the chutry experiment

Good review Chuck. You're more patient with it than I was. Have you seen Los Angeles Plays Itself?

Thanks, Laura. I haven't seen Los Angeles Plays Itself but have been hearing good buzz about it for several months now.

I've actually been rethinking my review of Crash, in part because of David Shumway's essay, "Cultural Studies and Questions of Pleasure and Value" (anthologized in Berube's The Aesthetics of Cultural Studies), in which Shumway asks whether cultural studies should "champion works that openly express its democratic values." Shumway uses the examples of John Sayles' films such as Lone Star that in some sense "perform" cultural studies work.

I'm not sure that Crash does this wok as effectively as Lone Star, which I regard as one of the best, most underrated films of the 1990s, but I'm rethinking some of my initial distaste for it. Still, I think the film had some real problems, particularly in its realization of female characters. What caused you to be so impatient with the film?

That's a potentially dangerous question Chuck.

It boils down to two things: the film's relation to Magnolia, and the simplemindedness of its politics. Crash extrapolates a narrative template (a set of moves) from Magnolia and applies them, unimaginatively, in a way that suggests the audience is expected to process them as divine and redemptive; but Magnolia invents forms to follow functions specific to the emotional cadences of its material. I'm thinking in particular of Magnolia's song sequence, and the rain of frogs - Crash lamely imitates both, though the actors don't actually sing along in the relevant passage, and snow is substituted for frogs. Without romanticising the earlier film I do think those flourishes earned their keep in it, but Crash struck me as freeloading.

As you said, the characters in Crash are blatant stereotypes, and on top of that each one's narrative trajectory is literally stereotyped - as if drawn on a spirograph toy which traces the same (simple and obvious) shape every time. This made the movie annoyingly and increasingly predictable, and for me it also undercut the film's mildy good intentions re: putting race relations on the table for open discussion. There was no real sense of disequilibrium or power imbalance, everything cancelled out everything else. The people at the very bottom of the ladder, the Cambodians in the van, were fairytale waifs with no weight in the movie's identity schema (which values star power above everything other consideration.)

Stereotyping would be a fairly large hazard in writing a movie of this sort, I imagine, and I really didn't get much sense that anyone had tried to avoid tangling with it.

Thanks for the additional comments, Laura. In comparing the film to Magnolia, I was struck by PT Anderson's self-awareness, his recognition that the connections were abitrary and the unifying climax (the frogs) was clearly aware of its artificiality (hence the title, "It really happened"). So, I think you're right about the film's formal problems.

And, yes, I think you're right about the power imbalances ultimately being cancelled out. The Latino locksmith verged on simple stereotype, too. In a sense, I was just trying to rethink my initial assumptions about the film, but that first impression now seems right to me, especially after your additional comments.

There is a weird autobiographical subtext to the film (I'll try to find the link later), in that the director-screenwriter was apparently hijacked a few years ago while walking out of a Blockbuster Video, and apparently the screenplay *was* his attempt to work through the idea that race and class relations are not simple, but I don't think the film conveys that as effectively as it should have.

You're right that there were no everyday scenes. Everything whipsawed between the treacly and the violent. The film seemed to be in love with its script, with no idea how to express things visually except through bombast: every dramatic moment (gunshots, crashes, embraces, fireballs) bloatedly expanded with slo-mo and music.


At first I thought, ok, a film in which everybody simply IS their race and nothing else, fine. Maybe that's a good idea; it's an idea, anyway. But it had all the shortcomings you and your commenter have said, and more.


Also, Haggis' script for Million Dollar Baby uses exactly the same type of characterization: wise old black man, sleazy Jewish promoter, plucky Irish gal, white-trash Ozark family, and scary-mean black athletes. --That last is maybe not a sterotype as such, in the world, it's just that plucky, sweet, slightly reedy Hilary Swank always came up against black fighters, who glowered and menaced, at least until she knocked them flat in the first 20 seconds. I bet that's the script where Haggis worked out his feelings about the Blockbuster incident.

Diana, I found myself thinking about Million Dollar Baby, too, with all of the stereotypes you mentioned.

And I think you're right about the film's visuals. When I saw the trailers I immediately thought about Crash, but Mann's image of urban alienation seems far more subtle to me even if his meditations on masculinity are fairly trite.

Oops, I meant Mann's Collateral, not Crash.

After all the critics loving this film so much, and then all my friends liking it, I'm really glad I stumbled upon your review, Chuck, and the brief discussion above. It perfectly encapsulates my own distaste for the film. White man's piety, is what it struck me as.

I've been confused by the critical acclaim, too. David Denby called it "the best American film since Mystic River." I've spent several days now trying to figure out how many things are wrong with that sentence.

Critics...!
Blah! Blah! Blah! Always chopping and cutting.
Does a critic make a movie? NO.
Does a critic act in a movie? NO.
Does a critic have a talent? Helllllll NOOOO!!!!
They just knownames of many movies, many actors, many plays and ping pong with the names adding a chip here and chop there.
Who has the monopoly on VALUE can cast stones.
Honest people? We just go watch a movie and let our feeling speak out a like or dislike PERIOD!