Crash critical Review

June 24, 2017 | Autor: Twister Imc | Categoria: Critical Race Theory
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Interpersonal Communication Film Analysis 1
The result is a movie of intense fascination; we understand quickly enough who the characters are and what their lives are like, but we have no idea how they will behave, because so much depends on accident. Most movies enact rituals; we know the form and watch for variations. "Crash" is a movie with free will, and anything can happen. Because we care about the characters, the movie is uncanny in its ability to rope us in and get us involved.
"Crash" was directed by Paul Haggis, whose screenplay for "Million Dollar Baby" led to Academy Awards. It connects stories based on coincidence, serendipity, and luck, as the lives of the characters crash against one another other like pinballs. The movie presumes that most people feel prejudice and resentment against members of other groups, and observes the consequences of those feelings.
One thing that happens, again and again, is that peoples' assumptions prevent them from seeing the actual person standing before them. An Iranian (Shaun Toub) is thought to be an Arab, although Iranians are Persian. Both the Iranian and the white wife of the district attorney (Sandra Bullock) believe a Mexican-American locksmith (Michael Pena) is a gang member and a crook, but he is a family man.
A black cop (Don Cheadle) is having an affair with his Latina partner (Jennifer Esposito), but never gets it straight which country she's from. A cop (Matt Dillon) thinks a light-skinned black woman (Thandie Newton) is white. When a white producer tells a black TV director (Terrence Dashon Howard) that a black character "doesn't sound black enough," it never occurs to him that the director doesn't "sound black," either. For that matter, neither do two young black men (Larenz Tate and Ludacris), who dress and act like college students, but have a surprise for us.
You see how it goes. Along the way, these people say exactly what they are thinking, without the filters of political correctness. The district attorney's wife is so frightened by a street encounter that she has the locks changed, then assumes the locksmith will be back with his "homies" to attack them. The white cop can't get medical care for his dying father, and accuses a black woman at his HMO with taking advantage of preferential racial treatment. The Iranian can't understand what the locksmith is trying to tell him, freaks out, and buys a gun to protect himself. The gun dealer and the Iranian get into a shouting match.
I make this sound almost like episodic TV, but Haggis writes with such directness and such a good ear for everyday speech that the characters seem real and plausible after only a few words. His cast is uniformly strong; the actors sidestep cliches and make their characters particular.
For me, the strongest performance is by Matt Dillon, as the racist cop in anguish over his father. He makes an unnecessary traffic stop when he thinks he sees the black TV director and his light-skinned wife doing something they really shouldn't be doing at the same time they're driving. True enough, but he wouldn't have stopped a black couple or a white couple. He humiliates the woman with an invasive body search, while her husband is forced to stand by powerless, because the cops have the guns -- Dillon, and also an unseasoned rookie (Ryan Phillippe), who hates what he's seeing but has to back up his partner.
That traffic stop shows Dillon's cop as vile and hateful. But later we see him trying to care for his sick father, and we understand why he explodes at the HMO worker (whose race is only an excuse for his anger). He victimizes others by exercising his power, and is impotent when it comes to helping his father. Then the plot turns ironically on itself, and both of the cops find themselves, in very different ways, saving the lives of the very same TV director and his wife. Is this just manipulative storytelling? It didn't feel that way to me, because it serves a deeper purpose than mere irony: Haggis is telling parables, in which the characters learn the lessons they have earned by their behavior.
Other cross-cutting Los Angeles stories come to mind, especially Lawrence Kasdan's more optimistic "Grand Canyon" and Robert Altman's more humanistic "Short Cuts." But "Crash" finds a way of its own. It shows the way we all leap to conclusions based on race -- yes, all of us, of all races, and however fair-minded we may try to be -- and we pay a price for that. If there is hope in the story, it comes because as the characters crash into one another, they learn things, mostly about themselves. Almost all of them are still alive at the end, and are better people because of what has happened to them. Not happier, not calmer, not even wiser, but better. Then there are those few who kill or get killed; racism has tragedy built in.
Not many films have the possibility of making their audiences better people. I don't expect "Crash" to work any miracles, but I believe anyone seeing it is likely to be moved to have a little more sympathy for people not like themselves. The movie contains hurt, coldness and cruelty, but is it without hope? Not at all. Stand back and consider. All of these people, superficially so different, share the city and learn that they share similar fears and hopes. Until several hundred years ago, most people everywhere on earth never saw anybody who didn't look like them. They were not racist because, as far as they knew, there was only one race. You may have to look hard to see it, but "Crash" is a film about progress………
The stunning, must-see drama Crash is proof that words have not lost the ability to shock in our anesthetized society. The acting is dynamite, notably by Dillon and Newton in their shocking second encounter. Despite its preachy moments, the film is a knockout. Concludes in a shower of ashes, which is fitting because this movie is a billowing bonfire of ugly human behavior. Rarely have there been so many characters in need of timeouts, cold showers or house arrests.
"Crash" tells interlocking stories of whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, cops and criminals, the rich and the poor, the powerful and powerless, all defined in one way or another by racism. All are victims of it, and all are guilty it. Sometimes, yes, they rise above it, although it is never that simple. Their negative impulses may be instinctive, their positive impulses may be dangerous, and who knows what the other person is thinking?
Ensemble features can be daunting, yet some filmmakers embrace the challenge, and their results reward an audience. A lot of characters are woven into the tapestry of Crash, the feature directing debut of TV veteran Paul Haggis. (Haggis was also Oscar nominated for writing the screenplay of Million Dollar Baby.) The story unfolds in Los Angeles, where hostility is often a barrier to intimacy, and hatred and fear cloud judgment. Don Cheadle plays Graham Waters, a police detective investigating what may be a racially-motivated killing. Graham is having an affair with his Latina partner (Jennifer Esposito), whom he variously refers to as "a white woman" and "Mexican," neither of which is accurate. Matt Dillon is LAPD officer Jack Ryan, a 17 year veteran of the force whose actions often cross the line. When he fondles a woman (Thandie Newton) during a routine traffic stop, his partner (Ryan Phillippe) wants to sever their professional relationship. Meanwhile, the D.A., Rick Cameron (Brendan Fraser), and his wife, Jean (Sandra Bullock), become crime victims when their car is stolen by a pair of thieves (Chris "Ludicris" Bridges and Larenz Tate).

The best ensemble films are the ones in which the characters are given an opportunity to breathe (Magnolia, Short Cuts, and Nashville come to mind). With Crash, 105 minutes is barely enough time to let the numerous participants begin to inhale. The movie runs for long enough to allow Haggis to present the story, but we're left wanting a little more - a few extra scenes and an added conversation or two (especially between Newton's character and her husband, played by Terrence Dashon Howard). But I suppose it's always best to leave an audience hungry, rather than feeling overstuffed.

Crash's strength is that it deals intelligently with serious subjects. Racism is a hot-button issue, yet Haggis manages to approach it in a universal, reasonable manner. We don't feel like we're being preached to, nor does this seem like a sanctimonious "message movie." The film's numerous stories are tied together by a web of coincidence. Af first, there's a sense that so much contrivance invites criticism. However, on a second viewing, I was aware of the balance and symmetry in the way the characters' tales connect, sometimes only tangentially. Haggis has created a microcosmos, so it's only right for plot-lines to criss-cross.
Issues of race and gender cause a group of strangers in Los Angeles to physically and emotionally collide in this drama from director and screenwriter Paul Haggis. Graham (Don Cheadle) is a police detective whose brother is a street criminal, and it hurts him to know his mother cares more about his ne'er-do-well brother than him. Graham's partner is Ria (Jennifer Esposito), who is also his girlfriend, though she has begun to bristle at his emotional distance, as well as his occasional insensitivity over the fact he's African-American and she's Hispanic. Rick (Brendan Fraser) is an L.A. district attorney whose wife, Jean (Sandra Bullock), makes little secret of her fear and hatred of people unlike herself. Jean's worst imaginings about people of color are confirmed when her SUV is carjacked by two African-American men -- Anthony (Chris Bridges, aka Ludacris), who dislikes white people as much as Jean hates blacks, and Peter (Larenz Tate), who is more open minded. Cameron (Terrence Howard) is a well-to-do African-American television producer with a beautiful wife, Christine (Thandie Newton). While coming home from a party, Cameron and Christine are pulled over by Officer Ryan (Matt Dillon), who subjects them to a humiliating interrogation (and her to an inappropriate search) while his new partner, Officer Hansen (Ryan Phillippe), looks on. Daniel (Michael Pena) is a hard-working locksmith and dedicated father who discovers that his looks don't lead many of his customers to trust him. And Farhad (Shaun Toub) is a Middle Eastern shopkeeper who is so constantly threatened in the wake of the 9/11 attacks that he decided he needs a gun to defend his family. Crash was the first directorial project for award-winning television and film writer Haggis. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi.
Interpersonal communication is the process by which people exchange information and feelings both verbally and non-verbally. Concepts and theories investigate and attempt to explain the subtle complexity of interpersonal communication. Self-disclosure, the strategies people use to approach one anoother, and the various stages relationships go through when they are beginning and ending are key concepts in interpersonal communication theory. They help to explain why people behave the way they do and why relationships succeed or fail. Strategies
Interpersonal communication theory identifies various passive, active and interactive strategies that people use to learn about and approach others. A passive strategy is to observe someone from a distance before deciding whether to approach him, whereas asking other people for information about someone is an active strategy. Approaching someone directly and initiating a conversation is an interactive strategy.

Self-disclosure
Self-disclosure is a key concept of interpersonal communication because, if reciprocated, it fosters trust and brings people closer together. Disclosing information about yourself to another person helps her to understand you, as it means revealing private, sensitive or confidential information. According to Oregon State University, disclosure tends to be reciprocal; with increased intimacy, people feel more comfortable disclosing information that others might perceive as negative.

Stages
Psychologists use the concept of stages to explain how relationships evolve. Beginning with an initial encounter, a relationship progresses to the experimental stage when people exchange information on a variety of topics to determine whether there is enough common ground to pursue a relationship. If this stage is successfully negotiated, the relationship intensifies and the two people, regardless of whether they are friends, lovers or business associates, form a lasting bond.

Relational Dialectics Theory
Tensions between connection and separateness in interpersonal relationships are explored through the relational dialectics theory. Theorists believe that self-disclosure can vie with the need for privacy and that the urge to tell all conflicts with a desire for secrecy in a continuously changing cycle, according to Oregon State University.

Reverse Pattern
Relationships that break down are believed to follow a reverse pattern that negatively mirrors the way relationships are initiated. People focus on differences rather than similarities and begin to restrict their communications to impersonal topics. The relationship becomes stagnant and unfulfilling, and the members of the relationship begin to avoid each other, sometimes expressing mutual annoyance when they do meet, according to Buffalo State University.
Some of the words in this compendium were subsumed from everyday language into academic disciplines (for example, see "behavior" and "group"), but the adjective "interpersonal" originated as an academic term. It was introduced Harry Stack Sullivan, an American psychiatrist (1892-1949), "to describe behaviour between people in any encounter" (Oxford English Dictionary online, 1989). Now, the adjective is used more generally to describe anything pertaining to "relations between persons" (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, n.d.).

In Communication Studies today, one most often sees the adjective "interpersonal" attached to the noun "communication". Interpersonal communication has become one of the discipline's most established subfields (Craig & Muller, 2008); some scholars have suggested that this prominence is due in part to the sub-discipline's ongoing commitment to a positivist research paradigm (Baxter & Braithwaite, 2008; Presnell & Carter, 1994).

In the 1970's, students and scholars were more likely to specify whether they were studying a one-to-one, one-to-some, or one-to-many setting for interpersonal communication, but, in recent decades, the term has been streamlined to signify only one-to-one communication – although it need not be face-to-face (Knapp & Daly, 2010). Knapp and Daly (2010) define interpersonal communication as follows: "A very common definition suggests that interpersonal communication is the process whereby one individual stimulates meanings in the mind of another through verbal and/or nonverbal means" (p. xxi).

Developing a clear, concise, and sufficient definition of interpersonal communication is difficult because of its transactional nature. Knapp and Daly (2002) have said that "[T]here is considerable variety in how [scholars] conceptually and operationally define this area of study. In some respects, the construct of interpersonal communication is like the phenomenon it represents – that is, dynamic and changing. Thus attempts at specifying exactly what is and is not are often frustrating and fall short of consensus" (pp. 8-9). Despite this, Bochner (1989) asserts that scholars generally agree that interpersonal communication is "at least two communicators; intentionally orienting toward each other; as both subject and object; whose actions embody each other's perspectives both toward self and toward other" (p. 336, as qtd. in Knapp & Daly, 2011, p. 11).


Emergence of Interpersonal Communication in Communication Studies
During the 1960s and '70s, the growth of interpersonal communication research reflected, in part, the growth of behavioral research in Communication Studies in general (see "behavior"). For example, when the National Society for the Study of Communication formally separated from the Speech Association of America (now the National Communication Association) in 1968 to become the International Communication Association, it only had four divisions, and one was interpersonal communication (Chaffee & Rogers, 1997). New journals also reflected this new emphasis. Chaffee & Rogers explained:

To service its large constituency of behavioral researchers, ICA in 1974 created a second journal [the first was the Journal of Communication], Human Communication Research. The first editor, Gerald R. Miller, attracted mostly theory-testing empirical studies related to his specialty, interpersonal communication. Another empirically-oriented journal, Communication Research, was also established in 1974 as an independent venture by Sage Publications. […] So the new journals, despite generic 'communication' labels, rapidly came to reflect the new structure of the field, replacing the universities' speech-journalism instructional dichotomy with the researchers' interpersonal-mass communication dichotomy. (p. 174)

Interpersonal communication also gained popularity among college undergraduates, and courses in the subject became more widely available (Baxter & Braithwaite, 2008). Baxter & Braithwaite explained, "[In the 1960s, the] practical reasons for wanting to understand communication persisted and, as Gerald Miller (1976) explained, 'students themselves began to demand answers about how to relate communicatively with their acquaintances and close friends, and romantic partners' (p. 10)" (Baxter & Braithwaite, 2008, p. 3; Miller, 1976, p. 10).


Interpersonal Communication approaches
In 1978, Gerard R. Miller and a colleague, Art Bochner, each wrote state-of-the-field assessments of interpersonal communication, in which they evaluated the promise of various approaches, including:
the situational approach,
the developmental approach,
the law-governed approach, and
the rules-governed approach (Miller, 1978; Bochner, 1978).

These assessments promoted the further development of communication-specific theories in interpersonal communication (Knapp & Daly, 2010). In the 1980s, popular topics of study in interpersonal communication included conflict, gender, and nonverbal, workplace, and intercultural communication (Baxter & Braithwaite, 2008). The 1990s brought the emergence of two prominent sub-fields: family communication and health communication

The director has assembled a large, accomplished cast that includes Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle, Sandra Bullock, Thandie Newton, and Ryan Phillippe. Amongst other things, this group virtually assures that the film will be seen. All are more than competent in their roles - with Cheadle, Dillon, and Newton being especially memorable - and each does his or her best to enhance the two-dimensionality of the characters as they are presented in the screenplay. The most powerful scene in Crash has Dillon and Newton confronting mistrust on the cusp of mortality.

The principle subject matter is racism and its manifestations, and how it is often as much the result of social conditioning and anger as of hatred and intolerance. In addition to the usual white-on-black manifestation of discrimination, we are confronted with black-on-Latino, Latino-on-Asian, white-on-Middle Eastern, and other permutations. Wherever cultural differences exist, there is room for tension. However, by depicting bigoted characters as otherwise caring individuals, Crash asks us to consider the causes of racism as much as to examine its effects. In doing this, Crash sets itself apart, at least to a degree, from other, similar motion pictures. Although an expanded running time would have afforded us the opportunity to get to know the characters better, Crash is long enough to permit the film's themes to strike a responsive chord.
Interpersonal psychoanalysis is based on the theories of American psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan (1892–1949). Sullivan believed that the details of a patient's interpersonal interactions with others can provide insight into the causes and cures of mental disorder. Interpersonal theory deals with people's characteristic interaction patterns, which vary along the dimensions of dominance and friendliness. Interpersonal theory's two dimensions are part of the Five-Factor Model, and its interpersonal focus is shared with Attachment Theory.
Interpersonal theory comprises three strands of leading ideas: the principle of complementarity, the principle of vector length, and the principle of circumplex structure.

The first strand of interpersonal theory is the principle of complementarity (Carson, 1969; Kiesler, 1983; Orford, 1986; Wiggins, 1982), which contends that people in dyadic interactions negotiate the definition of their relationship through verbal and nonverbal cues. This negotiation occurs along the following lines: dominant-friendliness invites submissive-friendliness, and vice versa, whereas dominant-hostility invites submissive-hostility, and vice versa.

The second strand of interpersonal theory is the principle of vector length, which contends that within diagnoses of personality type on the interpersonal circle, vector length (a measure of statistical deviance) is an index of psychopathology (psychiatric deviance; Wiggins, Phillips, & Trapnell, 1989). In general, people with rigid, inflexible personalities have more problems--even if such people are inflexible in a friendly direction--whereas people with flexible, adaptive personalities have fewer problems--even if such people are generally more hostile than friendly.

The third strand of interpersonal theory is the principle of circumplex structure, which contends that variables that measure interpersonal relations are arranged around a circle in two-dimensional space (Leary, 1957). A circumplex can be viewed in three successively more restrictive and testable ways. First, a circumplex can be viewed as merely a useful pictorial representation of a particular domain. Second, a circumplex can be viewed as implying circular order, such that variables that fall close together are more related than variables that fall further apart on the circle, with opposite variables being negatively related and variables at right angles being unrelated (orthogonal). Third, a circumplex can be viewed as implying exact circumplex structure, such that all variables are equally spaced around the circle (Wiggins & Trobst, 1997). Sophisticated psychometric and geometric tests can be applied to determine whether a circumplex meets the criteria for exact circumplex structure (Acton & Revelle, 1998).
Humans act toward people or things on basis of meanings they assign to these people or things; meaning is formed through social interaction language. Self combines impulsive "I" and reflexive "me" ….set free.




References
Julian V. Roberts, Michael J. Hough (2005). Understanding public attitudes to criminal justice,

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