From Keith Woods: We watched the movie “Crash”
last night as part of our larger mission of pushing the discussion down
to the personal, to the visceral. I’d seen the film in the theater
before and remember how anxious it made me feel. This time, I watched
it in Poynter’s amphitheater with a different trepidation.
Not that I was worried about how the
journalists would react, though it’s funny how much more aware you are
of nude scenes or the number of times actors say the f-word (impossible
to count) when people are in your building watching a movie that you
recommended.
My worry, though, was that I would feel
like a sucker, like a lightweight, new arrival to the race
conversation. Because I really liked the film the first time. I thought
it had achieved a measure of profundity you so rarely see in movies about race.
It was provocative beyond clichés and tricky without being
manipulative. It was angry without being predictable; sentimental but
not maudlin.
Watching it the second time, I waited
for the moment when I’d realize that it wasn’t all that deep after all
– like listening to an old Earth, Wind & Fire song
20 years after puberty. Yet, somehow, knowing how each o the intense
scenes would resolve themselves, I still found myself sitting with
clenched fists and taut shoulder muscles. I still found myself wanting
to stay after the film was over, wanting to talk about the truth
underneath this box office underachiever.
The journalists
in the room sat for the longest time as the credits rolled, as the
lights came up, just sitting. Some left without speaking. One member of
the group said she needed to go back to the hotel room and think a
little while. Others went to a martini bar to get away from thinking.
It’s not often that I’ve seen a movie
that gets deep enough or treats race relations with enough complexity
that I dare offer it to cynical journalists as food for thought. “Smoke Signals” comes to mind. Or “Do The Right Thing” Or “One False Move.”
I think we need these kinds of
provocations to push the conversation about race out of the clouds of
intellectualism — where so many people like to hide — and down to the
personal, where you squirm, hurt, feel. Why? Because it will take
passion and personal commitment, gifts of the gut and the heart, to
bring about true change — whether it’s change in the way we do
journalism or change in the way we run our society.
Keith Woods is dean of faculty at the Poynter Institute.
