.
Another key difference between Foster and Prendergast isn't just that the latter maintains his maturity; it's that the Prendergast long ago realized society was unfair and corrupt, and chose to do the best he could with what he had. Foster by comparison represents the self-entitled person who believes that they are supposed to get the life they were promised in the marketing material without having to really understand how the world works or why anything around them is actually happening. The things he rants about are real, but even as he goes off it becomes increasingly clear he doesn't actually get the root cause of most of it.
So in that sense, despite his own troubles, he is indeed the bad guy - it's not enough to be mad at shitty things in life. That's easy. The harder part is getting mad at the right people. Otherwise one becomes little more than an angry fool that leaves a path of destruction and accomplishes nothing.
I just wanted to say this is a great and well thought out analysis. I enjoyed reading it.
I had hoped this movie would have a thread, just saw it today for the first time and it was fantastic.
You can see how Michael Douglass' character was getting progressively more unhinged and violent as the movie progressed. At the beginning he was mostly quiet and kept to himself (well, outside the Korean man's store), and the trouble comes to him. Then after the breaking point with the Nazi he becomes more and more nuts.
Still I loved that he showed he wanted no harm to come to children or anyone innocent, he got scared when he thought he hurt the little girl, made sure the kid who helped him with the bazooka wasn't in the way, was scared when his gun acccidentally went off in the fast food burger shop. Then by then he's pretty much going crazy, enjoying the old man dying of the heart attack and shoots the female cop in the side.
Still the final scene, "I'm the bad guy? When did this happen?" was amazing as well as the final duel with the water gun where he knew he die. Great film.
You can see how Michael Douglass' character was getting progressively more unhinged and violent as the movie progressed. At the beginning he was mostly quiet and kept to himself (well, outside the Korean man's store), and the trouble comes to him. Then after the breaking point with the Nazi he becomes more and more nuts.
Still I loved that he showed he wanted no harm to come to children or anyone innocent, he got scared when he thought he hurt the little girl, made sure the kid who helped him with the bazooka wasn't in the way, was scared when his gun acccidentally went off in the fast food burger shop. Then by then he's pretty much going crazy, enjoying the old man dying of the heart attack and shoots the female cop in the side.
Still the final scene, "I'm the bad guy? When did this happen?" was amazing as well as the final duel with the water gun where he knew he die. Great film.
Most of Joel Schumacher's filmography is trash, but I quite like Falling Down. Robert Duvall is great in it as well, and I like the implication that he might be heading down the same type of path as D-Fens.
I always thought the movie did a good job portraying him as a guy who got pushed to his limits, without characterizing him as a victim. The movie really points out that what he's experiencing, everyone else does as well, but he's the only one who snaps.