Crash (1996/I)

Director:

David Cronenberg

Writers:

J.G. Ballard (book)
David Cronenberg (written by)

Release Date:

21 March 1997 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Thriller

Tagline:

The most controversial film you will ever see.

Plot:

After getting into a serious car accident, a TV director discovers an underground sub-culture of scarred, omnisexual car-crash victims who use car accidents and the raw sexual energy they produce to try to rejuvenate his sex life with his wife.

Plot Keywords:

Danger | Leg Spreading | Sexual Violence | Marriage | Sex Degenerate

Awards:

8 wins & 4 nominations

Cast

James Spader	...	James Ballard
Holly Hunter	...	Helen Remington
Elias Koteas	...	Vaughan
Deborah Kara Unger	...	Catherine Ballard
Rosanna Arquette	...	Gabrielle
Peter MacNeill	...	Colin Seagrave
Yolande Julian	...	Airport Hooker
Cheryl Swarts	...	Vera Seagrave
Judah Katz	...	Salesman
Nicky Guadagni	...	Tattooist
Ronn Sarosiak	...	A.D.
Boyd Banks	...	Grip
Markus Parilo	...	Man in Hanger
Alice Poon	...	Camera Girl
John Stoneham Jr.	...	Trask

MPAA:

Rated NC-17 for numerous explicit sex scenes.

Runtime:

100 min | 90 min (R-rated version)

Country:

Canada | UK

Language:

English | Swedish

Colour:

Colour (DeLuxe)

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby | SDDS

Certification:

Netherlands:16 | Hungary:18 | USA:NC-17 (certificate #34312) | Iceland:16 | Australia:MA (TV rating) | Australia:R | Canada:R | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | France:-16 | Germany:18 | Hong Kong:III | Ireland:18 | Italy:VM18 | Japan:R-18 | Norway:18 | Portugal:M/18 | South Korea:(Banned) (original rating) | South Korea:18 (cut) | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R (video rating) (cut)

Filming Locations:

North York, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Company:

Alliance Communications Corporation

Trivia:

In the UK this film is banned from sale or theatrical exhibition within the city of Westminster (London), although it is possible buy the DVD in greater London and (in theory) see the film at a cinema outside of Westminster (this was true at the time of cinematic release). Also, similar theatrical bans were placed in other parts of the UK cities (including Chester, Cardiff and Durham to name a few...)

Goofs:

Continuity: After Vaughan repeatedly crashes the left front bumper of his Lincoln into a junker James Ballard is sitting in, causing major damage to the bumper and the lights, Vaughan is soon shown driving on the highway with no damage to the bumper and both left lights operational.

Quotes:

Vaughan: The car crash is a fertilizing rather than a destructive event.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Una de zombis (2003)

An anti-erotic exploration of the hollowness of modern life

Crash is a very sexually explicit film, but if you buy or rent this movie expecting it to be an evening's erotic entertainment, you are going to be disappointed, because it is also an anti-erotic film.

Even in the midst of frenzied lovemaking, the characters remain distant, their voices quiet and abstracted, their gazes directed inward. These are people who have been told all their lives by their culture, by TV and movies, that sex is, on the one hand, the most perfect form of communion and connection with another human being; and, on the other hand, that it is the ultimate in transcendent and transformative experiences. Instead, they discover to their horror that even during sex they still feel nothing. They crave connection, they are starved for a glimpse of transcendence, but no matter what they do, no matter who they do it with or how often, while their bodies may feel passion, their minds and hearts remain cold and empty.

In the more recent movie Pleasantville, the Jennifer/Mary Sue character is unable to feel anything either, and remains stubbornly black and white no matter how much sex she has, until her brother suggests that "maybe it isn't the sex" that is the key to moving from black and white to color, from passionlessness to feeling. Unfortunately, in Crash, there is no one to suggest to David and Catherine Ballard that maybe it isn't through sex that they will find the transformation and connection they are craving. So they instead seek more and more extreme forms of sexual stimulation, only to be disappointed again and again.

James is hurt in a car crash, and during his stay in the hospital he meets Helen (who was in the other car) and later Vaughan, a man who like James and Catherine is in desperate search of feeling, only he looks for it in the violence of car crashes. With Helen, at first James, then Catherine too is drawn into Vaughan's world, where sex and death (eros and thanatos for you Freudians) meet in the twisted metal of wrecked cars and the mutilated bodies of the victims of fatal car crashes and the survivors of near-fatal ones.

They attend staged recreations of famous car crashes, like the one that killed James Dean. They have sex in crashed cars, and start touring crash sites on the freeway as a form of foreplay. They begin to watch films of crash tests and fatal race accidents like other people would watch erotic films, and to have sex with people whose bodies have been mutilated by car crashes.

But not even the horror of mutilation or the adrenaline rush of near-death experience can lend James and Catherine's desperate coupling the depth of feeling that they so desperately crave.

Like all the people who buy expensive automobiles to give them a feeling of power and independence, only to discover that no matter how snazzy their car is, they still feel powerless and unhappy, James and Catherine have bought into one of our culture's Big Lies, that sex is the answer. This film shows us that it is not.