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Racism and Ethics
Crash and American Reader of Humanism
Film Review: Ebrahim Mohseni
The premise of “Crash,” Paul Haggis's multi-storied, multi-starred and very earnest directorial debut film, is that we are all prejudiced in some way or another. Even the title has several varied meanings, from culture clash to automobile wreck.
LESLIE (HOBAN) BLAKE[*]
Starring: Sandra Bullock , Don Cheadle , Matt Dillon , Jennifer Esposito , William Fichtner , Terrence Dashon Howard , Ludacris , Thandie Newton , Ryan Phillippe , Larenz Tate , Nona M Gaye
Directed by: Paul Haggis
Written by: Paul Haggis, Bobby Moresco
Cinematography: James Muro, Dana Gonzales.
Edited by: Hughes Winborne
The Narrative of Film
The challenges between races and various groups in
Tow police officers, one Iranian and his family, one woman with here husband that is solicitor, one colored filmmaker and his wife, one Iraqi locksmith and his little girl, tow colored car thief and one police and his racist cooperator, are all characters that various episodes are shaped by their everyday life and their relations in film.
Characters and Actors
Haggis's characters range from two privileged couples — one white: a district attorney (Brendan Fraser) and his wife (Sandra Bullock), and one black: a TV producer (Terence Howard) and his wife (Thandie Newton) — to a pair of philosophical black carjackers (Chris "Ludacris" Bridges and Larenz Tate). Haggis owes no small debt to Quentin Tarantino for these last two, while his Persian characters are second cousins to the Iranian family in "Sand and Fog."[1]
The police force is presented as the city's most integrated entity. Don Cheadle, a black detective, and Keith David, a black top kick, co-exist in a constantly fragile state of détente within an LAPD filled with white (Matt Dillon, Ryan Phillippe) and Latino (Jennifer Esposito) officers. Haggis's television background kicks in as each character is put into a variety of situations to which he or she responds in ways both prejudiced and heroic.
The film is obviously sincere — Haggis himself was a victim of the kind of carjacking he depicts — and his dialogue is way above average. It's easy to see why the various name actors were attracted to the script, which provides most of them a chance to expand their usual screen images. The cinematography by James Muro is also impressive.
All the actors, especially
About the Racism
Haggis's film eventually goes a bit overboard with such irony, but his point about the complexities of racist generalizations remains bracing. Furthermore, though his melodramatic narrative threads are woven together with an abundance of 
unbelievably convenient coincidences, the writer-director's caustic prose has a hard-nosed, sometimes unpleasant realism that, thanks to a superb cast led by Cheadle, Howard, and the phenomenal Bridges, firmly grounds its tumultuous situations in believable emotional terrain. One wishes J. Michael Muro's handsome cinematography didn't so regularly resort to pretentious, emotion-underlining slow motion, and the clunky procession of conclusions results in too many instances of tidy catharsis. Yet if the multiple finales aren't handled with flawless grace, the filmmaker's directorial instincts—especially during a police standoff situated, fittingly, on a dead end street—are quite sharp. And in a climactic act of murderous rage seemingly staved off by the hand of God, Haggis finds a moment of transcendent grace that captures the all-too-rare miracle of compassionate, selfless sacrifice.
Crash comprises a number of separate stories that are loosely connected. Set over a period of 24 hours, each vignette offers a different perspective of the multi-ethnic melting pot that is life in
Anthony (Chris 'Ludacris' Bridges) and Peter (Larenz Tate) are two of the most articulate carjackers ever seen on screen. The pair are forever discussing in loquacious terms the stigmas and prejudices they face as two young black men. As they stroll an upscale neighbourhood, the more aggrieved Anthony observes, "We're the only black people surrounded by a sea of over-caffeinated white people and a trigger-happy LAPD." Seconds after being incensed by the sight of Jean (Sandra Bullock) clutch her husband (Fraser)'s arm upon spotting the two black youths, Anthony pulls out a gun and relieves the couple of their Cadillac. It's one of the many times in the film where stereotypes are enforced only to later be dispelled.
After a beautiful credit sequence in which disembodied headlights float through the dark night, Don Cheadle's detective Graham begins Haggis's ensemble piece by musing, "In L.A., nobody touches you…I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something." Bereft of both subtlety and necessity, this introductory explanation of the film’s moniker and central theme is a deliberate and grating attempt to hold the audience's hands through exposition. And what makes the initial scene all the more frustrating is that Haggis's directorial debut is an otherwise blistering and incisive portrait of urban alienation and intolerance that's largely unsullied by such painful didacticism[4].
For the end, so I think, racism and ethics cannot come together. If a human is racism, thus he (or she) cannot have a humanist heart. This problem is important for us that keep in our mind when we see this film.
[1] Alistair Harkness, http://www.channel4.com
[2] Nick Schager, http://www.slantmagazine.com/film
[3] Kevin Murphy, http://www.filmfocus.co.uk
[4] Nick Schager, http://www.slantmagazine.com/film
