crash
I *finally* saw the movie "Crash" last night. And I'm so glad, even though my entire body was tense throughout the movie. It's a good thing I was watching it alone! I would have completely injured the arm of whoever was sitting next to me otherwise.
Here's the thing, though. It wasn't the racism that was stressing me out. (Although, admittedly, there were several scenes that were impossible for me to watch without feeling sick to my stomach.) It was the anger--out in the open anger, seething below the surface anger, hidden behind sarcasm, verbal and physical attacks, addiction and other ways in which we separate ourselves from others. Anger, along with its trusty companion fear, was the quality in the characters and their actions that most distressed me. And I am still reflecting on how powerful an emotion it can be.
Sandra Bullock's character (Jean Cabot) had a pivotal line in the movie that might have gone unnoticed because it is so subtle and in a scene that is not as shocking as many others. Nevertheless, it encapsulates the quality to which I was so strongly reacting. She is talking on the phone with one of her closest friends and says:
"I am angry... Yes, at [the men who stole my car]. Yes at them, the police, at Rick, at Maria, at the dry cleaners who destroyed another blouse today, at the gardener who keeps overwatering the lawn... I just thought that... I just thought that I would wake up today and I would feel better, you know? But I was still mad, and I realized, I realized that it had nothing to do with my car being stolen. I wake up like this every morning. I am angry all the time and I don't know why, Carol, I don't know why..."
Yup. And I believe there are millions of people who walk around feeling this exact same thing every single day. They just don't recognize it. They don't see it in the way they flip off or yell at the slow driver in front of them on the freeway, or in the way they chew out the waitress for bringing the wrong order, or in the way they glare at the passenger on the train who bumped up against them and invaded their "personal space". They don't recognize their sarcasm, competitiveness, stonewalling, or withdrawal (yes, withdrawal) as signs of anger deep below the surface of their consciousness. They don't even realize the effects their rampant raging emotions have on their body. Or maybe they do recognize it but think it's perfectly normal to rant and rave about the little and big things in life.
And this, more than anything, makes me feel very sad. Not in a judgmental way, though. Believe me, I understand the anger. I have lived that way too. And I've seen it destroy lives, demolish families and completely separate an individual from any sense of spiritual reality. The kind of anger that surrounds us daily is palpable to me, and it makes me feel sad because it indicates an unawareness of our true nature and capacity as precious human beings. Perfectly imperfect, but precious nonetheless.
What is it that we're so angry about anyway?
Ironically, the anger that motivates us to keep ourselves separate from everything and everyone seems to stem from a desperate need for connection and attraction--love. Underneath it all, we all desire connection, love and acceptance. But we keep ourselves so separate that we have no real way to achieve these things. And so, we resort to anger the way a toddler might resort to crankiness or tantrums when he has no way of communicating something he is feeling or thinking.
Again, a key line from the movie illustrates what happens as a result of our separateness and anger. This time, it is delivered by Don Cheadle's character (Det. Graham Waters) in the opening scene:
"It's the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know... You brush past people, people bump into you. But in LA nobody touches you. We're always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something."
Yup. Deep.
All I can say is kudos to director/writer Paul Haggis and his co-writer Robert Moresco for accomplishing what they wanted to--make a film that stimulates self-examination and conversation about the very difficult yet important and real issues of racism, justice and morality.
