Crash into me
Mar. 11th, 2006 02:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jlhIn a rather last minute plan, I went out to chez ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ali_wildgoose et emsariel and saw Crash last night.
One of the things I'd read about Crash and the win was that it was about race in LA so people voted what they knew. I can see that; the movie fairly drips LA and I'm not sure it's entirely navigable without at least a working knowledge of race relations in our second-largest city. In that way it contrasts starkly with Do the Right Thing which is all about how New Yorkers live on top of each other even though they don't want to. Our interconnectedness here is immediately apparent; clearly Haggis & co. wanted to show that LA is no different. Which as fine as far as it went. Crash is a very ambitious movie and for the most part it succeeds.
But. While the overlapping storylines were handled with more care and craft than in Syriana there were still far too many people running around for me to really care about any of them. Less stereotypes than archetypes, more effort was made to ensure that each character was both noble and venal than to ensure that they were actual human beings. The dialog was too pat, the contrasts too stark and almost cutesy. The set piece events and extreme conservation of characters (I know I said there were too many people, but there were also, like, no extras) felt forced as did the constant sucker punching to "fool" our expectations. No one dies in the car explosion! The cops don't kill Terence Howard! The little girl doesn't die! The nice white cop kills the kid! I mean, enough already. I get it. We're all guilty. Ali said that someone she knew had said that this was meant to show you how much you, too, move with racial stereotypes but that really isn't what was happening. Rather, it was surprising because the plot set you up for one outcome, then showed a different one.
This constant sense of pulling back from the brink of disaster gets emotionally tiring about two-thirds of the way through the film such that Ryan Phillippe shooting Don Cheadle's brother was anti-climax rather than climax. (Also? You put all that shit in the universe and it's going to come back to you. That wasn't irony; it was karma.) The scene of everyone staring into space while "In the Deep" played and the snow started to fall reminded me very strongly of Magnolia (a better film). Nearly every conversation between Ludacris and his accomplice was straight out of Quentin Tarantino, including the clever twist at the start.
Still, I can't get away from what the film was trying to do, at which it was relatively successful. I know some were annoyed at it being self-congratulatory but when was the last time we had a movie that truly dealt with race that wasn't made by Spike Lee? I'm not sure, given the current conversation about race (which is really a non-conversation, an uneasy detente where everyone tells themselves that the movement is over) that a film about race could be anything other than this. Preachy it certainly was not and in fact it was very funny in many parts, that humor of recognition I suppose. I wouldn't go so far as to call it brave and I'm not entirely sure, given the sketched-in characters, that it will provoke all that much conversation, but I'm beginning to think that the point is to not shut up about race, to keep talking about it even when your entire flist wishes you would knock it off already; to risk being the uppity black girl in order to keep it from sliding off the radar.
Do I think it deserved Best Picture? Eh. It certainly did NOT deserve Best Original Screenplay; the dialog was stilted, the plot a little too clever, the resolutions pat even if open ended. What worries me about the current dialog—and I am in debt tokitsune13's eminently sensible take on it—is that we seem to be pitting a film about race and a film about sexuality against each other, in that way that the dominant culture loves to take the minorities and set them up to fight like bulldogs in a ring. It isn't a zero-sum game, first; and second, if you're looking for validation from a bunch of sexagenarian white people living in Brentwood, you've got bigger problems than I can solve here. In the end, the Oscars are no less obscurely political than any fandom awards you can think of. That Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture doesn't change the impact of the film itself, which reverberated across the culture long before March 5, 2006.
ali_wildgoose et emsariel and saw Crash last night.One of the things I'd read about Crash and the win was that it was about race in LA so people voted what they knew. I can see that; the movie fairly drips LA and I'm not sure it's entirely navigable without at least a working knowledge of race relations in our second-largest city. In that way it contrasts starkly with Do the Right Thing which is all about how New Yorkers live on top of each other even though they don't want to. Our interconnectedness here is immediately apparent; clearly Haggis & co. wanted to show that LA is no different. Which as fine as far as it went. Crash is a very ambitious movie and for the most part it succeeds.
But. While the overlapping storylines were handled with more care and craft than in Syriana there were still far too many people running around for me to really care about any of them. Less stereotypes than archetypes, more effort was made to ensure that each character was both noble and venal than to ensure that they were actual human beings. The dialog was too pat, the contrasts too stark and almost cutesy. The set piece events and extreme conservation of characters (I know I said there were too many people, but there were also, like, no extras) felt forced as did the constant sucker punching to "fool" our expectations. No one dies in the car explosion! The cops don't kill Terence Howard! The little girl doesn't die! The nice white cop kills the kid! I mean, enough already. I get it. We're all guilty. Ali said that someone she knew had said that this was meant to show you how much you, too, move with racial stereotypes but that really isn't what was happening. Rather, it was surprising because the plot set you up for one outcome, then showed a different one.
This constant sense of pulling back from the brink of disaster gets emotionally tiring about two-thirds of the way through the film such that Ryan Phillippe shooting Don Cheadle's brother was anti-climax rather than climax. (Also? You put all that shit in the universe and it's going to come back to you. That wasn't irony; it was karma.) The scene of everyone staring into space while "In the Deep" played and the snow started to fall reminded me very strongly of Magnolia (a better film). Nearly every conversation between Ludacris and his accomplice was straight out of Quentin Tarantino, including the clever twist at the start.
Still, I can't get away from what the film was trying to do, at which it was relatively successful. I know some were annoyed at it being self-congratulatory but when was the last time we had a movie that truly dealt with race that wasn't made by Spike Lee? I'm not sure, given the current conversation about race (which is really a non-conversation, an uneasy detente where everyone tells themselves that the movement is over) that a film about race could be anything other than this. Preachy it certainly was not and in fact it was very funny in many parts, that humor of recognition I suppose. I wouldn't go so far as to call it brave and I'm not entirely sure, given the sketched-in characters, that it will provoke all that much conversation, but I'm beginning to think that the point is to not shut up about race, to keep talking about it even when your entire flist wishes you would knock it off already; to risk being the uppity black girl in order to keep it from sliding off the radar.
Do I think it deserved Best Picture? Eh. It certainly did NOT deserve Best Original Screenplay; the dialog was stilted, the plot a little too clever, the resolutions pat even if open ended. What worries me about the current dialog—and I am in debt to
kitsune13's eminently sensible take on it—is that we seem to be pitting a film about race and a film about sexuality against each other, in that way that the dominant culture loves to take the minorities and set them up to fight like bulldogs in a ring. It isn't a zero-sum game, first; and second, if you're looking for validation from a bunch of sexagenarian white people living in Brentwood, you've got bigger problems than I can solve here. In the end, the Oscars are no less obscurely political than any fandom awards you can think of. That Brokeback Mountain lost Best Picture doesn't change the impact of the film itself, which reverberated across the culture long before March 5, 2006.
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no subject
Date: 2006-03-11 07:38 pm (UTC)Or March 5th, even. :D
Well said. I think the best thing to keep in mind is that we had so many movies that dealt with difficult topics to pick from in the Best Picture category.
Hopefully this will pave the way for other long-shot films, and I think that we will see a 'gay' movie win in the near future because of the attention that BBM has garnered.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-11 07:52 pm (UTC)I think that we will see a 'gay' movie win in the near future because of the attention that BBM has garnered.
But I think my larger issue is, why does that matter? Box office is far more important in terms of like-films being greenlit, and Brokeback Mountain had great numbers. (In fact, a large part of the Oscar hoopla, aside from bragging rights, is that wins boost box office and DVD sales.) If you look at the AFI top 100 lists (a good a ranking as any we have) you'll see plenty of films that we all agree are excellent and important that weren't even nominated for an Oscar. We've already had "real life gay cowboys" in People Magazine and if there's a better arbiter of general mass culture impact I don't know what it is. I'm just very dubious about the Oscars, or any awards show really, being some kind of cultural or industry stamp of approval or really meaning anything aside from an entertaining horse race, hot men in tuxes, and film montages.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-11 08:02 pm (UTC)Maybe for you, or most of the country even, but half of the people I know around here hadn't even heard of BBM until it was nominated (and even more hadn't heard of Crash until it won).
Unbelieveable, yes. Ridiculous, doubly so. But it's unavoidable that a large portion of people in this country[1] get their film knowledge from the big awards show. And yes, getting nominated does a lot towards this, but for some nothing puts a stamp of approval like winning Best Picture.
So, maybe winning won't help so much in the 'green-lit' department, but unfortunately (?), it does help in getting people's attention who know no better.
[1]Or maybe it's just the SE, that's really what I'm basing my knowledge on.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 01:47 am (UTC)So I guess, what does it mean that BBM now has the attention of people who really aren't paying attention to popular culture in most ways?
no subject
Date: 2006-03-12 02:26 am (UTC)My main problem was, I think, that the structure of the film really just means you're not going to get heavily involved with anyone. Everyone has to come across like archetypes because we're seeing them at their most...archetypal. Still, I didn't hate it as some people did. It just played to me a bit like an exercise done very well. It couldn't take off and become more than an exercise, but it's not like the exercise wasn't worthwhile. I think that's why, ultimately, of the two BBM seemed more worthy of the award. But I've still only seen only 3 out of the 5 nominees.
I also agree on it being a shame there had to be this sense of pitting different groups against each other, like you had to vote for either racism or homophobia.
no subject
Date: 2006-03-13 06:06 am (UTC)Maybe that BBM has surpassed being just a fleeting pop reference and has truly saturated the lowest 'neanderthal' levels of our society.
Maybe it's proof that even those who would prefer to live with their heads stuck in the ground cannot ignore the turning of the tides towards recognition of gays into commonplace, here-to-stay, culture.
It's significant not because the film itself is overwhelmingly fabulous, but for what it represents in our society: a giant step towards acceptance of homosexual relationships in mainstream America. Because once you've reached that hypothetical five percent, it's stopped being a trendy pop culture reference, and instead has become a stasis of society.
But, back to your original point, let me amend what I posted earlier: While I do believe the Oscars plays its part in reaching people who know no better, I agree with you that it probably made no difference whether or not BBM actually won. It was the nomination itself that catapulted the movie into 'household name' status... at least around here in the lower 5% of the country. :)