Foxcatcher Sociology

The movie Foxcatcher is an accurate representation of the events that occurred on Foxcatcher farm between approximately 1986 to 1996. Directed by Bennett Miller, Foxcatcher is the recollection of life on the Foxcatcher farm and wrestling team. The movie primarily focuses on professional wrestling brothers Mark and Dave Schultz and John E. du Pont, an heir to the du Pont family fortune, who suffered from a wide range of social issues. John du Pont own Foxcatcher farm and was one of the early contributors to funding and monetizing professional wrestling in the United States. John wanted to be a leader, but due to being sheltered, he never learned the proper skills to do it successfully. John du Pont was buying his friendships, and when it came

down to the end he didn’t know who his true friends were. John’s cocaine addiction and the loss of his mother ultimately him to turn against his closest friend Dave, murdering him in his front yard. The filmmakers relied heavily on the actual accounts of what life was like living on the farm from the people that were there at the time and home videos filmed by Dave Schultz and his wife Nancy. The actors themselves watched these videos and spent time with the people they were portraying (when possible) to give an authentic portrayal of who they were paying.  
The biggest difference between real life and the movie is the filming locations could not be on Foxcatcher farm itself due to it being demolished.
The film accurately described how du Pont gradually went insane after losing his mother. John’s parents got divorced when he was two years old, his father moved away and remarried, leaving young John alone with his mother. John spent years “searching for his father.” After his mother had passed away he had got heavily addicted to cocain (The Guardian 2010). The film lowkey introduces John’s addiction when John and Mark are in a helicopter. With the side effects only worsening he began hearing voices in the walls, he once threatened one of the wrestlers with a gun in the middle of the training facility (Biography 2014). Although not shown in the film his addiction was getting costly, he once drove 3 brand new Lincoln Town Cars into his frog pond, this was only the start of it costing him his empire.
Steve Carell learned how to walk and talk exactly like du Pont. It helped the cast better understand him as a person. Due to human nature and how people act to their surroundings the actors all could better understand their characters. Thanks to Dave and Nancy's extensive home video collection there was hours of footage for Carrel to watch and to learn how du Pont presented himself around other people. Carrel kept his distance between scenes, to be more awkward to be around like the real John du Pont (The Post Game 2014).  The cast barely ever broke character the entire time of filming.
Dave Schultz, his wife Nancy and their two children actually did live in one of the guest houses on the farm as the film portrayed.

This was where everything ended for Dave, right in the front yard of the guest house he had called home for over six years. Nancy once stated “They performed Dave’s murder exactly how it happened” (The Guardian 2010).  In both real life and the movie Dave was working on his car radio when John pulled up in his Lincoln Town Car pointed a gun at Dave and yelled “Do you have a problem with me” then pulling the trigger. Nancy was at the door watching it all unfold, and the kids were inside the home. When watching screeners for the movie Nancy initially had to leave the room when the scene appeared, it was so accurate she was reliving the worst moment of her life over and

over.
John du Pont’s loneliness drove him to kill a man, the movie drove this point home. He didn’t fully understand social interactions because he was so isolated as a small child, his siblings were much older in age and his mother had strange parenting techniques. The film also reflects on how people need to be careful about who they befriend and how close they get to them. Dave tried helping du Pont for years, always coming up with different interventions, but this was driving du Pont to think that Dave was his enemy. John lost his father at the age of two when he walked out of his life (Biography 2014). He was missing that figure in life, he then relied on his mother twice as much. After she passed away he lost it, because losing loved ones has a lasting effect on everyone around them.
With any story there is a butterfly effect, had any large detail been changed the whole story will shift in a different direction.

The filmmakers respectfully wanted everything as accurate as possible. Even though it wasn’t possible to film the movie on the Foxcatcher estate itself they found a similar estate to film on. Small details such as what car Steve Carell drove up to the guest house to shoot Dave in was given attention. The cast themselves wore the clothing and accessories when possible of the people they were portraying. Makeup was applied to the point of them looking as close to the people they portrayed as possible. Steve Carell looked nothing like himself. It was this amount of detail and accuracy that made the film so interesting, it makes the viewer want to know more. Had any of it been largely falsified people might have not been as interested. Knowing one part of a movie has been changed severely or made up makes you question the authenticity of the rest of it. Therefore it is important for the filmmakers to keep the movie’s plot, characters and setting as accurate as

possible.