Crash Evaluation of Paul Haggis\'

Crash

Evaluation of Paul Haggis' Crash (2004)

The 2004 film Crash, written and directed by Paul Haggis, earned high critical praise and many prominent awards following its release. The complexity of the film's plot and the real-world issues it explores make it well worth viewing. The fact that the drama is incredibly intense and the stories that comprise its plot are very gripping gives the film a high degree of entertainment value, as well, which is arguably the most important factor of a film's effectiveness. The combination of the film's ability to entertain and the seriousness of its subject matter make it one of the better films to emerge from the past decade of Hollywood frivolity.

What makes this film better than the average cinematic comment on race relations is that it avoids the stereotypes that such films are ostensibly trying to break down. As Sandra Taulbee says in her review of the film for Pastoral Psychology, "we see the unraveling of conflicted feelings/stereotypes that whites and racial ethnics hold about each other over and against the self-stereotypes held by racial ethnics about themselves" (Taulbee 2006). Instead of simply showing the stereotypes of race and prejudice and the conflicts that ensue, Crash contains many characters with diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds shoe identities -- and perhaps more importantly, whose sense of identity -- is in constant negotiation with the other perceived identities around them. This film is about racially charged interactions in motion, not a standoff.

Taulbee goes on to note the refreshing way in which the film refuses to shy away from politically incorrect views. The way many people perceive race, including their own, is often unpopular. Not presenting and/or discussing this does nothing to help solve the problem, however. Crash manages to present a deeply involved discussion on the topic without becoming preachy.

This film is not really about race, however. At least, it is not only or even primarily about race. It is about person-to-person interactions, and though many -- most, even -- of the interactions in Crash are racially charged, race itself is not actually the focus. Haggis takes a far more narrow and specific view of the issue, according to UC Davis' Hsuan L. Hsu writing in Film Criticism. He points out that it is not actually any racial factor that leads to the stereotyped views helped by many of the characters of themselves and others, "but historically specific practices of racism" (Hsu 2006). In many ways, Crash presents a microcosm of Los Angeles and United States history of racial views; it is a condensed explanation of the creation and maintenance of racist policies at the institutional level through the widespread and generally unplanned collective racism of individuals. This is what makes the film so engaging to critics and movie goers alike: it is honest about racism and the way it still pervades society, whether we like it or not. It helps us to understand why this is still the case.