Crash – Paul Haggis

Write a BRIEF plot overview:

Individual stories that interact over a 72 hour period in L.A and crash showing prejudice and how actions impact others and the repercussions they bring.

Discuss a character that was of interest to you and explain why?

Officer John Ryan is a character of interest to me. During our first meeting with him we already can see that he is blinded by racism which is the fuel behind his lashing out at innocent victims. After he, a police officer, sexually assaulted an innocent woman we see it goes beyond offhanded comments. He abuses his power and enjoys it as well as expecting his partner to agree with him. He tries to redeem his actions by doing his job and saving her life from a car crash that was about to explode. He sees that after insulting his job the day before and then finally doing his job that his actions are redeemed. He was angry that she was afraid of him touching her when trying to save her and had to apologise to her which he might of not done if she reacted badly to him saving her. He thinks he has an excuse to hate African Americans because his father lost his job after employing coloured people as the government only supported coloured businesses. He thinks that because he grew up poor he can relate to all coloured peoples situations even though he still had white privilege. Officer John Ryan is still a racist and immoral character who thought that doing the right thing made him a good person when it doesn’t.

What do you believe the directors intention was and explore this and the moments that allowed you to experience this:

To show that everyone has flaws and that it’s what makes us human. Anthony at the end after freeing a group of Cambodian slaves does a good, moral thing, but then says another offhand racist comment, “Look, here’s 30 bucks. Buy everyone chop suey. [one of the Cambodians takes the money and doesn’t say anything as he leaves] Dopey fucking chinamen.” as he’s grouped all Asian people together and called them the wrong nationality as well as being racist about their culture. Anthony did a good thing by helping them, but it doesn’t make him a good person because of it just that he did the right thing in the moment. A conversation between a Latina and African American man, “You want a lesson? I’ll give you a lesson. How about a geography lesson. My father’s from Puerto Rico. My mother’s from El Salvador. Neither of those is Mexico.””Ah. Well then I guess the big mystery is, who gathered all those remarkably different cultures together and taught them all how to park on their lawns.”, where I believed that Graham was kind and empathetic and was shocked to see that he was racist against other people of colour. It continues the cycle that by being mean to someone means that the person will then be mean to someone else which is not fair. Just because he has a rocky relationship with his mother who appears to despise him doesn’t mean that he had the right to hurt her feelings when she was right be mad at his comment. It’s a flaw that he has that makes him human rather than what I saw as this amazing moral compass that could do no wrong which opened my eyes to the world in the film and the world outside my screen. Being human means that occasionally someone will do something not very nice or something along the lines of evil, but for everyone to be perfect all the time isn’t what it means to be human and instead comes across as unnatural as that isn’t who the human race is.

How did Haggis use stereotypes to manipulate viewers?

Haggis used stereotypes by making us think that a character was going to act and react one way as that was what the stereotype of them was. He manipulated us to think a certain way about someone and in some cases happened but then slightly changed later on as they learnt and grew as a person.

Discuss and research the setting of L.A. Why do you think where it was set had an influence the plot/interactions?

According to the 2005-2009 American Community Survey, 47.5% of the Los Angeles population was Hispanic or Latino, 29.4% were Non-Hispanic White, 10.7% were Asian and 9.8% were Black or African American. They had a vast range of ethnic groups with the majority of the population being Hispanic or Latino. Christianity is the most practiced religion with 65%, split fairly evenly between Roman Catholic and Protestant. NEEDS LOTS OF WORK. This took place post 9/11 which heavily influenced the plot line of Farhad as he was affected by a hate crime that was targeted against anyone who they saw being from the Middle East that they painted as being a part of the horrific crimes. American Los Angeles Police Departments have had a history of having dirty cops which have abused their power and committed crimes without being charged for them. This film showed dirty cops abusing their power against the coloured community and murdering someone else.

Police brutality, melting pot of races, after 9/11, ethnic divide, plot based off of own experience, big place, different side of LA(not everyone’s famous), setting highlights characters purpose and directors intention Add in

Were there any cinematography techniques that stood out to you? Choose ONE and discuss its effect (presenting directors intention, causing a viewer realisation…):

In the car crash scene, there were two main camera shots used, a long shot, and a medium closeup. The long shot was used to show how much time Officer Ryan had to get Christine out of the car before it bursts into flames. Between these a medium closeup was used between them showing how close they were and adding to the time pressure they had. The tension kept building between the camera shots as they worked against each other in how one showed something in the distance that seemed in some other time and the other showed more the present and the problem they were facing in the now. The effect of this is we see the director was trying to show us that actions have consequences, actions led to reactions and can have vastly different impacts but relate to the same thing.