I’ve taken my little shots at Crash, here and here. Manohla Dargis of The New York Times offers her take, in response to a reader question (text edited for space).
Q. My friends and I seem to be asking each other the following… questions:
How did “Crash,” a somewhat obvious, over-the-top, contrived drama, score so many nominations and now come to be considered as a possible dark horse for best picture?
A. There are a few obvious reasons why “Crash” connected with the Academy. First, Los Angeles, where most of Academy members live, is a profoundly segregated city, so any movie that makes it seem like its white, black, Asian and Latino inhabitants are constantly tripping over one another has appeal. If nothing else it makes Los Angeles seem as cosmopolitan as, well, New York or at least the Upper West Side. Second, no matter how many times the camera picks out Oprah Winfrey on Oscar night, the Academy is super white. Third, the Academy is, at least in general terms, socially liberal. You see where I’m going, right? What could better soothe the troubled brow of the Academy’s collective white conscious than a movie that says sometimes black men really are muggers (so don’t worry if you engage in racial profiling); your Latina maid really, really loves you (so don’t worry about paying her less than minimum wage); even white racists (even white racist cops) can love their black brothers or at least their hot black sisters; and all answers are basically simple, so don’t even think about politics, policy, the lingering effects of Proposition 13 and Governor Arnold. This is a consummate Hollywood fantasy, no matter how nominally independent the financing and release. I also think it helped the film’s cause that its distributor sent out more than 130,000 DVD’s to the industry, insuring easy viewing.
3 Responses
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jb Says:
on point!
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Yif Says:
You may have a point: whether it’s valid or not is another thing. Seems like the NYT is writing for it’s own circulation. Hence it’s distrust of anything out of the West Coast. Let’s face it, this critic is more pissed about Hollywood (and therefore, the Academy) being in LA than anything else.
Had this been shot in NYC, she’d probably be going down on Haggis, stating how Focus should have the BP gong sewn up.
I find it strange that people home in on the inadequacies of a half-way decent film like ‘Crash’ when so much crap is being punched out all over the globe. Still, at least it gives us a reprieve from Iraq.
Oh I forgot. ‘Jarhead’. Ha-ha.
And at least it made a decent length movie: as opposed to ‘Brokeback Mountain’, which should have topped out at 60 minutes max.
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The Pop View Says:
I don’t why I didn’t respond to this at the time, but I’m pretty sure that Manohla Dargis lives in L.A., despite the fact that she writes for the Times. At least, that was the original deal when she was hired back in 2004.