Crash- A Thought Provoking Celluloid Masterpiece

So Crash received praised from Roger Ebert (the American Barry Norman, if you will) and was deemed the worst movie of 2005 by 'new kid on the block' Scott Foundas. Personally, I'm inclined to side with Ebert because I loved it. As a recently former film student, I've learnt to appreciate the power of the cinema a little more and I felt this was a perfect example of one of those films that has you talking about it for days after and really thinking about the content. I understand the arguments in both Ebert and Foundas' reviews, but I can't help but wonder what Foundas was expecting from the film. The way he talks about how racial inaccurate the film was, you would think that he was watching it as though it was a documentary about downtown L.A. Clearly the concept of artistic licence is lost on him. I wouldn't ever believe that director Paul Haggis set out to change the world with this film. The simple fact is that people had a bee in their bonnet because Crash won the Oscar for best motion picture over Brokeback Mountain, which obviously means that the Academy is full of homophobes because they decided not to vote for a film about gay cowboys! Ok well it's Friday night and I'm given a choice at Blockbuster. Do I want to rent Crash or do I want to rent Brokeback Mountain? I pick Crash, so does this mean I'm a homophobe? Umm, no! So why all the controversy? I've never been to L.A so I can't say what it's like in real life. I can tell you how it's represented in movies. I can tell about the reputation of the LAPD, but can I say for sure that everyone is a racist in L.A? No, of course not. How could anybody possibly know that? But what Haggis has done is taken some of the underlying tensions of modern day L.A and put them up there on the big screen. And I think that has made a good many people uncomfortable. It's like the elephant in the room, and it was just put up on a 20ft screen.

Maybe it was a wake-up call. It's not exactly unknown that the bigger studios prefer not to touch subjects such as racism. I can't ever imagine MGM producing a musical about the KKK in glorious technicolour. Is there such a difference between Foundas and Ebert's reviews because they are from two different generations? I think so. Ebert obviously comes from a generation that remembers first hand the civil rights movements of the 60's, but Foundas is of the generation that has read about it in books and has been taught about it. Obviously Crash is about modern day racial tension, but it is the underlying history that is the cause. The LAPD are infamous for being a violent and racially motivated police force. Evident in not only this movie but also in another Oscar winning film, L.A Confidential (1997). Although set in the 50's, the same racial tension is apparent and the violence of the LAPD is a large part of the storyline.

As far as being termed 'racially insensitive', you cannot deny the conclusions that people jump to when looking at skin colour. This happens all over the world. What this film teaches you is that appearances can be deceptive. The Latino 'homie' who turns out to be a family man, the racist cop who is the sole carer of his sick father, the TV-director who isn't considered 'black' by his colleagues, the two black guys who look like college students but are actually car-jackers...they all have their stories. Granted, portraying the Persian shop-keeper as a raving lunatic may not have been the best way to go but think about it in terms of his frustration. If you lived in a foreign country where you struggled with the language and were targeted because of your race, your heritage, wouldn't you be angry? And the fact that the American gun shop owner incorrectly calls the Persian an Arab is telling of the ignorance that is all too common.

I don't believe that Crash would have worked as well if it had been set in New York. It's too European and it's too crowded. As Don Cheadle's character talks about at the beginning of the film, in any real city you brush past people and you bump into them, but in L.A nobody touches you. You could interpret that in so many ways. Is it fear? Is it trying to avoid a further clash of cultures? Is it the basic fact that you need a car to get to anywhere in L.A? It's not something you really think about in a city as racially diverse as New York. NYC could almost be seen as 'immigrant central', there's a different kind of feeling being produced from L.A. Almost as if it is 'true' America because that's where the 'new Americans' were headed after they colonised the East.

I think this film really made people sit up and think. Hollywood so rarely does that nowadays. Big budgets and special effects over take everything. Crash had a budget of $6 million and was filmed in 36 days, yet has a cast that is enviable by any standards and was therefore able to bring in the audiences. Although Crash is six years old, it's still relevant today. The ever growing wave of Mexican immigrants is becoming a bigger issue, tensions over the new President and his skin colour are still cause for concern, the Western World seems to have a continuing hate for people from the Middle-East....so the film world was divided over this movie. Like it or not, it won awards and rightly so. It may manipulate the audience but I think the mark of a good film is that it has the ability to draw you in and put you in that kind of situation in the first place. These Hollywood film reviewers might have the legions of fans and accolades but I know when I enjoy a film, and I know that I agree with Mr Ebert.