*** Official CRASH Discussion Thread (1 Viewer)

[Paul McElligott]

Of course, people reacting emotionally to a traumatic event always act in rational ways that make perfect sense, don't they?

 

[Michael Reuben]

If one wanted to justify that statement rationally, you could say that she was letting the locksmith know she was onto him, hoping that he'd think twice before targeting her house (or helping someone else do so).

But I don't think a rational explanation has anything to do with it. What she's really doing in that scene is lashing out at everyone within range, principally her husband (who hired the locksmith), because she's terrified and furious.

I've seen people do much the same thing -- including people who are near and dear to me and who I know to be smart and sensitive when they're not overwrought. Anyone who has never experienced such moments in their life (either as a witness or a participant) is fortunate indeed.

M.

 

[Holadem]

Rich, while I sincerly appreciate the warning, I can't help but be amused at the slight bit of condescention I detect in this passage . The above has been said of several directors whose work I found far more engaging than what I've seen of Haneke's, Kubrick being the obvious example. This type of filmmaking has it's place, I just don't share the notion that it's inherently superior to the more overtly manipulative fare.

Unfortunately, the R1 release will have to do, anything else involves some expense which Netflix spares me.

--
H

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I think Trash works on a Lifetime Movie level and all the characters were overdone and overexagerrated. The situations were a bit too trite for my taste.

 

[Rich Malloy]

Condescension was certainly not intended, though I understand how my "warning" might sound that way! Really I was just trying to prepare anyone going in cold, as Haneke's style can be offputting and I wanted his film to at least stand a chance when you and Quentin watched it.

And remember, I'm not only an avowed Haneke-fan... I'm also an avowed Speilberg-fan. Simply put, I'm not stating a preference for the "cold" Haneke style over the "warm" Spielberg style, and I certainly don't believe there's any one inherently proper approach to drama. In fact, in certain circles around here I'm pegged as the guy who goes for all that "hyperbolic melodrama"!

Any hint of condescension would be directed at Haggis, but not on the basis of his more melodramatic "Spielbergian" approach, but rather with the manner in which he deals with his theme (and also the clumsiness in which he forces the machinations of plot). When I noted above that you, the audience member, do not leave "Code Unknown" "certain in the notion that you've done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed", I was certainly criticizing "Crash" by way of comparison.

And as "cooly" realized as "Code Unknown" may be, I also think it allows its characters - even the slightly more peripheral ones - their full humanity. Someone (I wish I remember who) defined humanism as "treating every person not as means, but as an end in themselves". In "Code Unknown" no person is merely a means to another's ends.

As an example, there's a character in "Code Unknown" who's an undocumented alien reduced to begging in the streets of Paris, and it is a small, but despicable slight committed against her that sets much of the action in motion. But she doesn't then regress into the background as the "real characters" take the stage to learn lessons about humanity and find redemption, blah blah. Rather, as the film progresses, we learn of her entire backstory, her origins and family, her desires and needs, all the details that make her a complete person. And ultimately we understand the tragedy of her life. Conversely in "Crash", we have a character who is a maid (also an undocumented worker) who seemingly lives and suffers for no other purpose than to be hugged by Sandra Bullock and told "you're the best friend I've got" in the final act of the film.

And here's the kicker: I was moved by that scene. As much as I felt that her "character" was little more than a prop to facilitate Sandra Bullock's unearned redemption, I still had the Pavlovian emotional reaction. But as the warm fuzzies swirled around my gullet, I also felt that I'd been let off the hook. I was excused from thinking more deeply about the problem.

No, it was even more than that. I felt superior. I felt superior simply because I have a black wife, black in-laws, black cousins, and we're a big, affectionate family. I've hugged so many brown-colored people that surely I'm on the side of the angels. But that's bullshit, and I know it. I fail to see the humanity in people all the time. I fail to understand much less empathize with their plight. And I fail to act to change this society. I'll be leaving work in an hour or so, and I'll step over people sleeping on the sidewalk as I make my way to the T-stop. I'll step over them without a thought as to how they got there and who they left behind. Maybe not tonight, not after writing this. But tomorrow I'll be preoccupied. Or tired. Or in a foul mood. I may spare some change just so I can avert my eyes and make my way to my own private little bubble of relative privilege. And I'll hug my brown wife, and pretend that there aren't people ten floors below me who'll be sleeping outside again tonight.

When it comes right down to it, "Crash" didn't knock me off my complacent little hobby horse. "Code Unknown", on the other hand, was a bracing slap to the face. Tarkovsky once said that the purpose of great art is "to plough and harrow the soul, rendering it capable of turning to good." I think that's one of art's nobler purposes, though not its only purpose. And I think "Code Unknown" achieves this. I'm less certain when it comes to "Crash". Despite its obvious good intentions, I wonder if it achieves anything more than allowing us - you know, we good and proper liberals - to feel a little bit better about ourselves, to be a bit more self-righteous and complacent? That's an awfully derisive critique, and I think it would be reductive and unfair to paint the whole enterprise with such a broad brush. But I cannot say that the thought didn't strike me as I watched the film, and even more since then.

 

[Brook K]

I think you're being extraordinarily even-handed Rich, as your last paragragh describes what I find so unbearable about the film.

Cache also fits your next to last paragraph, though it follows a different route to Code Unknown in illustrating the idea.

Another recent film that might be worthwhile for those interested is the Czech film Up & Down a muli-character interlocking story in which racism towards immigrants also plays a large part in the storyline. While I had some issues with story and the "let the audience off the hook" coda, it includes some provocative material like a scene where a man defends the muslim baby his wife has purchased on the black market at the cost of his soccer-thug best friend.

 

[Quentin]

CODE UNKNOWN sounds interesting. I'm looking forward to it.

I like how we've boiled the discussion down to a "cold" style and a "warm" style. I could further segregate it as a "world" or even "european" style vs. a "Hollywood" style. I don't think it's any secret that the "warm" style we're discussing (despite many opportunities for varying approaches within that style) are a staple of Hollywood filmmaking. Even independent films by way of Hollywood, such as CRASH and BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN tend to be easier to digest, easier to follow, more manipulative, and clearly laid out in an American-angled narrative. I have no problem admitting I am partial to such filmmaking. As a writer, I tend to prefer stronger narrative. And, unfortunately, the "warm" film can go too far. Many people think CRASH does. I do not think CRASH approaches the lengths of, say, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT.

However, "cold" films can also go too far. In an attempt to be anti-Hollywood, "cold" films end up going to far to be the antithesis of narrative and often logical sense. Sure, they may be full of style and some intriguing ideas, but they try to hard to NOT lead the audience by the nose. CACHE comes immediately to my mind.

I don't think a film has to be IMPORTANT (and, honestly, I think importance or relevance is hard to attribute to any film...very rarely does it hold true for me) to be good. And, I certainly don't think most Academy voters tend to go for important films because they tend toward "warm". I also don't think a film has to be important to be emotionally resonant or powerful. Personally, I hated the Sandra Bullock hugging the maid scene. I thought it was cheap and unearned for all the reasons Rich did. Even if the film is a parable. Ryan Phillipe's conclusion is earned, as is Matt Dillon's, Terrence Howard's, Thandie Newton's, Don Cheadle's, and, to a lesser extent, Michael Pena's. They aren't as deeply covered as Rich's description of the poor woman in CODE UNKNOWN, but I don't need every film to be the same in order for me to appreciate it.

So, in regards to CRASH, I will agree that the Bullock moment is the cheapest kind of cheat. But, if you were also moved when Matt Dillon saved Thandie Newton, and at the moments that followed...well, those are moments that make CRASH memorable. And, they don't tell you how to feel or think and they don't let you off the hook. They make you think and talk about what happened.

 

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I found this on someone's blog and I thought it was true (and funny)...

Putting aside the fact that I wanted "Brokeback Mountain" to win Best Picture, "Crash" should have never even been nominated for the 2005 Oscars in the first place. It was made in 2003 and first screened in 2004. But in preparation for what was starting to seem like the inevitable, we watched it on Saturday. Did the Motion Picture Academy not notice that it was the exact same film as 1999's "Magnolia" (with a nod to "Pulp Fiction" with its pretentious abnormally casual dialogue during intense moments)? Tell me Paul Haggis didn't spend the last decade writing "Walker, Texas Ranger" wishing he were P.T. Anderson. Neither film is particularly bad, but both are derivative of better films, with their ridiculous intertwining of lives and too-large ensemble casts. But at least "Magnolia" felt like a film instead of a preachy made-for-TV project. Nearly every scene in "Crash" featured some bit of dialogue that had me just shaking my head in disbelief thinking "no two people in the history of the world have ever said anything like that." Even the theme song from "Crash" ("In the Deep" by Kathleen "Bird" Yor) was a complete ripoff of Aimee Mann's superior "Magnolia" soundtrack ("Wise Up," "You Do," "Save Me" et al). The only way these films could have been more similar would be if frogs had fallen out of the sky in Los Angeles at the end of "Crash" -- instead of snowflakes. How quickly the Academy forgets ...

 

[Quentin]

Those weren't snowflakes, they were ashes.

I hate MAGNOLIA (except for a couple perfs), so go figure.

Though, I have to admit York's song does sound like an Aimee Mann song.

 

[ZacharyTait]

It was screened at the Toronto Film Festival in 2004, but didn't play in Los Angeles until May of 2005, therefore, it was elgible for the 2005 awards, not 2004 awards.

 

[Holadem]

Sweet. I mean, the Academy is so clueless, you even know the eligibility criteria better than them. Whoa.

The length people will go to discredit a movie.

--
H

 

[DeeF]

I love Magnolia, and I recognized Crash's debt to it immediately. Crash seems hopelessly marred in quirky, retro dialogue and foolishly coincidental plot devices that ruin its reality (without specific moral points, like fables are supposed to have), and it doesn't have the freshness of innovation (like Brokeback Mountain, and Good Night and Good Luck), but more the unfulfulling quality of a retread.

I'll state for all to hear that this is just my opinion, but I think it's OK to express my negative opinion of Crash here in the discussion thread of Crash, and I don't think that qualifies as "thread crapping" or trolling.

It's a discussion, pros and cons, not a Crash Praise Only thread.

 

[Robert Crawford]

True, but some comments are starting to smell a lot like sour grapes now.







Crawdaddy

 

[DeeF]

Sour grapes, in what way?

I have no stock in any of the movies, nor will my personal reputation go up or down by praising and criticizing them. I'm not Paul Haggis, or Annie Proulx. I disliked Crash long before the Oscars.

P.S. If you feel my comments are more appropriate to the Oscars discussion, feel free to move them there.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Did I say your comments were sour grapes? No, I didn't, what I said is some stated comments about this film are starting to smell like sour grapes. Furthermore, I started this thread over ten months ago and it's quite amusing on how all of the sudden, many naysayers are coming out of the woodwork against this film. Coincidence? Of course not, which is my point to begin with.

Anyhow, in the end, people will see this film for themselves and make up their own minds about it.





Crawdaddy

 

[DeeF]

Yes, I understand that people including myself, are suddenly criticizing Crash, and here's the reason: most often, people don't like to come to Home Theater Forum to criticize. There really are very few places to do this. Each thread devoted to a film is really for those people that like it. They don't like to hear that others don't like it.

I didn't say anything about Crash, though I didn't care for it at all, until the Oscars. Call it sour grapes, but I feel it should be said -- Crash's upset, upset a lot of people, people not connected to the movies, or the Oscars, in any way, because Brokeback Mountain has pierced the culture with such impact, that it seems almost to have been robbed, that some of us *personally* have been robbed.

I know this sounds a little bit silly (it is an Oscar, nothing more), but try as I might to ignore those personal feelings, they are there, and it seems appropriate to discuss them in a forum purposely designed for such discussions.

 

[Jan H]

I liked Crash when I first saw it in November, mostly because of the acting and the cinematography. I felt, though, that it represented an L.A. that I don't really recognize. I remember thinking that if this film was released in 1995 instead of 2005, it would've been more topical, potent, and 'real.'

Here's a link to a recent article in the LA Times that perfectly encapsulates what, IMO, is the real state of race relations in the real LA of 2006:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la...4678341.column


If Haggis wanted to make an authentic study of racism in America in 2005, he should have made a film about Islam in America. Now that would've been topical.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Well, you certainly have me confused now. Earlier, you made the following comment which I agree with as being appropriate.



Anyway, for clarification purposes, film discussion threads have a long history on the HTF for being the place to discuss both the positive and negative aspects of a particular film.





Crawdaddy

 

[Holadem]

You just defined "sour grapes".

--
H

 

[DeeF]

Haha, didn't mean to confuse people.

I don't like Crash, and I never did. But I didn't feel strongly enough about posting about it negatively, until it won the Oscar. I partly didn't post about it before, because it just didn't mean that much to me, though it does now. I do think I've learned to hold my tongue around here, particularly when I have a negative view of a new movie.

So, perhaps I am expressing sour grapes (I never said I wasn't), but I thought it needed to be said, here in the Crash discussion, that there are many people who don't like it, and don't like to be thought of as thread crappers by saying so.

Is that better?