#1059: CRONENBERG, David: Crash (1996)

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CRONENBERG, David (Canada)
Crash [1996]
Spine #1059
Blu-ray




For this icily erotic fusion of flesh and machine, David Cronenberg adapted J. G. Ballard's future-shock novel of the 1970s into one of the most singular and provocative films of the 1990s. A traffic collision involving a disaffected commercial producer, James (James Spader), and an enigmatic doctor, Helen (Holly Hunter), brings them, along with James's wife, Catherine (Deborah Kara Unger, in a sublimely detached performance), together in a crucible of blood and broken glass — and it's not long before they are all initiated into a kinky, death-obsessed underworled of sadomasochistic car-crash fetishists for whom twisted metal and scar tissue are the ultimate turn-ons. Controversial from the moment it premiered at Cannes — where it won a Special Jury Prize "for originality, for daring, and for audacity" — Crash has since taken its place as a key text of late-twentieth-century cinema, a disturbingly seductive treatise on the relationships between humanity and technology, sex and violence, that is as unsettling as it is mesmerizing.

100 minutes
Color
5.1 surround
1:66:1 aspect ratio
Criterion Release 2020
Director/Writers


Based on the book by J.G. Ballard.

A

Film Rating (0-60):

60

The Extras

The Booklet

Eight-page foldout poster featuring an essay by film critic Jessica Kiang.

Commentary

From 1997 featuring Cronenberg.

Press conference

From the 1996 Cannes Film Festival featuring Cronenberg; DP Peter Suschitzky; author Ballard; producers Robert Lantos and Jeremy Thomas; and actors Arquette, Hunter, Koteas, Spader, and Unger.

Q&A

From 1996 with Cronenberg and Ballard at the National Film Theatre in London.

Behind-the-scenes

Footage and press interviews from 1996.

Trailers

Extras Rating (0-40):

39

60 + 39 =

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