I saw this movie over the weekend, and I can sum it up with one word: wow.
There have been several movies dealing with racism and prejudice, but Crash is very different. It's more of a character study, showing different people of different ethnicities and how they interact in a huge melting pot like Los Angeles.
I was impressed with the acting and screenplay. The movie was edited perfectly to give ample screen time to the brilliant ensemble cast (Sandra Bullock, Don Cheadle, Matt Dillon, Jennifer Esposito, William Fichtner, Brendan Fraser, Ludacris, Thandie Newton, Ryan Phillippe, to name a few.)
What stuck out for me was how certain characters acknowledged their prejudice, but weren't apologetic about it. There was equal redemption as there was awakening. There was no closure, but each character's life was changed forever, for better or worse.
A very good movie. Big time eye-opener. I highly recommend it.
I would be interested to get a take from someone that might have dealt with racism or prejudice.
Saw the movie last night, and I rank it up there as one of the best I've ever seen.
I really felt the story of the persian family. The father's struggle, and his daughter's tug-of-war between her loyalty to her family, and not wanting to contribute to the horrors she deals with every night at her job.
The movie deals very truthfully with the monsterous presence of prejudice not just between a majority culture and minority ethinicities, but also from one minority to another.
I also thought that the message delivered in the story of the cop and the black woman (anyone who has seen the movie knows what I'm talking about) was great in expressing that even though we have prejudice and a lack of understanding against other cultures and people, there are times when we do realize and embrace the fact that we are all really the same at our core. It also does a good job of recognizing that all too often, the times when this occurs seem to be during major traumatic or life-threatening events.
I'm not ashamed to say that I cried during this movie. The following line did it for me, and remember that I'm a father with a little daughter like that in the movie...
"He doesn't have it! I have it!" (Once again, that's for anyone who has seen the movie. Still, many people who've only seen the clip I gave above will have an idea of what that line potentially means...)
I absolutely love this movie for it's situations and acting, but most of all for it's efforts in being brutally honest. I HIGHLY recommend this movie, even if you just wanna wait til it's out on DVD. Make sure you watch it.
We have it at the theatre I work at. I see bits here and there and it seems awesome. I saw the part where he shoots the kid in the car when he pulled out the figure. The end was just cool, even though I have not seen the movie the end gets me. When Ludacris drives away with the smile and the guitar starts playing. It's a happy ending. But then the car crash happens and the lady from Boston Public gets out and says start speaking american LOL
The movie also shows how connected we all are, even when we don't want to admit it. I can't get this film out of my head.... I'm gonna research to find out who the writer and director are...
"On the origins of Crash
• by writer/director Paul Haggis
It was 1991 and we were driving home from the opening of The Silence of the Lambs. I was in my tux, my wife, Diane, in her gown, and the white Porsche was pointed east, toward Hancock Park.
Well, not Hancock Park proper—the graceful home of old money, steeply-pitched roofs, Consul Generals and protestant politics—but Hancock Park adjacent, the almost-grand homes south of Wilshire, where new-money TV writers could buy a renovated hacienda once owned by Louis Gossett Jr. circa An Officer and a Gentleman. In the '60s and '70s, when successful black families began buying larger homes in Los Angeles, their friendly realtors somehow sensed they'd be much more comfortable just south of the four lane Boulevard than north. And so this very upper middle-class ethnically mixed enclave was born, and everyone here got along quite well—proving that class is as important a factor in L.A. as race.
None of this is or was ever spoken, you understand. No one in Hancock Park proper or any other good neighborhood would admit to even the slightest blush of racism or intolerance. In fact, the fine people of greater L.A. get quite upset when anyone dares suggest that intolerance exists as anything other than a loathsome aberration and historical anomaly.
That said, being white and newly privileged, I would gladly have bought a home north of the divide without a second thought; we just couldn't afford one. And as our sprawling Spanish home was five times the size of our former North Hollywood bungalow, we had no complaints. It was a great house. And if we hadn't stopped off at a video store that night, we would never even have had to change the locks.
I can't recall whose idea it was, probably mine. Having an addictive personality, I find if one movie is good, two can only be better—so we parked on a side street and ran into our local Blockbuster in search of a companion piece for Jonathan Demme and Ted Tally's terrifying fable. As this was a ritual we practiced several times a week, the pickings were thin and we finally chose what I remember to be a Norwegian or perhaps Finnish film quite well reviewed by a less prominent mid-western paper.
The Porsche was a convertible, with something akin to a picnic table protruding from the rear engine compartment. A "whale tale" is how enthusiasts describe it. Less enthusiastic people suggested it would look better draped in a red and white checkered cloth. I was not one of those people. It was my first expensive car; in truth, my first new car since my dad bought me a 1974 Ford Ranchero. The Ranchero rusted until replaced by a used Chevy Nova, which drove bravely until I adopted a three-year-old Alpha Romeo. I loved my new Porsche.
So, all things considered, I would really rather not have given it to the two young black men who approached us with guns, but their argument, while simple, was compelling.
As I turned over the keys, they suggested Diane and I walk toward the dark parking lot. I thought this ill-advised, so putting Diane in front of me, we walked briskly toward the well-lit boulevard. "Stop," came the command. I froze—heard footsteps running up behind us—felt the gun barrel pressed into my back—and watched helplessly as he…snatched the video tape out of Diane's hand. The passenger door slammed and my Porsche disappeared around the corner.
I almost started laughing.
The police arrived within moments. After describing the car and what we remembered of our assailants, I then passed along my theory of the crime. I believed, I said, that these two young men had come to the store often, each time in search of that particular video, and it was never in. This time they arrived only to see us leaving with it, and it was just too much to bear. They grabbed the video and took the car to make a getaway. Realizing I was most likely in shock, the officers kindly nodded and drove us the three blocks to our home; which is when we realized that the car thieves had our address and house keys. We called a locksmith and paid them after-midnight rates to change all the locks.
Ten years later, I woke up at two in the morning wondering about those young men. I'd thought about them before. Fear long ago gave way to anger. Anger faded and became curiosity. Who were these guys? Did they think of themselves as criminals? What did they care about, laugh about? How had this incident affected their lives, if at all?
I began writing their story. Diane and I became fictional characters, our midnight locksmith became a Hispanic kid with troubling tattoos, and I let my fears and hopes and prejudices and dreams for a better world run loose. Bobby Moresco and I wrote the script and I shot it last year, staging the car jacking scene much like it happened. But, upon viewing it in the editing room, I realized what I'd known all along. The performances were good, but the act itself was so ridiculous as to be unbelievable. So the genesis of the film ended up on the cutting room floor. Well, they still steal the car, but no self-respecting car thieves would stop to grab a Norwegian movie. Some things are better left for real life.
It's an odd life we live in Los Angeles, a city that uses freeways and wide boulevards to divide people by race and class. We spend most of our time encased in metal and glass; in our homes, our cars, at work. Unlike any real city, we only walk where "it's safe"—those outdoor malls and ersatz city blocks we've created to feel like we're still part of humanity, if only humanity could afford to shop where we do. We no longer truly feel the touch of strangers as we brush past them on the street.
Don Cheadle's character sums it up in the first moments of the film. "I think we miss that touch so much," he says, "that we crash into one another just to feel something." And it's those moments, those slim yet defining moments, that often take us to places we'd not seen coming, making us into who we are, for better or for worse. My car, the one I'd worked so hard for, was taken from me—but it was the young men who brushed against my life that I never forgot. Fifteen years after the fact, I still feel their touch."
Oh, and something else for any Star Trek: TNG fans out there, I was surprised to realize that the Iranian mother in the movie is played by Marina Sirtis, best known for her role as Counsellor Deanna Troi.
Sierradaddy said this in post #3 : Well said Heck.
Saw the movie last night, and I rank it up there as one of the best I've ever seen.
I really felt the story of the persian family. The father's struggle, and his daughter's tug-of-war between her loyalty to her family, and not wanting to contribute to the horrors she deals with every night at her job.
The movie deals very truthfully with the monsterous presence of prejudice not just between a majority culture and minority ethinicities, but also from one minority to another.
I also thought that the message delivered in the story of the cop and the black woman (anyone who has seen the movie knows what I'm talking about) was great in expressing that even though we have prejudice and a lack of understanding against other cultures and people, there are times when we do realize and embrace the fact that we are all really the same at our core. It also does a good job of recognizing that all too often, the times when this occurs seem to be during major traumatic or life-threatening events.
I'm not ashamed to say that I cried during this movie. The following line did it for me, and remember that I'm a father with a little daughter like that in the movie...
"He doesn't have it! I have it!" (Once again, that's for anyone who has seen the movie. Still, many people who've only seen the clip I gave above will have an idea of what that line potentially means...)
I absolutely love this movie for it's situations and acting, but most of all for it's efforts in being brutally honest. I HIGHLY recommend this movie, even if you just wanna wait til it's out on DVD. Make sure you watch it.
Excellent comments.
Showing a wide array of prejudice in such a diverse culture is a real eye opener.
And seeing the look of awe and wonder in the eyes of the immigrants at the end was powerful.
Sierradaddy said this in post #8 : Oh, and something else for any Star Trek: TNG fans out there, I was surprised to realize that the Iranian mother in the movie is played by Marina Sirtis, best known for her role as Counsellor Deanna Troi.
I saw it yesterday. It is a cool movie.
And yeah, I was surprised to see her too. She has become too old.
M.
"Every positive integer is one of Ramanujan's personal friends."—J. E. Littlewood.
Showing a wide array of prejudice in such a diverse culture is a real eye opener.
And seeing the look of awe and wonder in the eyes of the immigrants at the end was powerful.
BTW- I had no idea that was Troi. Trip out.
-HECK! [/B][/QUOTE]
I also love the contrast between the wide-eyed immigrant, newly liberated and naively innocent, and the prejudice acts occurring right behind him at the intersection.
This isn't your average movie about prejudice and the interaction/friction between cultures. This is something quite original and worth seeing. It's a roller coaster of emotions. I laughed, cried, got scared... and by the end of the movie, you start looking within yourself. The writing is awesome, the acting even better (well, except mr. brendan fraser but what do you expect from george of the jungle).
go see it.
"I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love." - Carrie Bradshaw
"The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort" - Paulo Coehlo
Live your life like it's your last day on earth
Life is not how many breaths you take, but how many moments take your breath away.
(Will Farrell as the Inside The Actor's Studio host) "...and now the greatest actor of our time or any other, who portrayed such groundbreaking and groin shaking characters like George... of the Jungle, and the irrepressible caveman brought back to life in Encino, California, named Link... I give you, Brendan Fraiser."
Hey, Encino Man was his best work, that was cinema at it's best... well, as good as a pauly shore movie can be-ee
"I'm looking for love. Real love. Ridiculous, inconvenient, consuming, can't-live-without-each-other love." - Carrie Bradshaw
"The danger of an adventure is worth a thousand days of ease and comfort" - Paulo Coehlo
Live your life like it's your last day on earth
Life is not how many breaths you take, but how many moments take your breath away.
05-02-2005 02:40 AM
