Thu, Apr 6, 2006 - Issue 17
The Bard Observer
observer.bard.edu
March Fifth, a Day that Will Live in Infamy
BY MARY HARDING
Jack Nicholson just made the best joke I’ve ever heard. “Crash” as the Best Picture of the year. That’s hilarious. Wait a minute. OH MY GOD! Crash really has just been called as the Best Picture of the year at the 2006 Academy Awards. That was my response while watching the Oscars two weeks ago. I was, along with most other movie buffs, anxiously awaiting the Academy’s announcement of Brokeback Mountain as its Best Picture, thereby giving the film the recognition it deserves as the best film of the year. This was apparently not meant to be. Brokeback was critically adored, being the first film named best picture of the year by both the New York and Los Angeles Film Critics Circles since Schindler’s List (which won The Oscar in 1993). It also won both the Independent Spirit Award and the British Oscar for Best Picture. Even ignoring those statistics, Brokeback Mountain was in every way imaginable a better film than Crash, but apparently the only thing that mattered to Academy voters was superficiality.
Now, obviously the Academy has been accused of such crimes before, but no one really thought that an upset like this was going to occur. So the question that needs to be asked now is: “What happened?” In a year that featured four high-quality Best Picture nominees: Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, Capote, and Munich, how did an insignificant film like Crash steal the Oscar, or even get nominated? There are those who claim the Academy’s homophobia is to blame, but I think that the statement made by Brokeback’s author, Annie Proulx, reveals the truth. Ms. Proulx wrote an article in the British Newspaper The Guardian, stating: “rumour has it that Lions Gate inundated the academy voters with DVD copies of Trash - excuse me - Crash a few weeks before the ballot deadline.”
During Oscar season it is customary for a film’s producers to make a strong campaign for their individual films—promoting them through advertising and such— but the producers of Crash spent an extraordinary amount of money (much more than any other campaign) making sure every voter received a copy of the film. Unlike the other films nominated, the producers of Crash knew that their film couldn’t stand on it’s own, so they bombarded the Academy with copies of the movie in hopes of manipulating them into voting for the film freshest in their minds. And apparently, it worked.
“Is Crash as bad as you claim it is?”some may ask. I respond with, “Oh, you poor little simpleton . . . yes. It is that bad and a thousand times worse.” Let me explain.
First of all, Paul Haggis’s insipid script is founded on the basic idea that his role of writer and director is to promote a highly (excuse the pun) black and white moralistic view of the world. Apparently, in this post- 9/11 world, everyone is reverting back to some sort of repressed racism that dwells within them. Just because a person is angry or experiencing trauma, this automatically makes them racist. The situations shown in Crash are not entirely unrealistic, but Haggis’ assumption that everyone is now a stereotype turns his film into a cookie-cutter cliché with the message that racism is bad. Had he shown some restraint, he could have examined the subtle, deep-seated racism that lurks below the surface of many, instead of the explicit acts of racism that are less common in our increasinly PC world. Haggis was inspired to write the screenplay after he was mugged a few years ago, which leads me to believe that this film is actually his way of dealing with his own racism by trying to make the claim that everyone is racist (Perhaps to assuage his own racist guilt?). I am not denying that there are people similar to those portrayed in the film, but by jamming too many of these characters into one film, Haggis’ message is weakened because the situations shown are beyond what most people would be able to relate to.
Furthermore, none of the characters really develop any identity whatsoever, only different masks of the same stereotype being constantly repeated. Every actor (with the exception of the always divine Thandie Newton) portrays an essentially hollow character. Random events occur for no reason, and apparently it now snows in L.A. There is absolutely no nuance to the film; everything is made too explicit for there to really be an sense of reality in it. Haggis’s script is exceptional at establishing an exteriority of a character, but nothing substantial. No one who watches this film ever needs to think about anything going on, because whatever substance was in Crash is lost in the blaring message.
Then there’s Brokeback Mountain, which is an exceptionally well-crafted film. Both Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams’s performances will undoubtledly be remembered for years to come; Ledger virtually disappears into Ennis Delmar, while Williams’s heartbreaking portrayal of Alma instantly proves that she is one of the best actresses of our generation (Yes, I do remember she was in Dawson’s Creek, but don’t hold it against her). Kudos to Ang Lee for becoming the first Asian director to win the Best Director Award, but that is not enough. Until next year I will be quietly haunted by this fact: the cast of Brokeback Mountain- 0 Oscars, 36Mafia-1 Oscar, and I will always wonder just why the Academy chose to ignore the little film that could, the best film of the year, Brokeback Mountain.
