Yesterday morning, both my wife and I woke up with food poisoning. Hers was mild, mine fairly severe. It knocked me flat, and though I feel better this morning, am not in shape to teach just yet.
I am going to campus later today to hold office hours and teach my evening class. I hate cancelling classes without warning. I know that plenty of students rejoice when they see the little blue or green "class cancelled" notices posted on the classroom door, but I still feel bad that so many make the trip to the college for nothing. In the event that students in my 12 noon or 1:35PM classes are reading this — you folks are off today. Tonight and tomorrow will be as normal.
I was so out of it that I was forced to sleep through most of the Oscars, which was a real disappointment. I was right about the screenplay, actress, and director awards, but deeply disappointed that "Crash" won best picture. A film with a few moving and melodramatic scenes, "Crash" left me — and lots of other Southern Californians — saying "This is not a Los Angeles I recognize." I don’t live in splendid Pasadena isolation, either. I’ve lived in the LA area for seventeen years, in nine different zip codes (from Culver City to Altadena, Santa Monica to Van Nuys) and four different area codes. I’m in a happy inter-ethnic marriage that doesn’t simmer and bubble with racial tension, and I teach at a majority-minority college. I have never once had a racial confrontation in Los Angeles– not even in those explosive days in April 1992. I "bought" Brokeback Mountain; I "bought" Good Night and Good Luck — hell, I bought every second of A History of Violence; Crash didn’t resonate for me at all, despite some impressive individual performances.
Kenneth Turan’s devastating piece in this morning’s Times captures my feelings perfectly:
I do not for one minute question the sincerity and integrity of the people who made "Crash," and I do not question their commitment to wanting a more equal society. But I do question the film they’ve made. It may be true, as producer Cathy Schulman said in accepting the Oscar for best picture, that this was "one of the most breathtaking and stunning maverick years in American history," but "Crash" is not an example of that.
I don’t care how much trouble "Crash" had getting financing or getting people on board, the reality of this film, the reason it won the best picture Oscar, is that it is, at its core, a standard Hollywood movie, as manipulative and unrealistic as the day is long. And something more.
For "Crash’s" biggest asset is its ability to give people a carload of those standard Hollywood satisfactions but make them think they are seeing something groundbreaking and daring. It is, in some ways, a feel-good film about racism, a film you could see and feel like a better person, a film that could make you believe that you had done your moral duty and examined your soul when in fact you were just getting your buttons pushed and your preconceptions reconfirmed.
So for people who were discomfited by "Brokeback Mountain" but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel like they were good, productive liberals, "Crash" provided the perfect safe harbor. They could vote for it in good conscience, vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials for shunning what "Brokeback" had to offer. And that’s exactly what they did.
I have never once had a racial confrontation in Los Angeles– not even in those explosive days in April 1992.
Same with me. I was involved for a while in the punk rock scene, and even among hardcore skinheads you saw very little in the way of bigotry.
An interesting thing was that a lot of whites thought that the Rodney King cops were guilty.
Indeed, Alexander. I’ve still only met one or two Angelenos (who were here in 1991-92) who thought they were innocent… it was the folks over the county line in Simi Valley who acquitted them. No LA jury would have done the same.
So for people who were discomfited by “Brokeback Mountain” but wanted to be able to look themselves in the mirror and feel like they were good, productive liberals, “Crash” provided the perfect safe harbor. They could vote for it in good conscience, vote for it and feel they had made a progressive move, vote for it and not feel that there was any stain on their liberal credentials for shunning what “Brokeback” had to offer.
That’s a hmmmm..Is he reinforcing the stereotype that the Academy voters are mostly liberals??
Who said the “Best” picture had to be a film that was (1) Realistic or (2) Pushed one’s “progressive” or “liberal” comfort zone? I don’t see that in AMPAS’ rules and regulations. As the author of the article states, “Hollywood, of course, is under no obligation to be a progressive force in the world.” Neither are the Academy voters obligated to award as “best” the most “discomforting” or “ground-breaking” film.
AMPAS states:
Because the Academy numbers among its members the most gifted and skilled artists and craftsmen in the motion picture world, its Award stands alone as an indication of what top filmmakers feel are the year’s top achievements.
Best Picture nominations and final winners in most categories are determined by vote of the entire membership. Final voting for the Best Picture Award shall be restricted to active and life Academy members
Crash won also for film editing, song, and screenplay (yes, BBM won for *adapted* screenplay and score), so perhaps a portion of Academy voters looked at specific artistic facets and thought Crash was simply better in that narrow definition of “best.” Given none of the actors in BBM won awards, I’m not surprised BBM didn’t win Best Picture. Crash’s ensemble cast also allows for support from those voters who perhaps choose much more simplistic reasons (like personal relationships). Finally, many voters may have privately felt like Christy over at DryBonesDance wrote about BBM - although feared being as open because of the response from critics like Turan who then want to tar and feather them as hypocrites.
Perhaps Crash only won by one vote? ten? Perhaps Turan has the voter to vote results to confirm his “unspoken fears and unconscious prejudices” claims? Talk about sweeping generalizations…
No way, Hugo! I definitely don’t agree with you on this one. Turan is suggesting that people (at least Oscar voters) are so uncomfortable with the concept of gay relationships that they would rather see a movie about racism. C’mon! You know as well as I do how hard it is to get white people to admit that there IS still racism in this country today MUCH less talk about it. Even “liberal” white people. So maybe a majority of those voters were very race/racism-conscious people OR maybe timing of the release and the fact that the movie’s already out on DVD (as well as that last minute campaign where Crash’s promoters mailed out tens of thousands of DVDs to voters) had an impact. But I think it’s a stretch to for him to suggest that the reason Crash won out was because the voters were homophobic.
Brokeback was a good movie but it didn’t challenge us in the same way Crash did. Most people, even conservatives, are at least okay with gay people, even if they don’t want them to get married for some reason.
Every movie is manipulative. That’s what movies do. It doesn’t mean that Crash was “standard Hollywood” fare. And to say it’s unrealistic is to suggest that racism is over and done with. Particularly after 9/11 –and the movie highlighted all kinds of ethnicities, including folks of Middle Eastern descent– in the climate of fear that still grips this country, racism and racial profiling is far from over.
And, Hugo, I’m most surprised that the redemption theme didn’t resonate more with you. It’s a very spiritual movie. With very complex characters. The person who does the most awful thing in the movie also does the most beautiful. How much spiritual truth does that contain? A lot! Very Quaker-ish.
I think in this case just the fact that in was in LA got in front of you and made you defensive. Maybe they shoulda made a fictional city because it apparently implies that it’s a movie about racism IN LA instead of a movie about racism IN THE US.
I really think you’re selling the movie short here Hugo. And anyway I did watch the awards ceremony and my impression was that both movies were equally honored one got best director, one best picture and they both got a total of three Oscars. It wasn’t until I heard the news analysts today that I heard the idea that Brokeback got short changed because the only Oscar that counts apparently is Best Picture. Whatever. They’re both good movies in my book and they were both recognized.
[end of 2 cent’s worth; if you want more visit where I might be posting more on this later tonight.
Barb, you may be right that I would have been much more receptive to the film if it was set in a city I didn’t know anything about. But even technically, I felt like I was watching a pastiche of scenes designed to win an emotional response. Yes, the two scenes with Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton were gripping and compelling — and yet, to me, they seemed contrrived and melodramatic. I cried, yes — but I also cry at cute commericals, and know I’m being manipulated. My emotional response to Brokeback or History of Violence or March of the Penguins seemed to me to be more genuine, though what that proves I don’t know!
I’m going to rent the DVD and give it a second look, and see if it improves. But it still ranked below Brokeback, Good Night, and Capote for me — and only just ahead of Munich, which I found tedious.
You wanna talk about standard hollywood fare, History of violence is a classic action movie, one man takes out twenty guys in ten seconds, c’mon it’s not exactly real. and march of the penguins was manipulative, when the baby penguin dies… almost every movie has cliches because you’re trying to condense an entire lifetime of experience in two hours.
p.s. History of violence was based off a graphic novel.
A graphic novel that I’ve read! History of Violence took the “classic action movie” genre and transformed it, creating something dark and new and, I feel, intensely Christian despite the gore.
Um, in Antarctica, baby penguins really do die. In Los Angeles, we don’t have accidents just to feel contact with others.
But hey, we can argue the merits of these things forever — as I said, I’ll give “Crash” a second look and see if I like it better the second time around.
I haven’t seen Crash, and am not likely to, because I don’t see movies much, but it should get an award for the best snarky line used in panning it:
Ross Douthat said of it: “like Triumph of the Will for Unitarians”
I did not read this comment until now, two years after it was posted. Hoever, I must say I was also extremely disappointed that “Crash” beat out “Brokeback Mountain” for quite obvious reasons, as stated by Kenneth Turan. After having seen so many truly outstanding (often non-Hollywood) movies in my life, “Crash” was as blah as a commercial for painkillers. I always cry at sentimental or sad parts in movies, but I didn’t shed a single tear while watching “Crash,” whereas “Brokeback Mountain” still makes me cry, even after having seen it three times.
I hope the jury tries to be more objective in the future, otherwise I shall completely lose my faith in the Oscars. “Brokeback Mountain” is definitely superior, and I’d almost say it was the best picture I have ever seen.