Crash (1996): Desire on the Edge of Steel
David Cronenberg’s Crash certainly isn’t the kind of movie that you’d go out and debate over with your friends. Based on J.G. Ballard’s controversial novel of the same name from 1973, the story analyzes a very odd form of a subculture in which people would eroticize car crashes, where injuries and scars are symbols of intimacy, and where machines and people are incestously intertwined. It premiered in Cannes in 1996, and completely stupefied the audience, with some people walking out, and others breaking out into applause. Some British critics claimed the movie was “moral pornography”, with Cronenberg insisting that the movie was portraying the hidden obsessions of society.
However, what was a deeply rooted analysis on society, were characters so deeply thematized within that they transcended pop culture with ferocity. This was only insane, however, because of how much the actors terabytes of unreleased pain. It made it so the performances made a projection of what confession was.
James Ballard: Fiction Meets Flesh
James Spader played the character of James Ballard a film producer who after surviving a car crash, gets involved with a sect of people obsessed with car crashes. For Spader, who had already built a reputation from unsettling characters in ‘lies, sex and documents’ and later in ‘Secretary’, claimed that this role was a new path in the exploration of human perversities.
Ballard has an evolving fixation with surrender. He remains dissatisfied professionally as well as in his marriage with Catherine (played by Deborah Kara Unger), his starting point in life. Post marriage, he has a different concept of intimacy in a touchless, touchless, intense, and perilous relationship with metal and scars. At the end of the film, he has gone through a metamorphosis into a fetishistic universe where his every bone is obsessed with, and death and desire are one.
Spader took a disquieting approach towards the character, as he always absorbed his own theories. In the interviews, he always said his mind was not blown by the script, but what he enjoyed was the fact that Ballard’s journey was not as much centered around sex, but in finding new ways of intimacy. Coming from an actor that is mutely categorized as socially awkward and recluse, not much was said by him, and how his oddness was apparently projected into Ballard, resulting in the performance being uniquely disturbing.
Vaughan: The Prophet of Wreckage
If there is a messiah to Crash, then it has to be Vaughan, cast by Elias Koteas. He is a scarred, intense, and charismatic leader of the group that Vaughan splits the attention of his audience with. He has the ability to turn car accidents into works of art and is obsessed with the sexual side of technology.
Vaughan has some tenuous connections with J.G. Ballard. This is the same man who set the photos of car crash sites on the exhibition circuit and challenged the audience to look their morbid fascination with those photos in the face. This is where ‘Koteas’ embraced the mélange of madness and charm. At that time, ‘Koteas’ was more recognizable for serious acting roles like the ones in ‘Exotica’ and ‘The Thin Red Line’ and considered ‘Vaughan’ to be a visionary. A man who was misinterpreted didn’t portray ‘Vaughan’ as a man, but saw the world with a different lens.
This also includes reading Ballard’s essays and also psychonarratology. In the film, ‘Koteas’ is seen in a lot of scenes with hands on props like crushed car bonnets, car wrecks and seatbelts which suggests that these films signify something beyond their reality. Rather, they trigger something which is erotic in nature. The way performance was done in this scene is remarkable and represents the strong allure that the film has to offer.
Catherine Ballard: Wounds as Invitations
The portrayal of ‘Catherine’ by ‘Deborah Kara Unger’ is perhaps the best performance in the entire film. Her character is married to Ballard and she dives with him into the world of erotic car crash. Those who are in relationships with emotionally distant people can relate with ‘Catherine’ as she goes on a journey of self rediscovery by pleasure and pain.
Unger consistently drew parallels between her character and her emotions, her ‘intense performances’ and ‘sharp features’ persisted, and yet there was an undeniable hint of fragility to her character, contrasting with the aggressiveness of her role. While she admitted to the fact of distinct emotional weight of her role, fulfilling it meant confronting ideas of shame, desire, and the body. Off the screen, Unger was known as an actress who fiercely opted for unconventional roles, the exact opposite to what Hollywood offered, defining the exact contradiction to what Catherine did to the society in the film.
One of the twain most unforgettable and teeming with emotions scenes is where Catherine finds Vaughan with the scars and ‘almost worships’ them. Unger asserts that Cronenberg says the least, and most of the improvisation was down to her when he said: “Touch the scars as if they’re a new language.’”
A film that struck and captivated.
In the first place, Crash is a film that, in it s’ hype, is said to have no bounds to what it was crafted to depict, even in the 1990’s. There broke in Cannes, a portion of the critics that almost illegitimately wanted to have it banned yet at the same time, with the most “audacity”, it managed to win the prize in the Special Jury. The Daily Mail, in London, persisted upon trying to block the release and exposed that it was “sick” yet people wanted to have an idea towards the ceaseless hype.
Most people consider the fascination to be less about the crook of the spine and more about the conundrums: What is the psychology of trauma? How is technology and closeness married in contemporary days? Some Indian critics even likened it to the Mahabharata’s tale of Karna — conjured by a godly being, raised in a blood and steel womb, a life wedded to chariots and machinery. In this way, Crash was able to connect very old ideas to contemporary images.
Behind the Steel and Flesh
Filming Crash was no leisurely pastime. As a more clinical and precise director, Cronenberg wanted the actors to approach the material with no preconceived notions. The more intimate of the scenes required no rehearsals as he wanted the discomfort to feel authentic Rokos. The same goes with the abdomen of the car.
Spader was reported to have stayed in character as the indifferent Ballard during breaks. In stark contrast though, Koteas was humorous and friendly off screen interacting with Vaughan’s crew. Ongre, who was part of the crew, said it was as though everybody understood something was being created. And it was not cliche in the way of being erotic. Canadian. Deeply. Psychological.
The Influence of Dangerous Desire
The performance of Spader and the rest of the cast is my favorite part of the film Crash. Crash made Spader delve deeper in his typcast roles while Unger solidified her place in the fearlessly innovative section of indie cinema. Spader’s role as Vaughan has made him the proud recipient of cult adoration as he restlessly continues to recognize it as one of his most pivotal roles to date.
The film continues to be a topic of disagreement. To some it is a piece of art shrouded in a veil of alarming exploitation while others appreciate the vision. No one can dispute the debate that somehow competes decades later, enduring the film’s meaning. Was Vaughan a prophet? Was he a madman? Was Ballard liberated? Was he destroyed?
This is the reason for the endurance of Crash. It is the one film that encourages audiences to analyze the fetishistic fantasies along with the different horrific mechanisms, arranged and ready to be used, that satisfy those fantasies.
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