<p>Delighted that Crash, my favorite picture, got pix of the year.</p>
<p>I missed it when it was in the theaters because hearing the title, I had thought it was an action flick. The PR folks really did a bad job on it last spring.</p>
<p>When I finally saw it after hearing about it, it became the first movie that I ever bought. </p>
<p>I thought it was much better than Brokeback, which I thought was beautifully filmed, but moved too darn slow. I have the feel that I would have enjoyed the short story better.</p>
<p>I loved the complexity of Crash, the intersectiong stories and how virtually every character had more depth than it seemed at first appearance. I was hooked on the film from the first few minutes.</p>
<p>Me, I found Crash melodramatic vs. the refinement and restraint of Brokeback Mountain. So I am sad. I also find that Chinese Americans suffer as much racism as African Americans. So it’s ironic, in the end…</p>
<p>I liked Crash because it was very complex and I love Matt Dillion- I thought he was great- I also liked Brokeback but I think that it may work better as a short story- it was too interior for me- and while I realize that cowboys are not that verbal I would have liked to have had more backstory on the characters.
I don’t get the Chinese american connection though- you mean because of the director?</p>
<p>I didn’t understand Alumother’s Chinese American comment either. Was it referring to the characters? If so, I’m confused because I think that the only race/ethnicity that had characters with no flaws was Hispanics. </p>
<p>There were racist and victimized blacks, racist and victimized whites, racist and victimized Asians and Middle Easterners. Even most of the racist characters, however had some good or more positive characteristics. I don’t think that anyone was simply a cold, mean racist or thug.</p>
<p>I am turning in happy because I let my 9th grader movie fan stay up, and he had quietly given up hope that his favorite film of the year would win best picture. He lept up off the couch with such joy and genuine surprise that it was jarring. I knew he felt strongly that Crash deserved to win best original screenplay and that he felt it was the most important movie made this year, but he acted like the Red Sox had just won the pennant.<br>
I feel so lucky to have a son with the ability to appreciate the many finely wrought characters in that film, even those characters who were not allowed to enjoy big epiphanies and did not have Matt Dillonesque scenes…he also appreciated the characters who were still shrouded in ambiguity, driving with shaky moral compasses and weighed down spiritually with toxic assumptions based on race when the film closed.
I felt the director of Crash was every bit as humane a director as Ang Lee. And there were many morally interesting films this year up for awards.
Northstarmom, I am a big Annie Proulx fan and am grateful that Ang
Lee and Sir McMurtry-of-the-good heart turned their talents to Brokeback Moutain, which I truly think is a turn on the truth about love being a force of nature.<br>
A relative visited my home today. She is a conservative Wasp and explained to my son that although she is surprised to concede that she liked “Brokeback”, she did not embrace “the message for today’s society which will take it too far”…you get the jist. She basically expressed fear. I am left to ponder when the short Bible verse “There is no fear in love” will be a central tenant.</p>
<p>“So I am sad. I also find that Chinese Americans suffer as much racism as African Americans. So it’s ironic, in the end…”</p>
<p>I really do not get that statement.</p>
<p>Well, I for one, would have loved for Ang Lee to show his considerable talent on a movie that depicts the racism HE suffered in America. Only problem would be to properly categorize it. It would not be a documentary, that is for sure. Is there an Oscar category for short fiction films?</p>
<p>For the record, I am thrilled that Crash won. I only wished the Best Director had not been a mere payback for Crouching Tiger.</p>
<p>Did she mean perhaps that Crash was directed by a Chinese American, and portrayed the racism against Black Americans, even though C-A’s suffer racism too??? Don’t know, but don’t agree…</p>
<p>She meant that Brokeback was directed by a Chinese American. And the Chinese have suffered horribly at the hands of the Americans. Not as much as African Americans, to be sure. Racism against the Chinese in the US is dreadful, however, the slavery of the Chinese in America was nothing like as horrible, obviously, as the slavery of the Africans and therefore the effects nothing like as devastating.</p>
<p>I said ironic. Irony means sorrowful in a tired way. That is what I meant.</p>
<p>It was a passing comment born of personal experience and time spent with friends who have a perspective I had never heard before. Doesn’t really warrant examination.</p>
<p>Living in Seattle I am very aware of prejudice against Chinese Americans particularly in the late 1800’s early 1900’s.
However Crash was a complex movie and wasn’t meant to illustrate that the only racism is against blacks-
Movies are not meant to be all things for all people-and while America is not a melting pot- too many groups that are intent on being divisive for that- it is comprised of many who do not hear their stories told very often.
I don’t know how many areas have an Asian American Museum,- but this web site is quite good, and we ahve a strong independent film community perhaps movies are being made as we speak!
<a href=“http://www.wingluke.org/[/url]”>http://www.wingluke.org/</a></p>
<p>Mini, you are correct. I meant affect in post #14. Affect of a statement meaning the emotional tenor of the statement. I meant effects in post #12. Effects nothing like as devastating.</p>
I would have liked to have had more backstory on the characters.