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Films

Falling Down

Thomas R. Morgan considers how personal identity is maintained, and how it is lost.

Falling Down (1993) is a gem of a film, and is excellent on many levels. Written by Ebbe Rowe Smith, and directed by Joel Schumacher, it has, rather shallowly, been placed by some in the ‘angry white man’ genre. Yet while it does undeniably deal with themes of race and prejudice, another overriding issue seems to drive the film – that of identity. It repeatedly raises the questions, What makes identity? and How does the loss of identity lead to breakdown, both psychologically and socially?

Loss and change are portrayed dramatically in Falling Down, as the characters cling to some semblance of identity in the chaos that surrounds them. But the city of Los Angeles itself, the setting of the film, also seems to be suffering a deterioration, or at least a fragmentation of identity, as reflected in its seeming unfriendliness, poverty, ghettoisation, and crime. Furthermore – and rather cleverly – an atmosphere of cynicism pervades the entire movie. I want to briefly look at how this film illustrates the difficulties of establishing and sustaining identity when aggravated by change, particularly with reference to Buddhism and the philosophy of John Locke.

“No, I don’t want fries with that.”
Film images © Warner Bros 1993

Identity Confusions

William Foster (played by Michael Douglas), a low status engineer, loses his cool in a traffic jam, abandons his car and runs off on foot, shouting “I’m going home.” From here, the film follows his quest to visit his daughter on her birthday. As he travels, he has a number of challenging encounters, to which he responds in increasingly aggressive ways. Early on, he wrestles with a shopkeeper who won’t provide him change for a payphone. Here, he doesn’t deliberately steal, but he does damage property and walk off with the shopkeeper’s baseball bat. Soon he gets into a violent scuffle with two gang members, and subsequently the gang attempt to take revenge in a drive-by shooting, but miss him and crash. He retrieves the gang’s bag of guns. In fact, practically every encounter Foster has provides him with weapons which enable him to channel his anger in increasingly destructive ways. Later, in a burger bar, he uses a machine gun confiscated from the gang to demand breakfast. He threatens, but does not steal. By the end of the film Foster is attired in combat boots and jacket, outward reflections of his increasingly aggressive and violent responses, and his rapid change of identity.

Foster’s story is paralleled by that of the investigating police officer, who is on his final day before retirement. Martin Prendergast (Robert Duvall) is seemingly as disillusioned by the people and society around him as Foster is, and this apparently gives him an intuitive understanding of Foster’s movements. Nevertheless, Prendergast expresses his frustrations in a different way, thus providing an interesting device for juxtaposition.

Foster’s behaviour baffles the police (less so Prendergast), since categorising his criminal activities is far from simple. Classification as a mark of identity is an issue here, particularly on a practical level – even in terms of which police should pursue him. Initially, his case is reported to a squad dealing with theft, but is then reclassified as assault. In fact, the movie is brimming with confusions over identity. For just a few instances:

• There’s confusion at the police station where a Japanese police officer and a Korean are prejudicially mistaken for being of the same race.

• The ambiguous reasons for Prendergast’s retirement baffle his colleagues, leading to dramatic tensions.

• Prendergast tells a story of how his wife mistook him for a ghost after believing he’d been killed on duty.

• When confronting the owner of an army surplus store, who mistakes him for a fellow fascist, Foster asserts their differences and is accused of vigilantism.

• In reporting Foster’s telephone harassment, his wife Beth reveals that he never actually hit her, but that “he could.”

• The mention of the relocation of London Bridge into the Mojave Desert also seems to be symbolic of confused identity.

• During lunch with his colleague Sandra (Rachel Ticotin), Prendergast defends his wife, Amanda, exclaiming, “It’s not easy to see your beauty go when that’s all you’ve got.” This refers to the negative impact of lost identity, or identifying with something impermanent.

• Foster is referred to as ‘D-Fens’, identifying him impersonally with his profession.

It is gradually revealed that Foster has lost his job, family, and social status. The implication of the movie is that such partial or total loss of identity can have complex psychological and social repercussions, particularly around the area of responsibility. This is addressed in ethics when considering the punishment of criminals many years after a crime was committed: In what ways is the criminal the same person?

Philosophical Identities

Personal identity has always been a primary concern of both philosophy and religion. For instance, various forms of Buddhism have abandoned the concept of a permanent self or soul which can be called ‘enduring personal identity’. This view in turn is reflective of the more general, fundamental Buddhist truth of constant change. The Buddha himself concluded, after much meditation, that attempting to locate anything that’s fixed, including a lasting self, is fruitless. The five Khandas – aspects that comprise a self: body; feelings; knowledge from experience; thoughts; and consciousness – are all subject to change, and ultimately, dissolution. One of the primary ethical concepts in Buddhism is that clinging to anything, including to an idea of a permanent self, causes suffering. On this basis it could be said that Foster’s unhappiness and subsequent behaviour are not a result of a loss of identity, but are caused by his erroneously clinging to what he thinks constitutes this identity: his job; being a husband and father; the values of society, etc. Similar, more recent, ideas concerning the non-existence of a core self have been suggested by philosophers including David Hume and Derek Parfit. The idea of impermanence and the difficulty of identifying a fixed identity has also been nicely illustrated by the famous Ship of Theseus thought experiment. If, over time, all the parts of a ship are replaced, is it still the same ship?

These views contrast starkly with the common-sense view, as well as with that of the religious predecessor of Buddhism, Hinduism, which posits a permanent self or soul (atman) that passes through many lifetimes, accumulating karma.

The seventeenth century British philosopher John Locke took a middle path between the continuing self of Hinduism and the constant flux and illusory self of Buddhism. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689), Locke distinguishes between the ‘man’ – which consists predominantly in bodily organisation – and the ‘person’. Locke’s view of the self or person can be summed up by saying that the self is where the individual consciousness resides; and so a continuous self will be located wherever the consciousness continues to think. Locke illustrates these ideas by saying that if a limb is removed from a body, the man is damaged but the person or self is intact. Personal identity will be altered in the reaction to the fact that a body part is absent, but the self is still enduring through the ongoing consciousness of the change.

The continuing identity of the self, as Locke sees it, is not dependent on physical or external stability, but merely on inner psychological continuity. That is, it depends on there being a continuous connection between a person’s present and past experiences through memory. However, a physical body (the organisation of atoms) can be held responsible for an action even when the self identified with it is not. For example, through loss of memory conscious continuity is broken, but this will not necessarily be apparent in the physical appearance of an individual. Thus, a crime can be linked to the physical man who is not aware of having committed such a crime.

If we accept Locke’s view, Foster’s core problem in Falling Down is actually derived from a misidentification of what personal identity is. He seeks to preserve external aspects of identity that ultimately cannot be preserved – raging against society whilst overlooking (and certainly undervaluing) his inner continuity. There are moments during the film where Foster’s sense of continuous identity is evident and is brought to the fore. An example is his unchanging resolve to see his daughter on her birthday. In addition, there are his references to remembered experiences such as a barbecue with his family, and the marriage vows between him and his wife. Unfortunately, in the end his sense of loss of identity dominates and overwhelms him. This point is most poignantly shown when, at the end of the film, Foster is confronted by Prendergast and exclaims in surprise, “I’m the bad guy?” His personal confusion extends even to his moral standing, even whilst beneath it, his personal identity continues.

Thomas Morgan is a teacher of religious studies, philosophy and ethics at Westcliff High, England.

• I dedicate this review to Cristina Pérez Labrador, who, due to a lack of DVD player, never got round to watching this film.