Collateral Damages Sustained in the Film Crash

Abstract

This article analyzes the film Crash relative to the multi-dimensionality of its imagery and the interconnections between scenes and characters that demonstrate how racialized identities are perpetuated and manifested. The collateral damages sustained by the characters demonstrate how personal insecurities, fears and ignorance agitate violent, even deadly responses, in a society where gun ownership is readily available. The essay illuminates how various cinematic techniques illustrate the disconnections between various ethnicities transposed by the interconnections between specific individuals. It also discusses the writer/director's adoption of provocative vocabulary and complex interplay between dialogue and action in order to reveal the relationship between thought and behavior. In addition to the ambiguity of characterizations, the paradoxical and corruptive influences of institutions and their agents are considered both as systemic and individualized mechanisms that sustain and manipulate a racist society.

Keywords:

• collateral
• corruption
• Crash
• guns
• racism
• violence

Notes

Derived from a lecture Elvis Mitchell gave on the film “Crash” at Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, 8 November, 2006.