A Brentwood housewife and her DA husband.
A Persian store owner. Two police detectives who are also lovers.
An African-American TV director and his wife.
A Mexican locksmith. Two carjackers. A rookie cop.
A middle-aged Korean couple...
They all live in LA. and during the next 36 hours, they will all collide.
STEP 1: THE TITLE: CRASH
The introductory monologue pretty much summarizes most of what happens in this movie. People in L:A: move back and forth in their cars, without any kind of human contact. They need to collide in order to make that necessary human contact everybody needs...
WHAT DOES THE TITLE CRASH MEAN?
I think the film is called "Crash" because it focuses on cultural shocks. For this reason, the film begins with a car crash, development constantly shows friction or conflicts between races, religions and social classes, and ends in the same way it begins.
STEP 2: THE OPENING MONOLOGUE
Read the opening monologue.
Graham has just crashed.
The car is now stopped.
This is what he says:
“It's the sense of touch. Any real city, you walk, you know?, you brush
past people.
People bump into you.
In L.A., 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
that we can feel something.”
Discuss the meaning of his words.
STEP 3: WRITING A SUMMARY
Write down the characters' names and the different stories in the film.
Elizabeth, Jean Cabot, Lucien, Daniel, Christine Thayer, Cameron Thayer, Officer John Ryan, Det. Graham Waters, Officer Tom Hansen, Lt. Dixon, Ria, Flanagan, Rick Cabot, Anthony, Peter Waters, Daniel Ruiz, Farhad, Dorri, Shaniqua Johnson, Fred, Shereen.
The different stories in the film are:
1. History of the District Attorney and his wife are attacked by a pair of young black criminals who steal the car at gunpoint. This causes fear in people of other races to the woman and man concern that this can cause you to lose votes in his political career. At the end the woman will see that the only person she can trust is in her Hispanic maid, and man will abuse his power to revive his career policy to avoid conflicts with black minorities.
2. History of African American offenders. Steal the car after the district, in their flight run over a Chinese smuggler who carried illegal people. They will also try to steal the car producer television but the owner confronts them and fail to achieve their objective. One of the robbers is killed at the end of the film by a policeman and the other, when he discovers that the goods that the Chinese man carries were illegal and immigrant people, decides to save them.
3. History of black couples and white police officers, a couple of policemen stop a marriage of high class returning from a party. The veteran police takes inappropriate fondling during this to the woman in the eyes of the husband. Hours later, the wife has a serious accident car and the police previously had treated with contempt, now save dying burned. The youngest police collected during his return home a black guy and during their conversation they had a misunderstanding, and he kills him. Get his body on the road and burns his car to avoid leaving fingerprints.
5.
STEP 4: WRITING THE STORY
4.1.Write a summary about one of the stories.
Corean offender and the couple of robbers:
History of African American offenders. Steal the car after the district, in their flight run over a Chinese smuggler who carried illegal people. They will also try to steal the car producer television but the owner confronts them and fail to achieve their objective. One of the robbers is killed at the end of the film by a policeman and the other, when he discovers that the goods that the Chinese man carries were illegal and immigrant people, decides to save them.
4.2.Describe the characters:
The characters are: The Chinese offender and the couple of robbers.
They are a couple of robbers and one Chinese offender.
What's his/her personality? naïve, responsible, ambitious...
They are a couple of thieves, so they are bad people and ambitious but their personality changes throughout the film.
What's the relationship between them? mother-son, husband-wife...
The two thieves are friends but the Chinese offender that they killed was a totally unknow person for they.
How do they feel at the beginning?
At the beginning they feel good because they did that they must do, rob the car, but when they run overed the Chinese man they feel concerned about what they had done.
How do they react in the story?
Firstly they seems like a bad persons but when he realized the reality of life, change their way of being.
Do they change? Why? Why not?
Yes, the robber that suvervie when he discovers that the goods that the Chinese man carries were illegal and immigrant people, decides to save them so he became a good person.
STEP 5: CHARACTER DESCRIPTION
Choose one character you like
I choose the blond police officer called Tom Hansen.
- physical description
- personality
- evolution in the story
