Question for Discussion: How does Crash
help us understand racism and cultural
and social alienation in early 21st-century America?

Reading: Ebert, "Review of Crash"; Edelstein, "Review
of Crash"; Griffin, "Review of Crash"; Denby, "Review
of Crash" ; Brussat, "Review of Crash"

Video: Crash (2004)

Critical Reviews of Crash

• Internet Movie Database: Crash  
  

• Memorable Quotes from Crash
  
  
• Roger Ebert review of Crash
  
  
• David Edelstein review of Crash
  
  
• James Beardinelli review of Crash
  
  
• Salon.com review of Crash
  
  
• David Denby review of Crash
  
  
• Andrew Sun review of Crash
  
  
• Lasalle review of Crash
  
  
• Daniel Griffin review of Crash

Graham, We Crash in to each Other

Graham : It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

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Anthony on the White Part of Los Angeles

Anthony : Look around! You couldn't find a whiter, safer or better lit part of this city. But this white woman sees two black guys, who look like UCLA students, strolling down the sidewalk and her reaction is blind fear. I mean, look at us! Are we dressed like gangbangers? Do we look threatening? No. Fact, if anybody should be scared, it's us: the only two black faces surrounded by a sea of over-caffeinated white people, patrolled by the triggerhappy LAPD. So, why aren't we scared?
Peter : Because we have guns?
Anthony : You could be right.

Daniel : She had these little stubby wings, like she could've glued them on, you know, like I'm gonna believe she's a fairy. So she said, "I'll prove it." So she reaches into her backpack and pulls out this invisible cloak and she ties it around my neck. And she tells me that it's impenetrable. You know what impenetrable means? It means nothing can go through it. No bullets, nothing. She told me that if I wore it, nothing would hurt me. And I did. And my whole life, I never got shot, stabbed, nothing. I mean, how weird is that

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Peter and the St. Christopher Statue

Anthony : No, no, no, take that voodoo-ass thing off of there right now!
Peter : I know you just didn't call St. Christopher voodoo. Man's the patron saint of travelers, dog.
Anthony : You had a conversation with God, huh? What did God say? Go forth, my son, and leave big slobbery suction rings on every dashboard you find? Why the hell do you do that?
Peter : Look at the way your crazy ass drive, then ask me that again!

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What Causes the Anger the Characters
in Crash Feel?

Jean : Do you want to hear something funny?
Maria : What's that Mrs. Jean?
Jean : You're the best friend I've got.

Jean : I am angry all the time... and I don't know why

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Christine : I just couldn't stand see that man take away your dignity.

Cameron : [ to Anthony ] Look at me. You embarrass me. You embarrass yourself.

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Graham : I swear to you, Mom. I'll find whoever killed him.
Graham's Mother : Oh, I already know who killed him. You did. I told you to find your brother, but you were too busy for us. I'll take care of everything here. You go on now. You have better things to do.

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Ebert on Crash as Racial Progress

" Crash " tells interlocking stories of whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, cops and criminals, the rich and the poor, the powerful and powerless, all defined in one way or another by racism. All are victims of it, and all are guilty it. Sometimes, yes, they rise above it, although it is never that simple. Their negative impulses may be instinctive, their positive impulses may be dangerous, and who knows what the other person is thinking?

But " Crash " finds a way of its own. It shows the way we all leap to conclusions based on race -- yes, all of us, of all races, and however fair-minded we may try to be -- and we pay a price for that. If there is hope in the story, it comes because as the characters crash into one another, they learn things, mostly about themselves. Almost all of them are still alive at the end, and are better people because of what has happened to them. Not happier, not calmer, not even wiser, but better. Then there are those few who kill or get killed; racism has tragedy built in.

"Not many films have the possibility of making their audiences better people. I don't expect " Crash " to work any miracles, but I believe anyone seeing it is likely to be moved to have a little more sympathy for people not like themselves. The movie contains hurt, coldness and cruelty, but is it without hope? Not at all. Stand back and consider. All of these people, superficially so different, share the city and learn that they share similar fears and hopes. Until several hundred years ago, most people everywhere on earth never saw anybody who didn't look like them. They were not racist because, as far as they knew, there was only one race. You may have to look hard to see it, but " Crash " is a film about progress. "
Roger Ebert

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Berardinelli, Causes of Racism in Crash

"The principle subject matter is racism and its manifestations, and how it is often as much the result of social conditioning and anger as of hatred and intolerance.
In addition to the usual white-on-black manifestation of discrimination, we are confronted with black-on-Latino, Latino-on-Asian, white-on-Middle Eastern, and other permutations. Wherever cultural differences exist, there is room for tension. However, by depicting bigoted characters as otherwise caring individuals, Crash asks us to consider the causes of racism as much as to examine its effects. In doing this, Crash sets itself apart, at least to a degree, from other, similar motion pictures. Although an expanded running time would have afforded us the opportunity to get to know the characters better, Crash is long enough to permit the film's themes to strike a responsive chord."

James Berardinelli

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Edelstein, Crash and Fizzle

A universe in which we're all racist puppets is finally just as simple-minded and predictable as one in which we're all smiling multicolored zombies in a rainbow coalition. It's strange, but I came out of Crash feeling better about race relations—not because of anything in the screenplay, but because of the spectacle of all those terrific actors (of all those races) working together and giving such potentially laughable material their best shot. And, really, whites in L.A. are at one another's throats all the time, too.

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Griffin, Crash and Do the Right Thing

  Paul Haggis' Crash is the most important film about racism in America since Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989). Like Lee's picture, which was probably the most controversial American film in the past twenty years, it is not content to simply portray racism as an evil, glowering entity that inhabits only Southern white males with pillow cases draped over their heads, but rather as a natural, negative energy that is seemingly, inexplicably found within every human being—as natural to our flawed existence as white lies and guilty fascinations with The Jerry Springer Show , though with much severer, tragic consequences. Also like Do the Right Thing , Crash offers neither an explanation nor a solution for racism, but it is smart enough to realize that no rationalization will ever suffice or end the hatred. Thus, it simply shakes its head sadly at this crippling bug, offering clues that will allow us to see the bigotry in all of us without necessarily pointing accusing fingers. We're all in this together, Crash says, because we're all only as flawed as the next person.

   In fact, Crash is such a continuation of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing that I am willing to insist that you should not watch one without immediately watching the other. Haggis takes Lee's ideas and expands upon them, moving out of a predominantly African American city block in New York City and relocating into the melting pot of Los Angeles, tapping into the struggles met not just in communication between black and whites, but also Hispanics, Asians, Middle Easterners etc. The conflict is also no longer between city-block, neighborhood regulars, but spans from police officers to government officials, from the laymen to the Hollywood personalities. We see slices of the lives of over a dozen people, seemingly selected at random, and we get the impression that this film could continue on forever if it continued to pick out more faces from the crowd of Los Angeles or, for that matter, anywhere else in America. Do the Right Thing correctly points out that racism is still alive and active in America today; Crash takes this notion and uses it as a springboard to reveal that bigotry is inescapable and, sadly, inherent. Yet both films ultimately conclude with a glimmer of hope in that despite our twisted natures, equally inherent goodness still fights within us, and will often prevail in, yes, doing the right thing.

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David Denby on the Mutual Abrasions of Crash

A brazenly alive and heartbreaking film about the rage and foolishness of intolerance—the mutual abrasions of white, black, Latino, Middle Eastern, and Asian citizens in the great and strange city of Los Angeles. The movie starts off with separate vignettes in which the characters run afoul of each other, say things better left unsaid, and get into terrible trouble. Later, they cross paths again, sometimes in bizarre coincidences that feel exactly right; some of these scenes play out at the edge of insanity, where contentiousness spills over into tragedy or farce.

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Brussat Review of Crash

In The Cheating Culture , David Callahan writes, "As income differences among Americans have grown larger in recent decades, so have social differences. The enduring correlation between ethnicity and income aggravates the problem, piling ethnic and cultural differences on top of class differences. Looking at each other across the chasms of class and race, many Americans see little reason to believe that they share each other's values — and little reason to trust each other." The end result of this is a divided society where the poisonous effects of intolerance and hatred manifest in everyday interactions between people.

In each of these stories, Haggis and co-screenplay writer Bobby Moresco show the vast barriers of race and class that keep these characters from understanding or even empathizing with each other. It is much easier to vent their frustrations and rage in mindless rants. Yet each character surprises us in the course of the drama, and we realize that no human being deserves to be thrown out of our heart or exiled from our consciousness. Crash is a crash course in unmasking the racial and class divisions in American society that make all strangers into potential enemies.

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Director Paul Haggis on Crash

"My aim with this film is to explore how intolerance is a collective problem. I did not set out to offend or ignite controversy, but to look at many different people, each with his or her unique perspective. Film enables us to walk, however briefly, in the shoes of strangers. In that sense, I hope that Crash succeeds not so much in pointing out differences, but in recognizing our shared humanity."