Starring: James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas, Deborah Kara Unger, Rosanna Arquette Directed By: David Cronenberg Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Audience Rating: NC-17 Binding: DVD Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: November 17, 1998 Running Time: 100 minutes Studio: New Line Home Video Theatrical Release Date: March 21, 1997
Product Description: Spader stars as james ballard a bored film director who explores new realms after a near-fatal car accident introduces him to a world of sexually obsessed car crash enthusiasts. Also r rated 90 minutes. Studio: New Line Home Video Release Date: 11/17/1998 Starring: James Spader Holly Hunter Run time: 100 minutes Rating: Nc17 Director: David Cronenberg
Amazon.com: Adapted from the controversial novel by J.G. Ballard, Crash will either repel or amaze you, with little or no room for a neutral reaction. The film is perfectly matched to the artistic and intellectual proclivities of director David Cronenberg, who has used the inspiration of Ballard's novel to create what critic Roger Ebert has described as "a dissection of the mechanics of pornography." Filmed with a metallic color scheme and a dominant tone of emotional detachment, the story focuses on a close-knit group of people who have developed a sexual fetish around the collision of automobiles. They use cars as a tool of arousal, in which orgasm is directly connected to death-defying temptations of fate at high speeds. Ballard wrote his book to illustrate the connections between sex and technology--the ultimate postmodern melding of flesh and machine--and Cronenberg takes this theme to the final frontier of sexual expression. Holly Hunter, James Spader, and Deborah Unger are utterly fearless in roles that few actors would dare to play, and their surrender to Cronenberg's vision makes Crash an utterly unique and challenging film experience. It's rated NC-17, so don't say you weren't warned! --Jeff Shannon
It just goes nowhere ^ I admit the concept of David Cronenberg's Crash aroused my curiosity after reading the discription among various websites. I don't know how well this story was thought out on in the namesake novel but it certaintly isn't in this film. I could not care less about any of these characters and why they could be fascinated by car crashes. There is always a rational explanation behind what turns people on and this film has NO idea how to provide it. So instead we get sex scene after sex scene not knowing who these two perverse abstracts of humanity are; I describe James Spader's and Holly Hunter's characters as such because they are so lifeless and glossy eyed I can't accept them as human beings. Simply put, this is just a totally un-involving and dull film. Cronenberg is usually a very talented directing when dragging us to sexual or violent torrents, he missed the marked in this unfortunate dreck.
cannot make up my mind ^ This film is problematic to review, it is a bit hard to fathom depicting unfamiliar situations in strange circumstances. This is the second time I bought this DVD having sold the first one. The film haunted me, threfore, I decided to buy it again. Will probably get to see it on a bleak evening. Cheerful it is not. All I can say, the director is very interesting the actors measure up to expectations, still, the movie is difficult. It cannot be recommended for a large audience, but then none of this director's movies can.
Auto-eroticism ... Cronenberg meets Ballard in this inventive but disturbing study of fetishism ^ Cronenberg's inventive and disturbing film about eroticism and automobiles explores the following quasi-syllogism:
Premise 1: Cars are sexy Premise 2: Sex in cars is exciting (because, I guess, cars are sexy and because of the risk of being seen) Premise 3: Sex while driving is dangerous and thrilling (because, perhaps, the risk of a crash adds adrenaline to the thrills listed above) Therefore, car crashes are the ultimate aphrodisiac.
I think the premises are at least pretty plausible, though I can't say I have the experience to back up this intuition, but even so I have a hard time finding the conclusion convincing. Still, the logical leap is what you expect from Cronenberg, who always manages to stimulate the intellect through a combination of visceral thrills and wild speculation. Sex is never, in fact, natural with us. By the time we come of age sexually, we have already established a host of associations that shape our longings and our sense of what is permissible and forbidden. Cronenberg's film is an almost clinically detached exploration of a situation that transforms erotic drives, through near-death experiences and the fetishization of automobiles and accidents.
James Ballard (James Spader) is a television director who lacks passion for his work, and tries to make up for it by sharing stories of sexual encounters with his equally apathetic wife. Driving home distracted, he plows through the highway meridian and into the oncoming lane of traffic and a head-on collision. A view of the exposed breast of the other driver (Holly Hunter) associates the accident with arousal, and the story, based on J.G. Ballard's controversial classic, pursues this association to its extreme. It's a bold and dangerous film, and even if it pushes the story into implausible extremes, it raises challenging questions along the way about what we are and how technology shapes our bodies and transforms desires. Not an easy film to enjoy, so it can't be recommended for everyone, but it remains essential viewing for an appreciation of Cronenberg's challenging conception of the "new flesh," explored and developed in a number of equally groundbreaking and disturbing films.
All of Cronenberg`s work is fantastic! ^ after seeing this film the first time....WOW !! I Thought to myself who is this Cronenberg guy ? Since seeing all of his films, he is by far my favorite film maker his ideas are off the wall , that`s what`s so good about all of his films. This film Crash is my favorite film + his other work is great !!!!
Absolutely One of The Most Disturbing Movies EVER! ^ First, I love James Spader and Holly Hunter as actors; but this is one of the most mentally disturbing movies I've EVER watched. Moreover, WHAT would posses ANYONE to want to make such a movie? There are absolutely NO social or other redeeming qualities about it! Period. End of Dicsussion!
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