Joel Schumacher was an uneven but capable entertainer, fond of bold colours and conspicuous staging. We rate him most when he gives actors room to unsettle us, as he does in Falling Down.
Fi1m perspective
In Falling Down (1993), Michael Douglas makes a man's everyday grievances sound familiar, and Schumacher allows that familiarity to become uncomfortable. His D-Fens treats frustration as permission to hurt people. We laughed uneasily, because Schumacher lets us recognise the irritation before making us confront the violence it is used to excuse. This is a good thriller, and its director deserves credit for keeping our response to Douglas unsettled.
That attention to performance matters in a career so associated with bright surfaces. Schumacher came to directing from fashion and film costume design, and bold colours and graphic staging remained a habit. St. Elmo's Fire (1985) and The Lost Boys (1987) established his association with youth culture, with the latter giving vampires a fashionable appeal for a teenage audience. The brighter Batman of Batman Forever (1995) was followed by Batman & Robin (1997), whose camp excess is a useful warning about how far that appetite could take him.
In Falling Down, the more revealing decision is to give Robert Duvall's policeman nearing retirement, Prendergast, enough weight to make us reconsider D-Fens. Duvall offers another way of living with disappointment, and Schumacher lets that quieter performance matter. The police story steadies the film without simply stopping it for a breather. He does not insist that Douglas provide everything worth watching.
The weakness comes when Ebbe Roe Smith's script tries to explain the society around these men. Its succession of grievances is less convincing than the performances, and Schumacher does not solve that problem by keeping us gripped. We can follow D-Fens's anger without accepting the film's account of what has caused it.
There is also The Client (1994), his John Grisham adaptation, followed later by the confined tension of Phone Booth (2002). The Batman films should not be the only way into this career. Start with Falling Down, provided a gripping evening need not be a comfortable one.
Biography
Joel Schumacher was an American film director, screenwriter, producer and costume designer. Born in New York City, he studied at the Parsons School of Design and worked as a fashion designer before entering the film industry as a costume and production designer.
He made his directorial debut with The Incredible Shrinking Woman (1981) and rose to prominence with St. Elmo's Fire (1985) and The Lost Boys (1987). His other notable films as director include Falling Down (1993), Batman Forever (1995), A Time to Kill (1996), Batman & Robin (1997), Phone Booth (2003) and The Phantom of the Opera (2004). He also directed episodes of the series House of Cards (2013). Schumacher died in New York City in 2020.
