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Crash
Note: This edition is for promotional purposes only. Not for resale.
Set in a bleak, passionless world of multi-lane freeways, Crash presents the story of James Ballard and his wife Catherine, whose search for authentic experience leads them into the sump oil-soaked world of Vaughan, a renegade scientist who seeks sexual release by crashing into cars on the freeway, hoping in this way to achieve a new relationship between flesh and metal, man and machine.
Set in a bleak, passionless world of multi-lane freeways, Crash presents the story of James Ballard and his wife Catherine, whose search for authentic experience leads them into the sump oil-soaked world of Vaughan, a renegade scientist who seeks sexual release by crashing into cars on the freeway, hoping in this way to achieve a new relationship between flesh and metal, man and machine.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
173 people want to read
About the author
David Cronenberg
42 books247 followersDavid Paul Cronenberg is a Canadian film director and occasional actor.
He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the psychological is typically intertwined with the physical.
In the first half of his career, Cronenberg explored these themes mostly through horror and science fiction, culminating in his visceral and emotional remake of The Fly (1986), with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, followed by Dead Ringers (1988), with Jeremy Irons in the lead role.
Cronenberg has worked with Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), both crime thrillers, and period drama A Dangerous Method (2011), also with Michael Fassbender (Promotheus)and Keira Knightley, and Twilight star Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis (2012) and Maps to the Stars (2014), also featuring Julianne Moore.
Consumed (2014) is the first novel by Cronenberg.
He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the psychological is typically intertwined with the physical.
In the first half of his career, Cronenberg explored these themes mostly through horror and science fiction, culminating in his visceral and emotional remake of The Fly (1986), with Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, followed by Dead Ringers (1988), with Jeremy Irons in the lead role.
Cronenberg has worked with Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence (2005), Eastern Promises (2007), both crime thrillers, and period drama A Dangerous Method (2011), also with Michael Fassbender (Promotheus)and Keira Knightley, and Twilight star Robert Pattinson in Cosmopolis (2012) and Maps to the Stars (2014), also featuring Julianne Moore.
Consumed (2014) is the first novel by Cronenberg.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 29, 2007
Enjoyably bizarre and obsessive. Unlike the novel, the screenplay is so short (fewer than 80 pages) that the themes don't have a chance to get redundant or boring.
January 19, 2023
The conversation that Cronenberg’s Crash has with Ballard’s original material is mark of an exceptional adaptation.
Ballard’s depersonalised insular schizophrenic ‘cautionary tale’ about the extremities people will seek to find even microscopic satisfaction, is transformed by moving image into a personal, romantic observation of a niche sub-culture seeking a revolution of affect in a cold, distanced world.
Couldn’t have had a better filmmaker adapt this, fits so perfect into Cronenberg’s filmography.
The script is so stripped back n economic..
Most of the dialogue is one line, where the descriptions/action borrows heavily from Ballard’s articulation of automobile similes
eg
“Below it, the traffic moves sluggishly around the crowded concrete lanes, the roofs of the vehicles forming a continuous carapace of polished cellulose.”
The James Ballard character is just as much Cronenberg situated in his own narrative, as Ballard was, naming him after himself. James Ballard comes to signify Cronenberg’s own exploration of techno-mutilated bodies in search of a profound eroticism, that his films were working towards.
would say that Crash was definitely his most personal film, until the release of Crimes of the Future.
Ballard’s depersonalised insular schizophrenic ‘cautionary tale’ about the extremities people will seek to find even microscopic satisfaction, is transformed by moving image into a personal, romantic observation of a niche sub-culture seeking a revolution of affect in a cold, distanced world.
Couldn’t have had a better filmmaker adapt this, fits so perfect into Cronenberg’s filmography.
The script is so stripped back n economic..
Most of the dialogue is one line, where the descriptions/action borrows heavily from Ballard’s articulation of automobile similes
eg
“Below it, the traffic moves sluggishly around the crowded concrete lanes, the roofs of the vehicles forming a continuous carapace of polished cellulose.”
The James Ballard character is just as much Cronenberg situated in his own narrative, as Ballard was, naming him after himself. James Ballard comes to signify Cronenberg’s own exploration of techno-mutilated bodies in search of a profound eroticism, that his films were working towards.
would say that Crash was definitely his most personal film, until the release of Crimes of the Future.
May 9, 2013
A rare film of remarkable disturbing power, the bare bones of the script as stark and revealing as the subject matter.
Crash isn't for everyone. It should come with a boldly underlined cautionary warning. It does disturb me. I do wonder why someone would want to write about this, let alone make a film about it, but the power, quality and sheer class of the art speaks for itself.
One of my absolute favorites.
(And did I mention my copy is hand signed by David Cronenberg himself? No? I'll have to remember that....)
Crash isn't for everyone. It should come with a boldly underlined cautionary warning. It does disturb me. I do wonder why someone would want to write about this, let alone make a film about it, but the power, quality and sheer class of the art speaks for itself.
One of my absolute favorites.
(And did I mention my copy is hand signed by David Cronenberg himself? No? I'll have to remember that....)
February 6, 2022
An incredible meditation on the vapidity of sexual worship via car crashes and airplane hangars.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews