2004
#152
Starring:
Sandra Bullock
Don Cheadle
Matt Dillon
Jennifer Esposito
William Fichtner
Brendan Fraser
Terrence Howard
Chris "Ludacris" Bridges
Thandie Newton
Ryan Phillippe
Larenz Tate
Matt Dillon
Jennifer Esposito
William Fichtner
Brendan Fraser
Terrence Howard
Chris "Ludacris" Bridges
Thandie Newton
Ryan Phillippe
Larenz Tate
Directed By:
Paul Haggis
2005 Academy Award Winner:
Best Picture
Best Original Screenplay
Best Film Editing
Brokeback Mountain
Capote
Good Night, And Good Luck
Munich
I find myself watching another Best Picture winner on our movie calendar. This one I don't know much about although I know that it in some way owes itself to another Best Picture Winner - Grand Hotel - as it is along the same lines of multiple characters' lives intersecting.
The difference?
This time it's about race.
How we all treat each other
How each race views what is happening.
This though, like Cloud Atlas, all wraps back on itself.
An honest take on how we all see those that aren't like us.
And how those in power abuse that power when they stop treating people as people and only see the color of their skin.
Race is a topic that is a sensitive one. While most of us never admit it, we all have a skewed perspective on how our race is treated. We all, in some way, buy into the stereotypes.
In some way we even live them - though we don't realize it. There are those that perpetuate the stereotype and don't know it - in what they say, what they do. They don't know they've bought into what the world says and thinks.
Some live the stereotype almost on purpose. To the point where they seem to revel in it. They glorify and perpetuate it. Others see hate and injustice and persecution where there isn't any, out of a sense of what? Entitlement? So bent on expecting it to occur because of the color of their skin that they take any small thing as a sign of racial divide.
And when we are met with someone that doesn't fit into that stereotype, that goes against the perceived societal norm, we don't know what to do. We don't know how to act, to think. Worse yet when we are the one that doesn't fit into what others expect. We only see our life as it is, and don't understand why others have issue with us.
But we all have, at some point, used race as the excuse to hide the real issues.
Hate. Intolerance. Anger. Fear. Powerlessness.
We deflect what is really happening, what we are really feeling, and instead use slight difference as the blame for our actions and our thoughts.
But if we removed skin color from the equation? If we all looked the same?
The film also speaks to the consequences of our actions. What we do to others, what we say, will have meaning. It is not pointless. Every action will cause something to happen to someone else. Every word will cause a feeling or another action which will in turn affect someone else. We joke about what would happen if someone went back 4 million years into Earth's past and killed a butterfly - maybe we'd all have two heads and purple skin. Some call it karma - what you give, what you put out into the world, you will get back. If you make the world a better place, it will be a better place for you. But if you choose to make negative choices, they will eventually come back to you.
Its only when we do to make things right, to atone for what we did or should've done but did not, that life balances out.
"Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world." - Desmond Tutu
