Falling Down into Absurdity

In Michael Douglas’ portrayal of William Foster in “Falling Down,” the audience witnesses one man’s seemingly incomprehensible descent into madness. And yet, viewed in context with Albert Camus’ theory of Absurdism, Douglas’ character is merely engaged in a human act so common to our daily existences that we fail to identify it at its extremes--Foster’s descent into madness is little more than an ordinary man’s attempt to derive some finite sense of certainty from the functioning of daily life. The difficulty for William Foster lies in the reality that this search is often fruitless and, if pursued beyond this fruitlessness, can often turn destructive. This fruitlessness and the existential abyss to which it leads are central to the very nature of Camus’ Absurdism theory.

The day on which the audience encounters Williams Foster is as ordinary a day as any, though Foster is blissfully unaware of the genuine crisis that he will soon be compelled to confront. This crisis is not itself born of, for example, the gang assassination from which Foster narrowly escapes, but rather of the more ordinary events that provoke Foster’s violence. For Foster, a fast-food chain’s deviation from the advertised imagery of his breakfast is cause for not merely concern, but violent confusion. It is as though Foster has for the first time recognized that the world itself—as opposed to its people—conspires to deprive him of the value of certainty, even as applied to what should be the most certain of things: the simple provision of that for which he paid.

Camus’ Absurdism, as cultivated in the aftermath of World War II, finds expression in Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Just as Camus theorizes on the human tendency to search for meaning and the human inability to find any, Benjamin reflects on World War I and all that it has done to thrust the world into an age of mechanical wonders that function to shock the human sensibilities (Benjamin 7). This reality is all the more prevalent in the 21st Century, as mass media and open-source Internet initiatives have opened a world of possibilities to all manner of human beings. Foster’s search for meaning in “Falling Down” is, in this sense, not as futile as a superficial reading of the film’s plot might suggest. Indeed, Foster transcends the mechanical with his baseball bat, though he does eventually succumb to the mechanical age when a bystander pesters him over access to a phone booth. It as though Foster is overwhelmed by his fellows’ overwhelming thirst for the mechanical, as opposed to one for understanding the human existence.

This theme is further examined as Foster encounters a road-side construction crew, the members of which he accuses of either malingering or simply engaging in unnecessary repairs for their own financial benefit, at the expense of taxpayers. In railing against the routine repair required in the mechanical age and the confusion into which this absurd state of affairs thrusts us, Foster finds that a young boy is better able to operate a rocket-propelled grenade launcher than any adult party to the scene. It is as though Foster routinely suspects that meaning in the universe might be at hand, only to be thwarted at every turn by the overwhelming sense that it cannot be discovered, as per the tenets of Absurdism (Camus 12).

Through a careful reading of “Falling Down,” one perceives that William Foster’s character is not so deranged as he seems. Indeed, Foster is just slightly more frustrated with the absurdity of human existence than is any given individual on any given day.

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" in Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt ed., Illuminations. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1968. Print.

Camus, Albert. Notebooks: 1935-1942. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963. Print.