FALLING DOWN is a story (supposedly) about the decline of America as seen through the eyes of an "average," middle-aged, hard-working, suburban/outer city White man. It works on a few levels. At times I will speak of a conscious narrative and an unconscious one. The Conscious Narrative, as I use the phrase, will take notes on the cinematic and narrative elements that add up to show us a man breaking down much as his society is. He is a part of that breakdown as well as a cause of it as well as a reaction to it. Bill Foster is on the edge of both madness and awareness. He is meeting the ultimate disillusioning and disenchantment and dissolution of the American Dream, to which he gave full and total allegiance. He is also losing his mind.

The Unconscious Narrative, as I use the phrase, is not always unconsciously wielded, but sometimes I think it is. What I mean by this is that under and along with the first narrative I speak of, there are the messages that women are superficial, weak, ineffective creatures; that Blacks are criminals, pawns, and a threat to America's fiber; that Asians are either smart and by the side of the White Male, or Otherly conniving overcharging storeowners (also weak and easily dominated); that Latinos are thugs and women-haters, also a threat to America's fiber and cultural makeup; the usual nasty hype about Gays; that a privileged attitude is normal, that misogyny is normal, and some others. At times this is purposely achieved. And I offer the benefit of the doubt to these writers that at other times they are just writing women, for example, as they think of them and see them.
The front cover lets us know that our protagonist is "an ordinary man at war with the everyday world." "Ordinary man" is key, as is "the everyday world."

The back cover blurb sums up the theme as "Are we falling apart?" and tells us the protagonist is"slipping over the edge" and "ready to get even" with the "pressures of big-city life" that "can anger everyone."

MEET YOUR (ANTI)HERO, BILL FOSTER. We first see him becoming very agitated as he is stuck in a traffic jam. The scene very consciously references the opening of Fellini's 8 1/2. In the Fellini film, the man finally floats up, up, and away—out of the traffic jam that is pressing in upon him. In Falling Down, this scene serves as an introduction to the theme of the film. As a study of cinema will teach, a viewer will see the theme laid out very barely in the first ten minutes of a well-made American movie. It will often be done in one phrase, or one image. Or it may be made repeatedly, on different levels during this window of time. The intent is to prepare the viewers mind for understanding that theme as it plays out. This makes for a full emotional and mental experience of that theme.

NOTE: the Conscious Narrative is that Bill is freaking out because he is simply boxed into his car on a hot day. It represents his inner turmoil, of course.

Slowly, his pent up angst is bubbling free. He begins freaking out. Sweating. A fly crawls on him, the windows won't open. He swats at the fly with a rolled up newspaper. The sounds of honking and laughter and angry chatter assault him. He grows increasingly agitated, feels trapped. These are all elements of the theme, some direct metaphors.

A POV shot from Bill's car. In the film, the camera PANS RIGHT and then TILTS DOWN the American flag down to the car below it. Here, we see a bus with the word "Bus" visible in case we need to be reminded that we are seeing a bus. Who is sitting "on the back" of that bus? A Black boy and girl. Can we possibly see a Black person on the "back of the bus" (labeled BUS to trigger the historical phrase) and NOT reference the Civil Rights movement? To make the allusion complete, we see a Black girl who throws a paper airplane, and the shot moves on and leaves her arm high, and her smiling triumph burned in our mind as if she is cheering. "Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy" are the lyrics that come to my mind, from Rage Against the Machine. That music is not playing. But we all understand the triumphant gesture. When you add the American Flag directly under the two Black children, it says a lot. Especially in the context of Bill watching all these scenes "locking him in" or "trapping him" or "closing in on him." Civil Rights struggle? Giving more power to minorities? Who's next? Is there room for Bill?

Note, we shoot them both with a Low Angle, up from underneath, giving them a sense of might and the feeling that they are above Bill.

ANOTHER POV shot. This is the girl right in front of Bill. She glares at him. Directly at him. We see her in a shot that ZOOMS in slowly, and in which the camera wobbles first over to almost center the girl's blonde/fair doll, and then, back to the Brown little girl's face. Each time this happens, the next insert shot is a maniacal, grinning, Garfield® doll. They are paired. This is to add a threatening feel to her, and possibly to speak of the danger of a certain type of child growing up in our midst. Note the College sticker on the window. That's where she'll go one day, to enter the system and gain power. What is missing from this description, of course, is the pace of the cutting of the shots, which causes them to rain down upon Bill like a hail of stones.

The blonde doll in her hands may be just to let us know/remind us that this girl is Brown. Not Fair. Not Euro, like our Hero, Bill Foster. It may also be read that this girl is appropriating culture, using a toy that is "meant for someone else."

A POV shot, and they are coming fast and furious. The editor, adept at his craft, is tightening the edit, raising the suspense, communicating Bill's agitation and fear.

Here, we are tightening up on the frame. ECU they say, Extreme Close Up. IT is a low-angle, so you feel the boy's laughter (a Black man to-be) up close, and in the context of Bill's agitation and claustrophobia.

The scene ALSO shows two "Guys" on a cell phone, a Latina woman smearing lipstick over her scowl reflected in a side-view mirror in which we get to feel the glare of her intense concentration/angst.

AFTER we cut to a quick shot of another fair-skinned child, we sandwich back to this shot. The Black child is no longer laughing. Now he is looking down at Bill with a Direct Address (right to camera), dark brown eyes still and strong, as if judging or weighing you.

As the other children laugh now, neither he nor the Brown girl in the car with the fair doll are laughing. They sit and watch bill squirm in the growing heat.

A bumper sticker we cut to twice in the editing sequence above, where Bill is being pressed in upon by all these threatening moments and feelings. It shows when the shots are cutting quick, right before he busts out of the car and begins walking. I save it for last because here is your theme, dropped in tidy.

Bill is a victim of the system, and he will die for our nation's sins. It reinforces what so many scenes tell us: somehow, this killer is blameless. A martyr, even.

This is a shot of PRENDERGAST, the cop who tracks down Bill Foster eventually. He is played by the ever-affable Robert Duvall.

This is our other White Male protagonist. I won't go into his character yet, but we see him for a moment in this scene, sitting a bit more patiently in a car stuck in the same traffic jam as Bill Foster was a moment before.

He looks to see a sign on the side of the road as he waits.

POV: Prendergast. This is the sign that overlooks the area of the traffic jam. The Duvall cop looks up at it and laughs. It seems like he is laughing at the graffiti on the sign. But other things are at work.

Sign: A Brown-eyed/copper-skinned girl looks down from on high. Next to her is the word WHITE, although the "E" is mising. (We see later it is indeed "White.") Maybe it's "Whitney." Maybe it's "Whitish." But given the mix of Black and White face Close-Ups we've just been peppered with, a viewers mind is now oriented on race, and given the amount of skin showing and all other factors, it is likely to read as "White."

On her right is a word we cannot make out. Is it "tan?" Maybe, maybe not. But she is in a bathing suit looking rather bronzed.

A graffiti-man is crushed inside the woman's cleavage yelling "HELP!!"

These images should be read in the context of the intro scene provided above. They come directly after many images telling us the future will be changed and experienced and framed by the many different minority children around "us."

This quick seemingly inconsequential sequence serves to reinforce the meme that the Average White Male is being squashed, edged out by sex/breeding of the non-White. It also serves to frame women as objects, which they are in this film.

Gaze closely from your roadside seat. Laugh, like Prendergast?

We see that Bill's license plate reads D-FENS, and this not only notes the Department he works in, but his role as a defender of the Average (White) Man's space and authority and privilege.

This moment serves to both intrigue us, tell us he is now unpredictable—despite his buzz cut, white collared shirt, and briefcase—as well as endear us to him. Who doesn't love a protagonist who says to hell with breathing exhaust, pops open his door and walks away from the whole mess? When the man behind him yells "Hey! Where are you going?" Bill Foster turns briefly to say "I'm going home!"

We don't know yet that he lives on the far side of the moon.

Bill Foster calls a mother and her child, but hangs up after standing silent in the face of her "Hello? Hello?"

The first place Bill stops in is a KOREAN CONVENIENCE STORE.

Meet MISTER LEE. He speaks broken English. He grunts. He arches his back slightly and scratches his polyester-clad belly. You see him here rubbing his neck. He is always rubbing, scratching...is he getting himself off, or cursed with a rash? Whatever it is, it subtly makes him feel sleazy, and dirty. When he speaks, he pulls his lips down into a frown. Not visible in this particular shot, but in others a bit wider of the same man, we see American flags behind him. Also, the shot of Bill from the side shows us American flags in a pencil can on the counter. Again, the theme is reinforced. Who is this foreigner to set up shop here?

Bill needs change, and asks for some, but the grocer abruptly and pointedly shuts the drawer and tells him he has to buy something.

Bill takes it in stride. For the moment. But it pisses him off. And we are meant to ride along. To justify violence and racism and typical American ignorance and exceptionalism and xenophobia (not the same as Racism), these moments appeal to very privileged attitudes like "I should be able to get change from whom I want and when, and I should pay what I want for any product."

Note the BLUE sheen in his eyeglasses. We will return to this.

Mister Lee has a sense, maybe about this character. Either way, he watches suspiciously (and from a sidelong glance) as the poor, overworked, sweaty White Man huddles into the cooler and caresses a Coca-Cola against his tired forehead. We see Mr. Lee watching, and we know by the shots and Michael Douglas' reaction that he feels intruded on by the man's glare.

Theme reinforced. Foreign elements intruding on the White Male's ability to live a comfortable,deserved life and enjoy those things he has worked so hard for.

The film does this a lot. Once the viewer is inflamed by having tiny privileges denied, he/she is to cheer on this "common man's" rejection of such obstacles to a well-enjoyed American life. We are to at least minimally approve his refusal to "take it anymore," as he beats up people, insults them, rocket-launches them, shoots and stabs them. It's true that the movie bills him as "falling down," and acting "psychotically," but the way his dialogue is written, and the scenes shot, you are to be feeling vindicated for someone finally standing up to all these annoyances that enlightened people don't make a big deal of.

Some how, very cleverly, the film often manages to pull off a sympathetic vibe for him. (If you are the target audience, and don't bump up against any sharp edges). It is done by tapping into these very mainstream, lazy, elitist, crude views. It does this with a clever joke or sympathetic action or feeling in Michael Douglass' performance at just the right time. (There is also the matter of Bill's daughter, who will be introduced once we need a bigger counterweight for sympathy, but that doesn't come yet.)

Bill asks how much for the soda, and is very dismayed at the answer of "85 cent." He mutters, fumes, "But that doesn't leave enough for my phone call!" Suddenly, we must think of that little girl on the other end of the line that he did not speak to yet, but only hung up before he was brave enough to try and call back (and realize he needed more change). We, too, are frustrated. This father (we are guessing) must call home!

Bill insults the storeowners way of not being able to pronounce English language sounds ("Fi' cents? What is "Fi"? Some good ole Come to My Country You Don't Even Have the Grace to Speak My Language, etc) tells him his prices are too high, brings up the Korean War and how indebted Korean Storeowner should henceforth be to America. The Storeowner begins to get a little freaked out and reaches for his bat, growling like a guttural animal, "Go, now; no trouble, no trouble!"

Poor thirsty sweaty, hot, tired Bill Foster wrestles the bat away from him, though, and of course, overwhelms the little Asian (now emasculated) man. Tells him O Yes, there will be trouble. And humiliation. For daring not to pronounce the "v" sound as Grateful, Korean Americans should; for trying to make a profit like every other American in business, for telling the White Male Bill Foster to leave the premises. We never forget that this film is completely aimed at the Middle American, working, White Collar, White Male. And many of these complaints over trivial inconveniences have been accumulating inside some of these men. They have no redress and are told they are wrong for being offended. They demand the restoration and respect of their privilege. That is how you can end up with people cheering this sort of thing.

Given my current focus and awareness, it proved very uncomfortable to watch these scenes. I'm glad I had a purpose, because I planned on making this post when I turned it on. Watching now was sort of like that experience where you go back to a childhood film hoping to recapture the magic, but instead see only artifice. Not to say Falling Down is not well-made. Unfortunately, it is. That's how it works, though. It holds up on many cinematic technical and screenwriting mechanics levels. But being where I am now, and knowing what I know—after both school and working in Film/TV as well as my current ethnic studies and awareness—suddenly, the film seems nothing but a hateful weapon of potential art. I am no longer that child who, like a sponge, soaked up such ignorant and dangerous hipnotismo.

Here is the champ, about to hit a home-run. He pontificates, lording his violence and morality over the fallen Asian man. This is a speechy moment where he threatens to bat the soda-bomb across the airspace between the two men unless the grocer gives him the price he wants. He tells him "I'm standing up for my rights!"

When Bill Foster has the man on his back on the floor and cringing; after he has swung his bat and smashed various displays, goods, and items, costing the grocer hundreds of dollars at least; after forcing him with a bat over him to charge him what he wanted in the first place, the scared man says "Take the money! Take the money!" But Bill is shocked! How dare he insinuate that he is the ladrón! He lets him know this, and "bargains" a price from the terrified man threatening to slam a soda into his face.

Bill Foster is the righteous, put-upon Average American man, fed up with things like bottles of aspirin at the corner store that cost $5; with a world where you can't understand other people talking without making effort; where you can't make out with a cold can of sugarwater without being spied on; where the soda you decide costs .50 is being sold for .85. Where a stolen baseball bat makes that world into one you can afford to live in the way you like.

Bill Foster gingerly rings open the drawer and makes change. Showing that he is paying (his own price), and not stealing. He makes a show of it so we can see how "honest" he is. Drops in the bill, close up, takes changes, takes soda, leaves. This is reinforced later when the Japanese American cop takes Mister Lee (who files a police report) away from the Robbery division, because he suddenly realizes that there was no theft at the scene (baseball bat doesn't count).

THE OFFICE. We see Prendergast. His Crazy Wife calls him (again). She is freaked out. She wants him home. Now. She seems irrational, but we don't know yet why she is this way. She reads as emotionally unstable. Prendergast looks around him furtively to see if a coworker is nearby. Clearly, he catches hell for his relationship to his wife.

The picture clutched to Prendergast's wife's chest is not a casual prop. It is a photo of her daughter, who is dead. We do not yet know this is what drove her over the edge. Also, the locus of the woman's mental instability is somehow never really pinned on this, which would render her sympathetic, rather than ridiculous and annoying. Prendergast later frames his loyalty to her based on what she sacriced to him to have this child—her figure. And so, it never feels like she is forgiven for going crazy.

Also revealed at this time, but not shown here is that Prendergast is the butt of many jokes at the office, and seen as a pushover. We also know that he doesn't have to weather it much longer. This is his last day. But on this day, the ribbing is especially intense.

It is significant that HE is the one we see staring at the photo of the girl's face at length. When we see the wife, it is as shown, here. The picture is assumed. Just as it is assumed that she feels the same way. But in a film, emotions are most strongly drawn from what we SEE. And so the weight of our understanding always rests with Prendergast, instead of his wife, who ultimately is there to help highlight Prendergast's character arc, and not as her own character.

As his wife grows increasingly shrill, Prendergast damns the workplace torpedoes and whips out a musical globe and sings along with it.The song is "London Bridge is Falling Down." Diogetically (this means within the context of the narrative), it references the location that Prendergast's wife is pressuring him to move to, for his is quitting his job and moving for her, we learn. Another use of this song is to reinforce the "falling down" theme. One possible Non-diogetic interpretation for the use of this song is that it is associated with the 1013 burning down of London Bridge in an attempt to to divide the invading forces of Danish king Svein Haraldsson. (Invading forces of course fits right into the theme of this film).

You know Prendergast's singing ritual is something already established to soothe his wife. She begins to calm down. You sense that something is wrong with her emotionally. Prendergast is our hero, for being so nurturing. Especially after watching another White Male in a Tie be so vicious to another human.

Part of the criticism, notes Wikipedia, against this movie has been that it relies on conventionally stereotyped roles of ethnicities. This claim can be countered, Wikipedia further posits, by pointing to the other roles. They argue that okay, true, Mr. Lee the grocery owner is stereotyped, but there is an articulate Asian co-worker. So it balances out. This is ridiculous. (NOTE: May, 2007: Wikipedia, always shifting, has read my analysis, and since, deleted their claim of balance)

The intelligent, well-spoken cop role of Prendergast's co-worker does nothing to treat Asians fairly, it does not compensate for the Korean grunting, scratching, scowling, shifty-eyed role. The Japanese policeman (here pointing out the difference as he corrects the White Male who asks him to translate Korean) is simply another stereotype.

Prendergast's co-worker is just the well-assimilated and Smart Japanese Type, while the balding, polyester-clad, beastly Mr. Lee snarls in almost every shot and is meant to cause us to recoil.

Here he is weirding us out whilst the refined and authoritarian Japanese man oversees his strange ways.

TELEPHONE. Bill calls the woman and child again. The line is busy, though. She is already on the phone.

In this scene, while she is on this call (again I stress: she is busy, occupied), the mother fills a watergun for her daughter, who takes it outside to play. This comes just after a ECU on the framed photo of Prendergast's (Blonde) daughter. The shot that follows it is the dangerous territory of the gang members. If you don't think these edits and implications aren't well planned out, you don't understand media. Me, I see can see the writers and director doing high-fives on some of these calls. They work well!

This use of gun handed to the child by the parent is speaking to the theme of growing violence in America, and how the adults are complicit in inducting the children into it. The fair dead child intercut with gang activity highlights who is in danger and from whom.

. Note the BLUE color of the gun. We will return to this.

CARRYING the grocer's bat, Bill foster walks through a part of the city he never would, normally.

A great shot. One of my mis favoritos, in terms of Art Direction and narrative expressed through props. Sure, it's way over the top, but it's such a strong image. It builds tension for the incoming scene. Here, it will highlight the part of the Conscious Narrative that tells us America is being rotted by many elements—one of them, gang violence.

As this story is based in Venice (I was born in Venice), we know it is in Los Angeles, and thus, these eses patrolling their territory are probably not Irish, or Finnish.

Bill walks into a parklike area and takes off his shoe. The place is empty, there are tags on the concrete. He is told he is in gang territory, and he sneers at these vatos, being as condescending as possible. He is unmoved.

This paints him as a brave man in the film's context, and he looks down upon these two circling aggressors from his perch. He mocks the concept of gangs having territories, mocks their graffiti, gives no respect at all that he might be a lost letter in someone else's lexicon for a moment and that he should listen for language. But that is his character. He is above all that. He reinforces the anti-multiculturalism happening today (and when the film was made) by telling them "Maybe if you wrote it in fuckin' English, I could fuckin' understand it."

Yet, he then attempts to "be reasonable," barely straining out his disgust. This is so the watcher can agree with him later when he claims that he tried to treat these thugs with respect.

This is a favorite camera moment. Where they circle him like sharks, and the camera glides behind them, circling. It's nice, works well.

A reader has pointed out quite astutely that the concrete is the front steps to a house. Yet another sign of the American Dream being ruined by the crime and advancement of the Brown.

Ese gets intense, demands a "toll," pulls a knife (but you knew it would be a knife!) which ends up (like the bat) in the hands of the Unstoppable Unbeatable Strongest Element in the Stew, Bill Foster.

It is important, and not accidental, that Bill Foster takes all his weapons from the situation around him. This not only says he is adaptable, it takes some locus of blame off of him, and reinforces the "violent, rotting land" that America is within the context of this film. The fact that he takes the weapon forward into the next scene is adept storytelling, raising the stakes, increasing the drama and tension and inevitable moment of climax.

White Male uses Korean's weapon to defeat Latino aggressor.

He gets to tell them that he "Tried to treat [them] like a man," but we see that sure didn't work.

This is another scene where we are to cheer on th Conservative White Male for finally standing up to these pinche gangbangers.

Boy, they look pretty silly now. One conservatively dressed White Dude in the outlands with a short bat, and these two toughies run willy-nilly, forgetting all about their car, just scrambling directionless in panic.

Bill mocks them as they run. "You forgot the briefcase!" It is lines like this that inform the audience to laugh with him, and to feel strong with him.

TELEPHONE.

Bill calls the woman, and the child—who turns out to be his daughter, after all.

We begin to identify part of his conflict. This is the element that makes him human and sympathetic. His arc of wanting to get home for his daughter's birthday. We don't understand, as an audience, why he can't see her, but everytime we see him speak to his wife, we get a little more of the picture. Something went wrong. He seems like an okay guy. Yes, he does the quiet stalker thing, but then when his ex-wife gets a note of genuine fear in her voice "It is you, isn't it?") he quickly soothes her. He laughs in a self-deprecating way. "Yeah...it's me."

He reminds the woman that it is "Adelle's birthday..."

At this point, and for a while, Bill's wife simply refuses him access to his daughter. You don't know why. You are not given any facts on it. As a viewer (I admit, I am a male and a father), you begin to empathize with Bill simply because his ex-wife does not articulate a clear reason why he cannot even talk to his little girl. When he earnestly asks how she is doing (and you can hear that he misses her), the mother says, unkindly, "She's doing just fine without you."

This withholding a reason from the viewer is not accidental. This is so we can begin to bond emotionally with Bill, who will need our alliance if we are to justify his behavior in even the minimal amount that an Anti-Hero requires.

Later, the gangbangers come back with guns and a car. They hate on the only girl in their midst, telling her to SHUT UP! (that's the running joke in that scene, and we are even supposed to laugh when two vatos gang up and yell at her in perfect synchronous timing). As I said, the women in this movie are passive characters, and serve as props for the men's actions for the most part. This movie is extremely misogynistic.

These vatos scope out Bill, and open fire on him, carelessly spraying the entire area with bullets as they try to hit him at a payphone. But Bill walks on water, in a manner of speaking, and defies physical laws by remaining untouched in a crossfire of bullets. Instead various random people are wounded/killed. Driveby amateurs to the end it seems, these gangbangers not only miss our protagonist, they steer out of control, and crash the car in a dramatic head-on collision.

As Bill approaches the downed Latinos, who are pretty messed up in pools of sangre de la cabeza he comes to a standstill in front of a mural that will not register in the conscious mind, unless you are aware of the Martyr theme, as first conveyed with the "He Died For Our Sins" bumper sticker in the opening scene.

Directly behind Bill, in this shot, is Christ. As we know, these choices are not casual, nor accidental.

Bill Foster stands over the wounded men. Dig the low angle. Standing in judgment, he is not only the Martyr, but God Above.

Now we the fallen Latino man, his hair undone and splayed about. He looks effeminate with his hair all about. He looks rather vulnerable and scared. Emasculating and feminizing males in this movie to denigrate them is common.

The Latino, like the Korean, is now at the feet of the White Man.

Vato certainly looks powerless, and unlike Brave Bill, he begs for mercy when a gun is pointed at him.

Bill shows some mercy and after first missing completely, pumps a round into the man's immobile leg.

It is of note that he missed once. He can't look expert at any of this stuff. It makes him seem a "victim" of the system, then. Driven to violence, certainly not prone to, or practiced at it.

Bill walks away with the gangmembers' guns and his own briefcase. The visual tells us that he can choose to go either way, yet. He has not yet passed the Point of No Return. On one hand, an artillery. A bag of berzerker. On the other, a job, taxes, a time-clock, Saran-Wrapped lunches to put into a small fridge in the office.

He carries violence further into his arc. We began with a bat. He is now toting a small gun shop.

Prendergast resigns. But the BOSSMAN has to give him the obligatory Think it Over Before You Quit speech.

You can tell Bossman cannot stand Prendergast. Even before he tells him so. That is because the Boss fella is a true AlphaMacho male, and Prendergast is but a Wimp. In fact, the Boss is boxing a heavy bag when Prendergast enters the office! In this shot, he is "taking the gloves off."

As he talks to him standing, while Prendergast is sitting facing him, Bossman has his fly and pants open, and is standing tall and confidently tucking his shirt into his pants. I don't think it needs further comment that Prendergast is being emasculated here, and the role of the Macho Man being revered, on top of that.

Prendergast is our true Protagonist. He is the White Male that is All Those Things That Bill Foster is not. He is comfy around Minorities (works with them after all, and is close to a Brown woman, his partner!), he is accomodating to women....like his batshit wife. He seems to let everyone poke and push at him. He lets his boss unload on him.

THE BUS STOP. And poor Bill Foster is subjecting himself to it because he just wants to "go home." When he left the gang turf, he threw the bat and shouted "Clear a path! I'm going home. You hear me? I'm going home!!" or something close to that. It's intended to be a Spine-Chills-Cheer moment. One of my past best friends would use that line in life at times. We loved this movie. He was a very cool, writer cat. And I had no idea of all the things this film was telling me every time I watched it. I had not yet gone to film school, worked as a cinematographer, or "remembered that I was Mexican."

Bill now has the knife that the gang member pulled on him. When he picks it up, he makes it clear that (again) he is not of this violent world. He doesn't know how to use it, tries to twirl it (butterfly knife) and mumbles "how do they do that?"

A Black man sitting on the street, who, ahem, needs help to get to his feet.

...they "crowd him out."

And we again reinforce part of the theme. That all these other elements are crowding out the average, conservative, White Male.

Bill leaves and keeps walking. The suspense of the conscious narrative is better served by his slow moving across the map that Prendergast is figuring out.

When Prendergast needs to brainstorm on where Bill Foster is headed, who does he talk to? His partner, Sandra? No! The Smart Asian, of course.

THE PARK.

We enter a second park (if we count the Ese Park as the first). Again we appeal to a certain "Bill Foster" point of view. The park is crammed with many threats and our narrative follows the Bus Stop with an intensification of progression.

In between every shot of the "threats" are shots of children playing, Bill Foster watching, or a few teenagers chilling and playing music on a guitar and dancing.

Note: this child's shirt echoes the American flag motif.

Bill is surrounded by People of Color. This shot works on more than one level, as many of the shots do. This is where we begin to understand that Bill has a pain inside him that has to do with his child. There is a running theme in this movie of a lost daughter that I find very poignant.

This shot serves to place him alone and isolated as a White Male, and also as a Father. It is this father who has been cut off from his daughter that helps to render him sympathetic at all.

Bill is "accosted" by a homeless person. This homeless person is very quick-talking, towers over Bill, and follows him with an obvious con-job story. Homeless people are painted as liars (who tell you they haven't eaten for days as they munch on an apple and holding food very lackadaisically, as if it is a third dessert) and grifters who really don't need food, but just feel entitled to "some money."

Bill, being a fair man reacts to being told "you don't need both of those bags; gimme one" by agreeing, and giving up his briefcase. The conning, lying, Homeless Person yells with indignance to only find food inside the briefcase.

WAMMY-BURGER.

Bill stops into a "Wammy Burger." We reinforce part of the theme of this tale, that of a violent (and corporate) culture. Violence is also foreshadowed by the sight of the blue car. The only car we've seen (and recently) that looks like this one is the wrecked gangbanger's car.

The ubiquitous American flag flies high.

Whammo! Note the boxing gloves on the mascot! The theme of violence is brilliantly woven through every scene, and on every level, as a theme ought to be conveyed.

In this scene, the aggressor is twofold: Corporate America, and the inability for a decent working (White) man to get a burger when the hell he feels like it. This latter complaint is what predicates the entire Conscious Narrative. Bill gets pissed off because he wants a breakfast item, but it is not even five minutes past the cutoff time, and he is being denied. So it is both Corporate America encroaching upon the Little Guy, it is a loss of some royal sort of privilege that would entitle a person to make their own rules about what time lunch is served and the grills are scrubbed and cleaned.

Yet another Everyman complaint is tapped into. Bill buys a burger and it looks limp, soggy, dry—nothing like the juicy ad, which Foster points out, thus garnering the audience's Junk Food Indignance empathies.

As in the Korean Deli, Bill feels he has the right to terrorize people because a situation in life would require his patience or understanding...or just a choice to shop for goods elsewhere.

He's the anti-hero, but he is written to vindicate the target audience's frustrations. Prendergast is not the Real Man, after all. Not until he....

STREET. Now back outside, making his way across the city, Bill finds a crystal ball that he can give his daughter for her birthday. It clearly catches his eye and he immediately attaches significance to it. We are reminded of the soothing London Bridges globe.

We see later that Bill's home movie memories include a horse that he tried to seat his daughter upon, oblivious to her fear and screaming that she didn't want to get on it. Maybe this is the one she would have wanted, say Bill's eyes.

WAMMY BURGER: Prendergast's partner Sandra communicates in a few ways that she is really going to miss Prendergast as a partner. They worked well together, you can see this from their interaction. Prendergast keeps needing her attention in various ways, whether it is their planned lunch, or phone calls where he is trying to track down Bill Foster, as he makes his way across the map. She seems happy to give it, but is always pressed to obey her new Male partner.

Sandra is rendered a passive, helpless character, even though a cop! In this shot, her new partner, a co-worker she already knows well, is obnoxiously waving his watch in her face to let her know it's time to go. This dynamic was especially annoying for me to watch. It made no sense that she took this clown's constant gibing. What a role model for a girl to watch. This man was constantly her Master, telling her how long to talk, when to go, when to move, how to be a cop. The day wasn't over, her last day as Prendergast's partner. Yet she was throwin in with this fool. Another way in which the film showed its hate for women was to make Sandra oddly subservient to this jackass.

It was meant to play as humor, but there was nothing really funny about it.

STREET:

Bill walks by a mural of a dark skinned man being romantic/sexual with a lighter-skinned woman. The pole bisects both them and our vision as it moves to frame Bill.

He stops on the corner to dab sweat from his head. He walks on.

The Notzi, feeling he and Bill are on the same "side" asks him, why did you do that? Meaning, why did you tell the cops I wasn't here? And the Notzi spells it out for the back row: "You are just like me! We're the same, me and you!"

You can see the SS outfit, and the gas mask in the center of this shot. There is light coming down from above, as the room is underground or appears that way, as if a bunker. Much clouds of dust fill the air too, as the Notzi speaks glowingly of his empty Cyklon gas cannister ("See? It's been used!" he gushes).

This scene really pours it on thick so we understand that despite the fact that Bill is now officially a murderer, he's still a good guy. He's not one of THOSE characters. Those Ign'ant Racists. That is not what is behind his fear of Brown people and cultural change.

What's this? The very repulsive man spits. "Faggot shit?" And he viciously smashes Bill's present that he was trekking all the way across town to bring his daughter.

Bill screams when the glass breaks. "Noooooooo!"

Bill stabs him with the butterfly knife, but the progression is not done playing out. He has to up the ante, after all. He's already fired a round into the leg of a wounded man. Now it's time to shoot one dead.

Just before Bill shoots this ugly character, there is a nice, tight shot of Public Enemy #1, from a poster. (Not the band.) This is not a POV shot, just an insert of him glaring at the viewer; just an emotional reminder.

Hey, here's a murder we can all get behind. Killing H----- by proxy.

It is from this point forward that Bill's right eyeglass is cracked. A break in one lens or in a mirror image will often signify mental disturbance or madness.

Under a blazing BLUE bug light, Bill calls his wife and lets her know he plans to kill her, but not in direct words. He zings one out to Latin America on the side as he ruminates on the legality of wife-killing in "certain parts of South American countries." He tells her his wife that he is "out of contact," now, and "on the dark side of the moon."

In this film, this electric shade of BLUE is the color of pending VIOLENCE and a state of madness.

HIGHWAY: We finally see the entire phrase next to the girl in the green bathing suit, as Prendergast tracks Bill Foster's steps with his partner. Does it feel dismissive or derogatory? WHITE IS FOR LAUNDRY it says. I bet Bill wouldn't appreciate that.

Again, we frame women as objects. And this comes, notably, just as Prendergast begins to close in on the killer. With his partner, who is a woman.

STREET:

Sandra, although apparently a healthy, able human, is forever relegated to a weak position of being questioned as to why she is not a "officer-esse" from the NeoNazi, pushed around by her idiot new partner, or toting her purse around everywhere she goes. The director (Joel Schumacher) makes sure to keep her adorned with this purse. She wears it all day and it feels like a prop. It doesn't hang well on her ever.

Just look at her posture in these shots. It says "I am ineffective, weak, scared, useless." And she must be, because Prendergast leaves her behind while he scrambles off to get a look over the peak of the hill.

Think about it.

As if this wasn't enough, when they finally, do get to the house Bill has been angling for the entire day—his ex-wife's home—Sandra gets shot and is left on the ground, as Prendergast picks up her gun and goes after the bad guy! Whew. Good thing he was there, that's all I can say.

As I said, all women in this movie are props that enable the men to live out the action and establish their beliefs and desired outcomes.

ADELLE'S TV.

The world in which Bill Foster lives is a dying one. It is being eaten apart by violence and crime and lack of good services, by People of Color, by corporate greed (he was no longer "economically viable" to his employer, the Department of Defense), by women.

Of course, in perfect character, Bill does not know how to operate such a piece of weaponry. How could he? He only works for the Department of Defense, and is not acquainted with these notions of weaponized violence.

Good thing there's a little Black kid on the scene!

The Black Kid of course knows how to operate a rocket launcher. Why not? He watches TV!

This idea that the child knows how to operate this weapon serves two purposes here. It ties Black people to crime, and it reinforces the Conscious Narrative, that the Nation is so increasingly violent that a child knows how to use military equipment.

The child says "Cool!" and Bill Foster looks at him with a mix of wonder and disgust. This is, again, to show how nasty the country has become, to tie Brothas and Sistas to it, and to place this Average White Male outside of it, only a victim, and appalled by this child's amusement of it.

This part really amazed me. What a whopper. Looking at his kid as if he is to blame for the rocket launcher that Foster stole from the man he has just shot—and then fired into a manhole. He is visibly put off by the kid's excitement. He steals, rants, murders and explodes indiscriminately (though to his logic it is all justified, you'll remember) and somehow we are to feel his hands are clean.

Again we see that Bill is a Christlike figure, a martyr. Here, he has cut his hands climbing a barbed-wire fence that guards a plastic surgeon's property, and has a bloody palm.

Also working in this scene to gain our sympathy is that he thinks the blood is from the little girl, and he gets terribly scared thinking he had hurt her.

This is another scene for the Middle Class Working Man who marvels over the sort of home that being a doctor of vanity can bring.

THE OFFICE: If you know Robert Duvall, you know just what kind of nice guy he can play. And we like him. We feel for him, because he is a wuss at the office. And everyone picks on him. Movie-watchers love nothing quite so much as watching the pushover get his cojones all in a line.

But how does he do it? By finally putting his wife "in her place." Sure, she's going off the deep end because their daughter died (too old) of S.I.D.S.; sure, he lets everyone in the office insult him, push him around, play practical jokes on him. But his wife nags. And who encourages him to stop "taking it" from her? His female partner. In this way, women are used to oppress women. It all looks okay to see Sandra egging Prendergast on and laughing into her hand when he finally "gives it to her," until you remember that the story is written by a man (Ebbe Roe Smith), edited by another man (Paul Hirsch), and directed by yet another man (Joel Schumacher).

For the most part, we have liked Prendergast. He's kind at first, seems affable, shrugs off hurtful barbs. Are we now supposed to love him? Yes. When he gets macho with his wife and finally stands up (telling her "And have dinner ready when I get home,") she almost trills with acceptance, and gives him a "yes sir" type of response. You feel that with just a little stern and patriarchal command, her mental entropy has been stalled.

One of the rewards of his spousal-contempt and surprise party is a stripper on a cake. Prendergast, being above the average man, demurs. He has to leave, to catch the crook. One man asks "are you afraid of women," and then Sandra's cartoon-obnoxious new "partner" says "have you ever seen his wife?" and then, at THAT point, when Prendergast's wife's honor has been tread upon by another man, he rushes valorously to aid her by punching this guy in the jaw, dropping him. Another mark for our pushover. Nobody disses my old lady but me.

We are very proud of him.

ADELLE'S HOME.

Now Bill is at his old home. It is where his wife and child live. They have fled, as he has called and let them know how close he is. The color BLUE reappears as he delves into his memories....

As we watch his home movies with him, we see that even though he always meant well, he has never been well. He is a control freak who can't see that his child is hurting or scared. He is wed to his idea of a good time. Yet we are to feel for him, because watching this, he turns away from the screen with self-loathing and regret.

And as a symptom of madness, well...they choose one that resembles a common human failing. For we are all capable of falling into a selfish and heedless habit of insisting that our way is The Way from time to time, even if it is not best for all, right? So Bill Foster is not even a "wack job" per se. Just someone who got too caught up in his own idea of happiness at the expense of those around him.

THE PIER.

Note the BLUE sheen, again, in Bill's glasses.

Here is only the redeeming part of Bill Foster's character. Here he finally gets to see his little girl, who is having her birthday party today. Bill has been made sympathetic by his searching for her gift and finding it—only to watch it be broken—by asking to speak to her on the phone, by gazing at other girls who are with thier mothers. Despite his failings, we know he misses his daughter. Adelle cries for her father with joy when she sees him. "Daddy! Daddy! Mom, it's Daddy!"

Prendergast shows up. Of course, the White Male Authority figure takes care of business and tells the mother and little girl to run for safety while he uses his female (shot) partner's gun to get the bad guy. We empathize with Prendergast for the most part, and here, he finally and fully becomes a "Man," as he risks his own life and limb, swaggers; and on his very "last day" as a cop solves a mystery and loses his cherry by shooting a killer through the heart.For a movie that is supposedly speaking against violence, it's an interesting way to resolve the problem.

Prendergast even begs Foster not to make it end badly, to just hold on, and come meet the cops, his backup, because they're some "good guys."

The epiphany of the anti-hero who finally realizes he is not the Hero.

Bill Foster incredulously says "I'm the bad guy?" It's always been my favorite part, to see him realize this. It is also the tale of the Average White Male who gives all to the system and finds he has been used. How did that happen? he asks, and he speaks for all the disillusioned Average White Male Americans who feel that after all they have done, after all they have bought into, they are yet losing their places, their moral authority, and are not even allowed to complain, for the baleful eye of society's judgment rests on them as if they are somehow to blame for all of it.