Falling: The Beginning of Something Interesting?
By Stephen Carter on Aug 14, 2007
One of the reasons Richard Dutcher’s films appeal to me so much is because of how he can take familiar concepts and uncover new depths of meaning in them. States of Grace, for example, brings a deeper meaning to the concept of individual forgiveness, while Brigham City explores the concept of communal forgiveness. The reason Richard is able to delve so deeply because he doesn’t stop where most storytellers do. He takes a few steps beyond them, and then some.
So I’ll have admit that I was surprised when I saw his latest film “Falling” at a private screening at the Sunstone Symposium this past week.
And this may be very important since probably only 170 people in the entire world have seen this movie.SPOILER ALERT!
Falling is about a couple, probably in their 30’s, trying to make their way into the film business in Los Angeles. Eric, played by Richard, is a lapsed Mormon and guerilla cameraman who gathers up torrid footage of suicides and accident victims for a lowbrow news brokerage. Davey, his wife (I couldn’t tell if her character was Mormon or not), is trying to get an acting job.
The couple is so intent on making their mark in showbiz that they both commit acts that take a huge toll on them. Davey auditions for a movie with nude scenes (and then accepts the part), and Eric takes footage of a man being murdered by a gang. From there, things just slide into a bottomless pit.
This was what I had come to expect from Richard, though a little grittier than normal. I knew that he often starts us with concepts we understand (Mormons are all about the evils of Hollywood, right?) and then take us beyond them. But as the movie continued, I saw that it would be a different beast.
And it was. The downward spiral never relents. By the time we’ve hit the end of the movie we have six murders on our hands, an abortion, confessions of infidelity, Davey hanging dead from the chandelier, and the goriest fight I’ve ever seen, bar none.
At the end of the film Eric has only just managed to kill the last of the gang that has made its bloody trail to him and stumbles half dead onto the street. There, he collapses next to a newspaper kiosk and hallucinates that he’s actually kneeling in front of a Christus statue at the Los Angeles temple. The scene is a fascinating one with Eric covered with blood and the statue standing over him spotless and pure.
Eric begs the statue for help and we get a closeup of the statue’s eyes, white and pupilless.
Roll credits.
Yeah, I was surprised too. I almost wondered if Richard was going orthodox on me just when he’d officially announced his decision to lay off practicing Mormonism. The film reminded me of all the horror stories we hear in church about Hollywood sucking poor innocent souls into its murky depths. Except for the blood and swearing and wrenching thematic material, it felt like the party line to me: the wages of sin is death. It also made a compelling case for the need of a savior. We spend the entire movie watching someone bludgeoned to the point where only supernatural intervention can save him.
I felt like I was being pulled in two directions at once, everything Mormons believe on one hand, everything that repels them on the other.
So this time around, perhaps it wasn’t the story that Richard was challenging me with so much as with the form of the film itself: the orthodox and the heretical rolled into one unexpected whole.
Richard told us in a post-screening session that he had actually written the screenplay for Falling before God’s Army even went into production, but he had filmed it during what he termed as “the collapse of my faith” and had edited it while trying to carve out a new spiritual place. He said it was as if he had collaborated with two other people on the project, both of the others being different spiritual versions of himself.
The ending of the movie still gnaws at me. There’s a lot of room for the audience to make up its own ending. Does Jesus help Eric? Does his purity and holiness make up for Eric’s degradation? Or is it just a blind white statue?
To me, this movie felt like the beginning of a trilogy. Falling is the first act, where we find a man completely destroyed and calling on the powers of heaven. I’m interested to know just what it is the powers of heaven are planning to do.
It would be interesting to see how Richard would transcend dues ex machina. It seems to me that one of the great unexplored stories in the Christian tradition is what comes after Jesus.
Jesus doesn’t just save people, as far as I’ve ever seen. He usually puts them through some spiritual therapy and then sends them back out into life where they experience a whole new and more imposing set of challenges.
Where could we watch Eric go from here? Will he go on to make a movie about Mormon missionaries, incite a revival of Mormon cinema, and then go through another wrenching spiritual transformation? One where he finds that his spiritual community, the one he had found Christ in, is now poisoning him?
It’s possible, I caught a lot of autobiographical references in the movie, and Richard did call it his most personal film. Maybe in ten years we’ll get Falling II: Zion and its Discontents. And then in another ten Falling III: Eternal Burnings (keeping us wondering if he’s talking about hell or Joseph Smith’s description of heaven).
Stephen, your impression of the final scene and the overall message of Falling is interesting. I don’t think Richard was “going orthodox Mormon,” though I think some will translate the film’s message that way. To me, Richard’s point is bleakly Nietzchian, God is dead, and the world is divided between the innocent (i.e. children) or deluded (i.e. missionaries, religious believers), who pacify themselves with ideas like God or Christ taking upon their yoke/burden, and the non-deluded, who quickly realize that the world is dog-eat-dog and you better take what you can get.
These are the only characters presented on screen:
Innocent and Deluded:
The Hispanic kid Eric Boyle spends time with at the temple.
The Sister Missionary at the Christus.
Eric Boyle’s former self, seen in flashbacks and during his dying hallucination.
The Rabbi and his son.
Non-Deluded and Amoral:
The female news reporter.
Boyle’s “Stringer” Boss.
Boyle’s “Stringer” Friend, who films Boyle’s own tragedy.
The three gang members.
The casting agent.
The two women competing against Davey for the part.
The film producer who rejects Boyle’s script.
Eric and Davey Boyle are kind of in the middle, until they make their Faustian Bargains: Davey to prostitute herself with the casting agent, and Eric who earns his 30 pieces of silver for filming a quasi snuff film.
Eric regrets his loss of innocence, but I never get the impression he thinks there is anything more to life. This is confirmed by the cold, impassive, Christus starring back at the end. God really is dead. There is no redemption for the living.
I don’t have a problem with a “God is dead” message, but I do have a problem with the redemption part. Dutcher kills everyone: Davey, Eric, Eric’s boss, Eric’s friend, the three gang members, and the female news reporter nearly gets it too. Where is the redeemed character who discovers the inherent rewards and joy/love of living a good, moral life?
Dutcher only gives us three choices:
1.) Pacify/delude yourself by believing in a false God.
2.) Take what you can get. (i.e. Gang members, Movie producers, Etc.)
3.) Jump off a building, put a gun in your mouth, or scream in the face of the horror, the heart of darkness (as the female news reporter does after nearly being beaten to death).
Eric Boyle tried choice #1, didn’t work. He tried choice #2, didn’t work. In the end he is left starring into the abyss of #3.
Where is the redemption? Where is the hope? There is no hope in Falling, only horror. But maybe that is Dutcher’s point?
Comment # 1 by Matt Thurston | Aug 14, 2007 | Reply
In the post-screening session, a lot of people RAVED about the film. I thought it was well done, well acted AND it was one of the most disturbing films I’ve ever witnessed.
I left feeling physically ill and emotionally shell shocked–like how I felt after spending 4 hours in the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum as a 17-year-old exchange student getting a big fat dose of the violence and hatred people visited on each other. I also likened it to a movie I saw that summer, “The Killing Fields,” minus the narrow escapes and redemptive ending. I’ve watched “The Killing Fields” several times since then, but I’m not sure I could sit through “Falling” a second time.
It was interesting to hear that the last fight was not staged. Both actors were actually beating the tar out of each other and it was repellent to watch.
Even though Richard explained many aspects of the film, I’m still asking the same question the moderator opened the session with: Why?
Mary Ellen
Comment # 2 by Mary Ellen | Aug 14, 2007 | Reply
The next film will show Eric recovering from his injuries and starting a blog called “LDStringer.” His redemption comes when he vanquishes DKL in a debate about Adam-God.
Seriously though, I think the movie is more ambiguous in the end than you give it credit for Matt. We are left to wonder about possible redemption because Eric didn’t die (yet, as far as we know), and his pleas to God only just started. Remember it was only minutes (hours?) before that he says “F you” to God. It would be unbelievable if his embryonic pleas for help in the final moments of the film were answered in some fashion. The fact that he thinks of the Christus and goes there (in his mind) at his most extreme moment of pain and reaches out to Christ is a beginning, of sorts. A first step back. We are left not knowing the result of that step, but it is definitely a step away from “F you” and toward something else.
Comment # 3 by MCQ | Aug 15, 2007 | Reply
I had the same reaction as Mary Ellen — leaving the theater in a state of shock. It wasn’t until the post-screening discussion plus the panel #173 [Great Movies] with Matt, Stephen, John and Richard that I began to recover. Richard quoted George Lucas: “Movies are the temples of the modern world” and THAT sticks with me! What a mauling our psyches go through in those “temples”!
Comment # 4 by Eugene Kovalenko | Aug 15, 2007 | Reply
After reading his bio (at http://www.richarddutcher.com), I believe that his movies have a lot to do with his own life. His movies are not entirely autobiographical, but there seem to be a lot of parallels.
Comment # 5 by Bookslinger | Aug 16, 2007 | Reply