Crash (1996 film)

From Open Encyclopedia

Crash is a 1996 film written and directed by David Cronenberg. It is based on J. G. Ballard's novel Crash. It caused considerable controversy on its release, being that it is a feature film about a group of people who take sexual pleasure from car accidents. Cronenberg has said that his agent at the time told him it would wreck his career, and begged him to direct The Juror instead.

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Synopsis

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

James Ballard (James Spader), a film producer, has a disconnected relationship with his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger). While driving, Ballard's car collides head-on with another, killing the passenger. Trapped in the fused wreckages, the other car's driver, Dr. Helen Remington (Holly Hunter), inadvertently flashes her breast at Ballard.

While recovering, Ballard meets Dr. Remington again and meets a man named Vaughan (Elias Koteas), who photographs the brace holding Ballard's shattered leg together.

On leaving the hospital, Remington takes Ballard to see one of Vaughan's cult meetings/performance pieces, a recreation of the car crash that killed James Dean with authentic cars and stunt drivers. Transit Ministry officials break up the event, and Ballard flees with Remington and Vaughan.

Ballard becomes a member of Vaughan's group of people who fetishize car accidents, obsessively watching car safety test videos, photographing traffic accident sites and planning to recreate the crash that killed Jayne Mansfield. Ballard drives Vaughan's Lincoln convertible around the city while Vaughan picks up and uses street prostitutes, and later Ballard's wife. Though he claims at first that he is interested in the "reshaping of the human body by modern technology", in fact Vaughan's project is to live out the philosophy that the car crash is a "fertilising rather than a destructive event, mediating the sexuality of those who have died with an intensity that's impossible in any other form".

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Responses

The film was as controversial as the book because of its graphic depictions of sexual acts mixed with violence. This caused the UK tabloid press to condemn it as sick and evil, though few papers pointed out that it was based on a novel by a respected author.

Although passed by the British Board of Film Classification with an 18 Certificate, the film was banned by Westminster Council, meaning it could not be shown in any cinema in Central London. In the United States, the film was released in both NC-17 and R versions. The ratings controversy has now subsided and the film is readily available on DVD.

However, the film was also praised by some critics, and it won a special prize at Cannes for daring, audacity, and originality. Those who defend the film argue that the media furore belies the intellectual provocativeness of its central concept: Cronenberg portrays sexual preferences and practices that do not exist in the real world, and thus encourages thought about the human capacity to fetishize scenarios with no intrinsic sexual valence. The film can thus be considered far from pornography.

Lead Roles: James Spader, Deborah Kara Unger, Holly Hunter, Rosanna Arquette, Elias Koteas

Runtime: 100 min / 90 min (R-rated version) Country: Canada / USA Language: English / Swedish Color: Color (DeLuxe) Sound Mix: Dolby / SDDS

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