This research paper looks at the movie Crash of the director Paul Haggis. The film was released in 2004 and received three Academy Awards in 2005. This research draws upon mostly primary sources including articles, published reviews, and the book about intercultural communication. The aim of this paper is to highlight and describe the most important issues raised in the movie in accordance with the book. The results show that the film covers and demonstrates the social contradictions of identified themes.
“Moving at the speed of life, we are bound to collide with each other” (Crash, n.d, para. 2). This statement is the tagline of the movie called Crash. It reflects the real world where a lot of people are living nowadays, and where they bump into each other every day in streets, parks, and shops. Some of these meetings are fleeting and not significant, while others give a variety of emotions and new acquaintances. Thus, such substantial events have a considerable impact on the people’s future. In Crash, the director Paul Haggis is focused on demonstrating several short stories, united in a few car accidents, shootings, and robberies with the focus on the theme of the place of a human in the modern world and society.
The movie is made very professionally. Despite a large number of characters and storylines, the plot develops gradually and quite logically. It allows the audience to see the interconnected networks of social relationships that draw the characters together.
The film begins with the policemen who find the corpse of a black man somewhere outside the city. Further, events go back a day ago, and the viewer watches short episodes from the life of different people living in this city. These individuals and events, happening to them, are somehow related to each other and closely intertwined.
There are four main storylines. Rick Cabot (Brendan Fraser) is the District Attorney of Los Angeles, a big boss. Nevertheless, two African-American guys, threatening him with a gun, take his car. The robbery of the District Attorney is a good story for the news media, but Rick cannot afford such a scandal because the voices of black voters are very crucial to him. The African-American policeman Graham (Don Cheadle) knows about the situation of the white policeman, but he cannot help him. He has to keep silent because prosecutors threaten his brother, who got into a bad company. The police officer John Ryan (Matt Dillon) scoffs at an African-American couple in front of his young teammate Hansen (Ryan Phillippe). The Iranian gets a weapon to defend his small shop, the only thing he has. Ironically, this gun will be pointed at the same poor immigrant. Some storylines of Crash come to their logical conclusion, the other part remains unfinished (there is a clear sense in it), but at the final culmination all the same happens – the killing of a black man. This murder connects most of the characters.
Some people say that the main subject of the movie Crash is political correctness, and due to it, the film won the Academy Award for the best picture in 2005. However, this movie is not limited by political correctness issue. The plot of Crash is focused on the numerous difficulties of coexistence in a huge multinational state. The director accentuates the idea of understanding. According to Neuliep (2015), people from different nations think differently. Indeed, sometimes it is very tough for a human of one culture to accept some habits and traditions of the completely different world because people think through categories. People use categories in the process of thinking to reduce uncertainty (Neulip, 2015). It is necessary for a human to use categories to make an inference and increase the accuracy of understanding. What is more, categorization is an essential part of intercultural communication because when people meet something or someone unfamiliar, the first thing they do is trying to compare the unfamiliar subject with the familiar one. Thus, culture is connected with the theory of uncertainty. The problem of misconception is the central theme of Crash, and Paul Haggis shows the tragic consequences of such misunderstanding.
Other issues, which are raised in the movie, are political correctness and ethnocentrism, which are directly related to intercultural communication. The movie shows how people from different cultures are under pressure, and how others oppress them. Some characters in Crash tend to offend and disadvantage members of a particular group. The brightest example is attitudes and actions towards African-American individuals. Although the United States of America is a multinational country that gathers immigrants who come to the United States to get a better life, there is a decrease in tolerance and increase in distrust in American society nowadays. The majority of people do not like foreigners, and Paul Haggis shows it in his movie. The problems of intolerance and ethnocentrism are the most burning nowadays. However, governments and different media pay a lot of attention to them. For example, the video from Globe Today (2016) demonstrates how judgmental the world is today. Tolerance is one of the most important human characteristics.
Except for political correctness, uncertainty, and ethnocentrism, one more theory is used in the movie. This theory is the theory of stereotype. Though this term is a part of categorization to some extent, it is necessary to highlight. On first glance, some characters can seem negative and primitive to the viewer. For instance, on the one hand, the Iranian is a very unfavorable character, but on the other hand, he is just an unfortunate man. The locksmith with tattoos, who looks like a truly criminal, is a quiet and peaceful family man, adoring his daughter. The young police officer, who was extremely outraged by the actions of his racist partner, saves a black TV producer from certain death. However, on the same day, he kills an African-American boy for no apparent reason. These actions are examples of controversial human nature. It is important to emphasize that there is no clear concept of good and evil in the movie. The characters are not divided into two groups: innocent and guilty people, or heroes and villains. All people are ordinary with their advantages and disadvantages, strengths and weaknesses. Their behavior is a reaction to the outer world, and their actions depend on different circumstances.
To sum up, despite the annoying performance of some artists, Crash is a deep film. The film received mostly positive reviews from such influential media sources as Washington Post, Rolling Stone, USA Today, Empire, and others. The movie Crash is completely independent work, and Paul Haggis, who is better known as a screenwriter and whose screenplay for “Million Dollar Baby” led to Academy Awards, fulfills different tasks as a director, producer, and screenwriter at the same time. The plot of Crash is vital and urgent because it reflects today’s problems. The movie demonstrates social contradictions, and it contains hurt, cruelty, and anger. Haggis emphasizes that every very person is unpredictable, and no one can know what will happen tomorrow. The movie shows that there is not any clear line between good and evil. Not everything that is done by rules and laws is good, and not all people who defy the laws are criminals. However, there is always hope and faith. It can be unseen, but kindness exists within people, even behind the destructive behavior.
References
Crash. (n.d.). Film info. Web.
Globe Today. (2016). I am not black, you are not white. Web.
Neuliep, J. W. (2014). Intercultural communication: A contextual approach. Sage Publication.