Anyone who reads this blog knows that I’m a fan of multilinear films and novels, which are constructed around multiple protagonists with intersecting storylines and driven by a central theme. So when Owen told me he watched the film Crash (2004), I was keenly interested in his reaction.
As a side note, I included Crash with the word ‘Sorry’ in parentheses, on my “List of Must-See Movies.” I included it because of its multilinear structure, and I said ‘sorry’ because it was so heavy-handed and relied on a portfolio of racial stereotypes.
Owen’s reaction was that if the film wasn’t trying to be ironic, it was a failure, for the same reasons I wrote ‘sorry.’ Crash was definitely not attempting irony, and many people hated the movie. Yet it won the 2005 Best Picture Oscar over the stellar Brokeback Mountain and the compelling Munich.
So I had to watch Crash again, since I hadn’t seen the film since it was first released. On a second watch, I still appreciated the multiple storylines around a central theme, but there were many cringey moments. It’s full of racial stereotypes—the racist white cop, the Iraqi assumed to be a terrorist, the Karen wife afraid of black people, the Asian woman accused of being un-American for her accent, etc. Plus, the plot was so contrived, even for a genre in which narrative design must rely on coincidence.
Still, I applaud white filmmaker Paul Haggis for having the cojones to tackle race issues. There’s no way it couldn’t blow up in his face in some fashion.
But don’t let the controversial Crash turn you off to the multilinear film. There are many powerful, compelling films of this type, and I want to recommend several that are worth your time watching:
Three films by the director Alejandro González Iñárritu. Amores Perros (2000)—three distinct narratives in Mexico City connected by a car crash. 21 Grams (2003)— three people’s lives intersect after a tragic accident, told in a fractured, non-linear fashion. Babel (2006)— Four interrelated stories set in Morocco, Japan, Mexico, and the U.S., exploring how a single gunshot reverberates across cultures and continents.
Pulp Fiction (1994)—Quentin Tarantino is at his best in this groundbreaking nonlinear film about intersecting lives in a stylized criminal underworld in L.A.
The Hours (2002)—based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Michael Cunningham, the story follows three women in different eras whose lives are connected by Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway and parallel emotional struggles.
Traffic (2000)—Director Steven Soderbergh tackles multiple storylines across the U.S. and Mexico, showing different perspectives: law enforcement, users, traffickers, and politicians.
I’ve been influenced by this storytelling style to the point that my first two novels—Stash and Clean Break—were structured around multiple protagonists and multilinear narratives. You might want to check them out if you haven’t already.
