Crash (1996)

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Movie
German title Crash
Original title Crash
Country of production Canada , UK
original language English
Publishing year 1996
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 18
Rod
Director David Cronenberg
script David Cronenberg
production David Cronenberg
Stéphane Reichel
Marilyn Stonehouse
music Howard Shore
camera Peter Suschitzky
cut Ronald Sanders
occupation

Crash is a Canadian - British feature film by David Cronenberg in the year 1996 . It is based on James Graham Ballard's 1973 novel of the same name. The film portrays a group of people who gain sexual pleasure from car accidents and sparked controversy in the UK.

action

Film producer James Ballard and his wife Catherine have become estranged from each other. Their relationship has been reduced to indifferent sexuality, and both have open extramarital affairs, which they tell each other about in detail. She comfortingly comments on his description of an unsatisfactory affair with a camera assistant with the words, “maybe next time”.

One evening Ballard's car comes off the road due to inattentiveness and collides head-on with another car. The passenger is thrown out of the car and killed; his driver, trapped in the wreckage, exposes her naked body under her coat as she tries to free herself.

While recovering in the hospital, Ballard learns that Helen Remington, the driver of the other car, is also staying there. He is approached by a man named Vaughan, who is interested in taking pictures of the external fixator holding Ballard's shattered leg together.

Upon their release, Ballard and Remington begin an affair fueled by the shared experience of their accident. You will visit a happening organized by Vaughan , in which the fatal accident of James Dean is re-enacted, complete with original cars. Transportation officials break up the meeting, and Ballard and Remington join Vaughan and his companion Seagrave.

Ballard and Remington meet the small group of accident fetishists that Vaughan has gathered around them. For Vaughan, a car accident is more fertilizing than destructive, in which the liberated sexual energy of those involved is linked to the sexuality of those who died in car accidents. He and his followers watch crash test videos, take photos of locations where traffic accidents have occurred and plan to re-enact the accident in which Jayne Mansfield was killed. Ballard drives around town in Vaughan's Lincoln Convertible , while Vaughan has sex with a street prostitute and later with Catherine in the back of the car. Ballard, in turn, has an affair with a member of the group, Gabrielle, whose legs are in steel splints and who has a vulva- like scar on the back of one of her thighs. Ballard also has homosexual sex with Vaughan.

Vaughan had an accident towards the end of the film. Ballard takes over the car and the role of Vaughan and causes another accident by, like Vaughan, harassing Catherine in her car ( Mazda MX 5 ). Her car goes off the road and overturns, but Catherine survives. She and Ballard have sex next to the wrecked car while he comforts her with the words, "maybe next time, maybe next time."

background

Book and film

In his implementation, Cronenberg stuck closely to Ballard's novel, from the identical names of the book author and main character to the adoption of entire dialogues in the wording. However, he removed all references to Vaughan's obsession with being killed in a head-on collision with Elizabeth Taylor's car. In the book, the attempt fails and Vaughan's car crashes on the roof of a tourist bus. Only this last detail was kept in the film. Cronenberg added another scene in which Vaughan had the imprint of a steering wheel tattooed on his chest, which does not appear in the book.

Production and film launch

The executive producer at Crash u. a. Jeremy Thomas , who had produced Cronenberg's William S. Burroughs film Naked Lunch .

Crash premiered at the 1996 Cannes International Film Festival . The film opened in Canadian cinemas on October 4, 1996, in German cinemas on October 31, 1996 and in British cinemas on November 9 of the same year.

controversy

Crash has been controversial for its depictions of violence and sexual acts. A review of the respected critic Alexander Walker in the London Evening Standard ("a film beyond the limits of depravity") sparked a press campaign against the film. In particular, the tabloid Daily Mail repeatedly called for the film to be banned and described it as "rotten", "sick" and "nauseating". In contrast, Martin Amis praised Crash in the Independent on Sunday, despite some objections, as an “intelligent and unusual art film”.

Although the British censors BBFC approved the film for ages 18 and over, the Westminster County Council banned the film, which meant that the film was not allowed to be shown in western London. In the United States , the motion picture Association of America released the film in an uncut ("NC-17") and an abridged version ("R"). The controversy has now subsided and the film is available in full on DVD in most countries .

Reviews

Roger Ebert called the film in the Chicago Sun-Times "strange and insightful" and "challenging, brave and original".

Although Martin Amis defended Crash , contrary to the prevailing tenor in Great Britain , he thought the novel was more timeless than the film adaptation: “In 1973 an automobile could still be viewed as something erotic, evoking freedom and strength. In 1996 the associations are far more mundane: car pooling, unleaded gasoline, and asthma . [...] automotive culture has also become boring towards the end of the millennium. "

The lexicon of the international film judged: “An excursus on the morbid perversion of the concept of pleasure by the values ​​of the compulsive consumption that have been taken ad absurdum, distanced as a meaningless ritual. A radical auteur film that refuses to fetishize itself, but does not explore the psychological causes of the behavior of its characters in any depth. "

Georg Seeßlen discussed in epd Film Crash as a "rather weaker Cronenberg", but still a "far above average film". 

Thomas Willmann on artechock : “Cronenberg has created a film that at the same time exudes coldness and yet is very sensual - just like the depicted car-eroticism. It allows [...] a lot to be understood without being able to put it into rational words, and it is consistent without being closed. "

Cinema described the film as “erotic-grotesque” and “brilliant crash course in perversity”.

Awards

In 1996, Crash received the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes International Film Festival . That same year, the film won the Academy of Canadian Cinema & Television's Genie Award in six of eight nominated categories, including David Cronenberg as director and screenwriter.

In 1998 the film won the “AVN Award” at the “Adult Video News Awards” and was also nominated for the “Motion Picture Sound Editors Award”.

In surveys of the best films of the 1990s, Crash u. a. Named in the top ten by Martin Scorsese and the Cahiers du cinéma .

Web links

swell

  1. ^ Crash in the Internet Movie Database .
  2. ^ A b Crash in the Lexicon of International FilmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used , accessed on November 6, 2011.
  3. ↑ Alexander Walker: "A movie beyond the bounds of depravity", Evening Standard , June 3, 1996.
  4. ↑ “Depraved”, “sick”, “revolting”. - Daily Mail headline and editorial of March 19, 1997, film review of November 21, 1996.
  5. ↑ "[…] an intelligent and unusual art movie." - Martin Amis: "Cronenberg's Monster", Independent on Sunday , November 10, 1996.
  6. ^ "Strange and insightful" [...] "challenging, courageous and original" - review by Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times of March 21, 1997, accessed November 6, 2011.
  7. ↑ "In 1973 the automobile could be seen as something erotic, conjuring up freedom and power. In 1996 the associations point the other way, towards banality: car pools, leadless fuel and asthma. [...] car culture feels pedestrian, too, as the millennium nears. "- Martin Amis:" Cronenberg's Monster ", Independent on Sunday , November 10, 1996.
  8. ↑ Review in epd Film 11/96 on Filmzentrale.com , accessed on November 6, 2011.
  9. ↑ Review on Artechock.de , accessed on November 6, 2011.
  10. ↑ Review on Cinema.de , accessed on November 6, 2011.
  11. ^ The Best Films of the 1990s on Combustiblecelluloid.com, accessed April 27, 2012.