August 15, 2005
Good Weekend
We had a good weekend. On Friday night, Michelle and I went to the famous Green Mill with Horace to catch some jazz. It was good company, good music, and OK beer. I was suprised. For being such a famous club, it is a cheesy little place albeit with character. Its history alone makes this venue a must see in Chicago.
We saw the Maurice Brown Quintet. Brown combines a hip-hop influence with his jazz. He is orginally from Chicago, though now he is based out of New Orleans. I especially enjoyed Derek Douget on the tenor sax...very tasty.
Last night, Michelle and I saw Crash. Paul Haggis, who wrote the screen play for Million Dollar Baby, wrote and directed this Magnolia-style film.
The movie's primary content is racism. Haggis spins individual character vignettes and then methodically weaves them together. The characters' intersecting plots do not all resolve well, but there is still a strong theme of redemption for most though not all of the characters. I personally do not like themes of redemption when it comes to racism, unless the story is told from the point of view of people of color. Even then Hollywood tends to cater to the suburban sense that everything will eventually work out OK.
While I like happy endings, easy resolution on a painful and polarizing topic like racism doesn't sit with me well. Crash falls short of schmaltz, but the movie, in my opinion, doesn't move past the individuals to expose the social depth of this problem. Movies can make you feel good and hopeful at the end, however, they can also motivate you to action rather passivity. In the end, Crash DOES make you want to be kinder to people of all colors and races. Racism, however, is not eradicated with well-intentioned, friendlier people. Being kind can only get you so far. Ending racism requires a social revolution in small and large sectors of our society. It is much more a structural problem than something that can be fixed with nicer people.
Posted by Frank Yamada at August 15, 2005 08:21 PM