Crash Film Analysis

Let's go around the room and you just go ahead and call out features you'd love to see implemented in your ideal car. Rearview camera? Comfy seats. A good steering wheel that doesn't fly off your hand while you're driving. A woman marrying the Eiffel Tower. Two enthusiasts who think they're in love with an 80s pop star. And a few odd ducks that are almost certainly banned from the petting zoo. For decades, documentarians have been exploiting the wincing peculiarity of a typical attraction. I am a woman, and this is a bridge. And despite our vast differences, we are very much in love. While these snapshots are a superficially fascinating peek at titillating taboos, too often they're less about sociological exploration and more about cringing exploitation, strip-mining the neurodivergent and mentally ill for vapid content. The same can be said of the fetishistic fringes of on-screen fiction. Some great work, and a whole library of tongue-clucking trash. So trust David Cronenberg to breathe deep from the exhaust pipe of mechanophilia and masochism, and make a dislocated masterpiece out of car crash entertainment. You know, the one about people who feel sexy when they think about road traffic accidents. Crash is a celebration of wounds, where sex and violence coalesce within the crumpled zones and buckled frames of automotive accidents. Now, if you're at home and wondering to yourself, hmm, a movie that thinks love rhymes with hideous car wreck, doesn't sound like much of a crowd-pleaser. Oh my friend, you don't know the half of it. Believe me, no one needs this sort of protracted and gratuitous anguish. Except perhaps those who think quadruple amputees are chic." That pull quote is taken from the New York Times 1973 book review of J.G. Ballard's Crash, illustrating just how shell-shocked the literary establishment was by the provocateurs of postmodernism. With Crash, Ballard looks under the hood of a society intent on soldering its sense of self to unfeeling objects, on turning tools of transportation into totems of status, personality, and sexual prowess. Ballard's splayed, open style of writing was met with revulsion and rapturous applause in seemingly equal measure. So, superficially at least, it makes perfect sense that David Cronenberg would be the one to haul this intoxicating text onto the screen, having filmed the unfilmable once already with William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. With uncompromised sexuality riding shotgun alongside crackling violence, Crash was never going to be the easiest sell commercially. But nothing could prepare those involved for the scandal heading their way. Its premiere at Cannes elicited braying boos, a sentiment backed by Francis Ford Coppola, who was so shaken by the film he single-handedly tried to filibuster the festival out of awarding it the special jury prize. The London Evening Standard dedicated a full page to their moral outrage, while the Daily Mail ran with the headline, Ban this car crash sex film. Media mogul Ted Turner was appalled, even though he hadn't seen it, fearing it would encourage teenagers to start crashing their cars just so they could screw in the twisted metal aftermath. And no, I'm not making that up, he really believed that was a thing. The British Board of Film Classification consulted the Queen's Council to determine whether Crash contravenes the Obscene Publications Act, a psychologist to see if it could encourage copycats, and a group of differently-abled cinema patrons to see if Rosanna Arquette's character offended them. The answer to all three BBFC inquiries coming back a resounding, are you serious? In fact, the controversy was so unprecedented, academic studies were commissioned just to try and make sense of it all. If you haven't seen it, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. From the man who gave us brundle fly mugwumps and a pathological pair of gynaecologists, what is it about Crash that touched a nerve? The day I left the hospital, I had the extraordinary feeling that all these cars were gathering for some special reason I didn't understand. After surviving a head-on collision, James Ballard becomes enthralled with an omnisexual collective with an insatiable attraction to car accidents. The opening of Crash establishes a world in which sex has become emancipated from passion and emotion. We're introduced to Catherine and James not as a couple, but as adulterous and anedonic. Their unfaithful attentions drifting to inanimate objects, and never once making eye contact with their lovers. Even when Catherine and James are together, their wanting looks gaze out onto the freeway ahead. The inhuman modernity of a buy a car to drive to work, drive to work to pay for the car mentality. in which affection is a game of pricks rather than a warm back and forth. Much in the same way Ballard never buries his authorial intent in subtextual treasure hunts, Cronenberg doesn't over-stylise the humdrum sterility of all of this. The lighting's unobtrusive, and the camerawork is unremarkable, insofar as neither call attention to their technique. If there is an aesthetic here, it's hermetically sealed. It isn't until the inciting incident that any tactile sense of connection can be felt. Locked in a piercing stare with life and death simultaneously, it's an immediate rush of uncut intimacy. Pain, vulnerability, fear, all twisted together in blood and fiberglass. We are all intimately involved in. The aftermath, in which James is reassembled with steel pins, is the point at which Cronenberg's body horror hallmarks start to take hold. Where vulnerable flesh and rugged fabrications come together to create something scarred, but transcendent. It's all very satisfying. I'm not sure I understand why. The superimposition of characters and vehicles, the blurring of those who are born and that which is built. This violent synthesis of marrow and metal triggers an evolution of consciousness. You coming? Broadly speaking, traffic and the rules of the road are a form of social order. An unspoken contract between every commuter, that we won't suddenly veer off course, slow down, or speed up without signalling. Crash exists beyond these white lines and limits of heteronormativity, morality, and any antiquated notions of decency. You open your mouth? Yes, daddy. Yeah. The film opens with back-to-back scenes of analingus, Vaughn and James have vigorous gay sex, as do Gabrielle and Helen. There are three-way erotic encounters, cross-dressing stuntmen, and even a ionic leg wound that becomes a neo-sexual organ unto itself. Whatever you or I may think of these acts, Cronenberg doesn't expend one second of celluloid on shame or societal stigma. Sexuality and emotionality no longer have the normal Biological basis, it's now something else and they're exploring that. That's the future, Ballard, and you're already a part of it. Finding sexuality in the shiny hood of a fast car is nothing new. The freedoms of driving and the liberation of physical maturity typically happen around the same time, with many a virginity surrendered to the back seat. Entire franchises are built around glistening bodies, rubbing up against steering columns and chrome. Let me just say that I think it's not an accident that the automobile and the cinema are exactly the same age. They're both about 100 years old. They both began at the same time. They've both represented the liberation of sexuality and a new, previously unimagined kind of freedom. Ballard's text and Cronenberg's adaptation are just refusing to obfuscate this link between the coital and the mechanical. James and Helen only ever have sex in a car. Gabrielle's brace and harness serve the dual function of mobility aid and S&M attire. Drab car washes are films like hardcore pornography, with white, soapy water engulfing everything as brushes slap with rhythmic wetness, all backed by a wall of ambient noise, warping into the music concretes of Howard Shore's score. Then there's the more violent, penetrative components of sexual expression from this elevated biomechanical perspective. After Vaughn reenacts the demise of James Dean, the ruptured engines let out a venereal sigh of steam. Later on, James and Vaughn stalk the streets like rutting stags. their clashing chassises denting and dinging with territorial dominance. Vaughn even photographs multi-car pileups as if they were naked centrefolds, meticulously framing the scene to perfectly capture the carnage and throbbing emergency lights. The victims, the frozen faces of shock, may as well be the euphoric quiet following their final climactic thrust. As the first responders sift through the wreckage, these observers drink in the contorted spectacle, and as an audience, so do we, each of us rubbernecking at mortality and feeding our attraction to atrocity. That being said, Cronenberg never makes virtuous judgments against against these actions or inhibitions. As Ballard has said himself about the source material, there's an intentional psychopathy to Crash, and a total absence of mawkish sentimentality. I think you're making it too clean. We never visit the final resting places of the deceased. Instead, we dwell on the scuttled shells of the cars that killed them. There's expository room here for Gabrielle to discuss her past and how she was injured, but instead, everything about her is expressed solely through pictures of her crippling automotive accident. No small talk, no backstories, and no feigned interest in everyday life. You're beginning to see that for the first time there's a benevolent psychopathology that beckons towards us. While Ballard and Cronenberg's world looks like any old 90s cityscape, it's a time and place in which morality is no longer a pressing concern. It's the reason Crash feels so arm's length and cold. For example, notice how throughout, there is next to no police presence, no legal ramifications, no dwelling on those that have died, approachability isn't on the agenda, and there's nary an empathetic arc to be found. Which doesn't say there's any malignance or malice at play here. The sexual encounters, while vulgar to some, are consensual, trusting, and reliant on the sharing of power and pleasure. Those who are differently abled are championed as complex sexual individuals without infantilising mockery or sexless tokenism. Is there something here that interests you? This interests me. As messed up as you may think this community is, they are a community. It's just another way that Crash seems to be consciously swerving away from easy categorisation. or reductive definitions. Take this exchange, in which Vaughn breaks the fourth wall, drawing the most rudimentary academic breakdown of body horror back to the audience. It's a reshaping of the human body by modern technology. But with a nudge and a wink, our director's letting us know it might just be about some horny 30-somethings that get turned on by shattered windshields. What about the reshaping of the human body by modern technology? That's just a crude sci-fi concept. This kind of floats on the surface and doesn't threaten anyone. Even in its final moments, this is a film that bucks against the instant gratification of a warm release. Following a suicidal bid for the ultimate crash, James and Catherine make love in the wreckage. As the organic world of... dirt and blood mixes with the rubber and steel of their upturned car, James tenderly whispers, Those simple words… are they a fatalistic nod to their inevitable doom? If each crash is an invigorating rehearsal for death, how much longer can they chase that high before reaching a rapturous end? Or is James just referring to a stunted orgasm, and the escalating but eternally futile pursuit of happiness amidst the blaring horns and traffic patterns of modern existence? It's both? Neither? And I happen to think that that's a legitimate metaphor for what does happen in each individual's life. I think we end up in a very strange place. As with every possibility Crash presents to the audience, it's unvarnished, matter-of-fact, and entirely open to interpretation. That's not an act of authorial arrogance or indecisive centrism. It's the ultimate sign of trust from a filmmaker that will not condescend or compromise. That's what makes Crash such a dazed, daunting monument—a rare work of art that respects the viewer enough not to pander or preen. Unfortunately, Cronenberg didn't account for the angry mob—those who'd rather spew up bile than metabolise a masterpiece. Having waxed lyrical about laying pipe in a pileup and the vapor-locked lives of Generation Jones, let's circle back around to the controversy that was louder and crasser than the movie it was attempting to decry. Why is there no male frontal nudity? And was that an issue? And was that a contractual thing? I think that has more to do with geography than anything else. In most of the scenes, we were f***ing, and when you're f***ing, you don't see the penis. In an era where press screenings were in-person, invite-only affairs, Cronenberg was bemused to find the resulting amount of hit pieces and vicious reviews significantly outweighed the number of journalists who'd actually seen it. So how can they be outraged? I mean, really, how can they dare say those things if they have not seen the film? J.G. Ballard himself was horrified to find one columnist drawing parallels between the societal decay caused by Crash and the massacre of 16 children and their teacher at Dunblane Primary School. A ludicrous smear made especially reprehensible when you consider that the UK's deadliest mass shooting happened before Crash was even released. So… while fist-shaking scandals. Some labelled this film as exploitative, but for that to be true, someone would have needed to be exploited. The story is entirely fictional, the entire cast fought to make this movie, every intimate scene was meticulously rehearsed and collaboratively choreographed by the actors involved, each of whom was given the full power to veto a sequence before, during, and after the cameras had rolled. You feel like there's a net underneath when you, you know, you go out on a limb and there's a net that he's gonna look out for you and… I just love him. As for the shocking content, even by the standards of 1996, you could easily find features with more sex, violence, and crude juxtapositions between fornication and physical harm. So what was the big deal? Well, I'll tell you why I think it got such a bitter backlash from the vapid and the pathetically spineless. For all the public hand-wringing over its content, it's telling that the most widely reported walkouts during screenings occurred at the site of two men kissing. I think it's because they've invested so much of their heterosexual sexuality in this stud James Spader, if they're seeing the movie that way anyway. And then suddenly he's having sex with a man, you know, they can't deal with it, they walk out. But even then, the backlash goes so much deeper than reflexive homophobia. Something more fundamental, more existential. Crash remains completely non-partisan and dispassionate about every one of its uneasy implications and candid acts of self-expression. By shooting the whole thing with an ineffectual distance that neither condones nor condemns, by not including an identifiable antagonist to root against, Cronenberg leaves any and all moralising to the viewer. And for the spoon-fed sum, that's a terrifying proposition. Is this transhuman gender-fluid polyamory an evolution or a debasement of the human spirit, cautionary tale or anthropological curio, even the simple matter of whether these people are good or bad. Each and every viewer is made to rake through their perversions, biases and limits on what they think love and freedom of expression can and should entail. And I think that it's one of the strengths of David Cronenberg's movies is that they never ever dictate to an audience. how they are supposed to feel. For some viewers, the work is too hard, too queer, and too strenuous on the psyche. For others, it's just not their cup of tea, and that's totally valid. But for me, the car's on fire and Cronenberg's behind the wheel. I'm just along for the ride. Round of applause for Hamish at Writing on Games for his invaluable editorial input on this episode's script. A James Spader O-Face for our Patreon producers Jennifer C, Claire MD, Beckio, Jay Carr, Scared Confusion, and Nicholas Lea-Riviere. And a Cronenbergian monstrosity for all these amazing folks who support us over on Patreon. So what do you make of Crash? and what films do you think are unfairly deemed controversial? Share these videos on Reddit and with a friend, and make sure to like, subscribe, and comment. If you're in a position to do so and want to sign up for the In Frame Out Film Club, check out the link to our Patreon in the description below, where you can also get your Name in the End credits and access to our private Discord. As always, thank you for watching. Until next time, this is In Frame Out. Out.

Two enthusiasts who think they're in love with an 80s pop star. And a few odd ducks that are almost certainly banned from the petting zoo. For decades, documentarians have been exploiting the wincing peculiarity of a typical attraction.

I am a woman, and this is a bridge. And despite our vast differences, we are very much in love. While these snapshots are a superficially fascinating peek at titillating taboos, too often they're less about sociological exploration and more about cringing exploitation, strip-mining the neurodivergent and mentally ill for vapid content.

The same can be said of the fetishistic fringes of on-screen fiction. Some great work, and a whole library of tongue-clucking trash. So trust David Cronenberg to breathe deep from the exhaust pipe of mechanophilia and masochism, and make a dislocated masterpiece out of car crash entertainment. You know, the one about people who feel sexy when they think about road traffic accidents. Crash is a celebration of wounds, where sex and violence coalesce within the crumpled zones and buckled frames of automotive accidents.

Now, if you're at home and wondering to yourself, hmm, a movie that thinks love rhymes with hideous car wreck, doesn't sound like much of a crowd-pleaser. Oh my friend, you don't know the half of it. Believe me, no one needs this sort of protracted and gratuitous anguish. Except perhaps those who think quadruple amputees are chic." That pull quote is taken from the New York Times 1973 book review of J.G. Ballard's Crash, illustrating just how shell-shocked the literary establishment was by the provocateurs of postmodernism. With Crash, Ballard looks under the hood of a society intent on soldering its sense of self to unfeeling objects, on turning tools of transportation into totems of status, personality, and sexual prowess. Ballard's splayed, open style of writing was met with revulsion and rapturous applause in seemingly equal measure. So, superficially at least, it makes perfect sense that David Cronenberg would be the one to haul this intoxicating text onto the screen, having filmed the unfilmable once already with William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch. With uncompromised sexuality riding shotgun alongside crackling violence, Crash was never going to be the easiest sell commercially. But nothing could prepare those involved for the scandal heading their way. Its premiere at Cannes elicited braying boos, a sentiment backed by Francis Ford Coppola, who was so shaken by the film he single-handedly tried to filibuster the festival out of awarding it the special jury prize. The London Evening Standard dedicated a full page to their moral outrage, while the Daily Mail ran with the headline, Ban this car crash sex film. Media mogul Ted Turner was appalled, even though he hadn't seen it, fearing it would encourage teenagers to start crashing their cars just so they could screw in the twisted metal aftermath. And no, I'm not making that up, he really believed that was a thing. The British Board of Film Classification consulted the Queen's Council to determine whether Crash contravenes the Obscene Publications Act, a psychologist to see if it could encourage copycats, and a group of differently-abled cinema patrons to see if Rosanna Arquette's character offended them. The answer to all three BBFC inquiries coming back a resounding, are you serious? In fact, the controversy was so unprecedented, academic studies were commissioned just to try and make sense of it all. If you haven't seen it, you might be wondering what all the fuss is about. From the man who gave us brundle fly mugwumps and a pathological pair of gynaecologists, what is it about Crash that touched a nerve? The day I left the hospital, I had the extraordinary feeling that all these cars were gathering for some special reason I didn't understand. After surviving a head-on collision, James Ballard becomes enthralled with an omnisexual collective with an insatiable attraction to car accidents. The opening of Crash establishes a world in which sex has become emancipated from passion and emotion. We're introduced to Catherine and James not as a couple, but as adulterous and anedonic. Their unfaithful attentions drifting to inanimate objects, and never once making eye contact with their lovers. Even when Catherine and James are together, their wanting looks gaze out onto the freeway ahead. The inhuman modernity of a buy a car to drive to work, drive to work to pay for the car mentality. in which affection is a game of pricks rather than a warm back and forth. Much in the same way Ballard never buries his authorial intent in subtextual treasure hunts, Cronenberg doesn't over-stylise the humdrum sterility of all of this. The lighting's unobtrusive, and the camerawork is unremarkable, insofar as neither call attention to their technique. If there is an aesthetic here, it's hermetically sealed. It isn't until the inciting incident that any tactile sense of connection can be felt. Locked in a piercing stare with life and death simultaneously, it's an immediate rush of uncut intimacy. Pain, vulnerability, fear, all twisted together in blood and fiberglass. We are all intimately involved in. The aftermath, in which James is reassembled with steel pins, is the point at which Cronenberg's body horror hallmarks start to take hold. Where vulnerable flesh and rugged fabrications come together to create something scarred, but transcendent. It's all very satisfying. I'm not sure I understand why. The superimposition of characters and vehicles, the blurring of those who are born and that which is built. This violent synthesis of marrow and metal triggers an evolution of consciousness. You coming? Broadly speaking, traffic and the rules of the road are a form of social order. An unspoken contract between every commuter, that we won't suddenly veer off course, slow down, or speed up without signalling. Crash exists beyond these white lines and limits of heteronormativity, morality, and any antiquated notions of decency. You open your mouth? Yes, daddy. Yeah. The film opens with back-to-back scenes of analingus, Vaughn and James have vigorous gay sex, as do Gabrielle and Helen. There are three-way erotic encounters, cross-dressing stuntmen, and even a ionic leg wound that becomes a neo-sexual organ unto itself. Whatever you or I may think of these acts, Cronenberg doesn't expend one second of celluloid on shame or societal stigma. Sexuality and emotionality no longer have the normal Biological basis, it's now something else and they're exploring that. That's the future, Ballard, and you're already a part of it. Finding sexuality in the shiny hood of a fast car is nothing new. The freedoms of driving and the liberation of physical maturity typically happen around the same time, with many a virginity surrendered to the back seat. Entire franchises are built around glistening bodies, rubbing up against steering columns and chrome. Let me just say that I think it's not an accident that the automobile and the cinema are exactly the same age. They're both about 100 years old. They both began at the same time. They've both represented the liberation of sexuality and a new, previously unimagined kind of freedom. Ballard's text and Cronenberg's adaptation are just refusing to obfuscate this link between the coital and the mechanical. James and Helen only ever have sex in a car. Gabrielle's brace and harness serve the dual function of mobility aid and S&M attire. Drab car washes are films like hardcore pornography, with white, soapy water engulfing everything as brushes slap with rhythmic wetness, all backed by a wall of ambient noise, warping into the music concretes of Howard Shore's score. Then there's the more violent, penetrative components of sexual expression from this elevated biomechanical perspective. After Vaughn reenacts the demise of James Dean, the ruptured engines let out a venereal sigh of steam. Later on, James and Vaughn stalk the streets like rutting stags. their clashing chassises denting and dinging with territorial dominance. Vaughn even photographs multi-car pileups as if they were naked centrefolds, meticulously framing the scene to perfectly capture the carnage and throbbing emergency lights. The victims, the frozen faces of shock, may as well be the euphoric quiet following their final climactic thrust. As the first responders sift through the wreckage, these observers drink in the contorted spectacle, and as an audience, so do we, each of us rubbernecking at mortality and feeding our attraction to atrocity. That being said, Cronenberg never makes virtuous judgments against against these actions or inhibitions. As Ballard has said himself about the source material, there's an intentional psychopathy to Crash, and a total absence of mawkish sentimentality. I think you're making it too clean. We never visit the final resting places of the deceased. Instead, we dwell on the scuttled shells of the cars that killed them. There's expository room here for Gabrielle to discuss her past and how she was injured, but instead, everything about her is expressed solely through pictures of her crippling automotive accident. No small talk, no backstories, and no feigned interest in everyday life. You're beginning to see that for the first time there's a benevolent psychopathology that beckons towards us. While Ballard and Cronenberg's world looks like any old 90s cityscape, it's a time and place in which morality is no longer a pressing concern. It's the reason Crash feels so arm's length and cold. For example, notice how throughout, there is next to no police presence, no legal ramifications, no dwelling on those that have died, approachability isn't on the agenda, and there's nary an empathetic arc to be found. Which doesn't say there's any malignance or malice at play here. The sexual encounters, while vulgar to some, are consensual, trusting, and reliant on the sharing of power and pleasure. Those who are differently abled are championed as complex sexual individuals without infantilising mockery or sexless tokenism. Is there something here that interests you? This interests me. As messed up as you may think this community is, they are a community. It's just another way that Crash seems to be consciously swerving away from easy categorisation. or reductive definitions. Take this exchange, in which Vaughn breaks the fourth wall, drawing the most rudimentary academic breakdown of body horror back to the audience. It's a reshaping of the human body by modern technology. But with a nudge and a wink, our director's letting us know it might just be about some horny 30-somethings that get turned on by shattered windshields. What about the reshaping of the human body by modern technology? That's just a crude sci-fi concept. This kind of floats on the surface and doesn't threaten anyone. Even in its final moments, this is a film that bucks against the instant gratification of a warm release. Following a suicidal bid for the ultimate crash, James and Catherine make love in the wreckage. As the organic world of... dirt and blood mixes with the rubber and steel of their upturned car, James tenderly whispers, Those simple words… are they a fatalistic nod to their inevitable doom? If each crash is an invigorating rehearsal for death, how much longer can they chase that high before reaching a rapturous end? Or is James just referring to a stunted orgasm, and the escalating but eternally futile pursuit of happiness amidst the blaring horns and traffic patterns of modern existence? It's both? Neither? And I happen to think that that's a legitimate metaphor for what does happen in each individual's life. I think we end up in a very strange place. As with every possibility Crash presents to the audience, it's unvarnished, matter-of-fact, and entirely open to interpretation. That's not an act of authorial arrogance or indecisive centrism. It's the ultimate sign of trust from a filmmaker that will not condescend or compromise. That's what makes Crash such a dazed, daunting monument—a rare work of art that respects the viewer enough not to pander or preen. Unfortunately, Cronenberg didn't account for the angry mob—those who'd rather spew up bile than metabolise a masterpiece. Having waxed lyrical about laying pipe in a pileup and the vapor-locked lives of Generation Jones, let's circle back around to the controversy that was louder and crasser than the movie it was attempting to decry. Why is there no male frontal nudity? And was that an issue? And was that a contractual thing? I think that has more to do with geography than anything else. In most of the scenes, we were f***ing, and when you're f***ing, you don't see the penis. In an era where press screenings were in-person, invite-only affairs, Cronenberg was bemused to find the resulting amount of hit pieces and vicious reviews significantly outweighed the number of journalists who'd actually seen it. So how can they be outraged? I mean, really, how can they dare say those things if they have not seen the film? J.G. Ballard himself was horrified to find one columnist drawing parallels between the societal decay caused by Crash and the massacre of 16 children and their teacher at Dunblane Primary School. A ludicrous smear made especially reprehensible when you consider that the UK's deadliest mass shooting happened before Crash was even released. So… while fist-shaking scandals. Some labelled this film as exploitative, but for that to be true, someone would have needed to be exploited. The story is entirely fictional, the entire cast fought to make this movie, every intimate scene was meticulously rehearsed and collaboratively choreographed by the actors involved, each of whom was given the full power to veto a sequence before, during, and after the cameras had rolled. You feel like there's a net underneath when you, you know, you go out on a limb and there's a net that he's gonna look out for you and… I just love him. As for the shocking content, even by the standards of 1996, you could easily find features with more sex, violence, and crude juxtapositions between fornication and physical harm. So what was the big deal? Well, I'll tell you why I think it got such a bitter backlash from the vapid and the pathetically spineless. For all the public hand-wringing over its content, it's telling that the most widely reported walkouts during screenings occurred at the site of two men kissing. I think it's because they've invested so much of their heterosexual sexuality in this stud James Spader, if they're seeing the movie that way anyway. And then suddenly he's having sex with a man, you know, they can't deal with it, they walk out. But even then, the backlash goes so much deeper than reflexive homophobia. Something more fundamental, more existential. Crash remains completely non-partisan and dispassionate about every one of its uneasy implications and candid acts of self-expression. By shooting the whole thing with an ineffectual distance that neither condones nor condemns, by not including an identifiable antagonist to root against, Cronenberg leaves any and all moralising to the viewer. And for the spoon-fed sum, that's a terrifying proposition. Is this transhuman gender-fluid polyamory an evolution or a debasement of the human spirit, cautionary tale or anthropological curio, even the simple matter of whether these people are good or bad. Each and every viewer is made to rake through their perversions, biases and limits on what they think love and freedom of expression can and should entail. And I think that it's one of the strengths of David Cronenberg's movies is that they never ever dictate to an audience. how they are supposed to feel. For some viewers, the work is too hard, too queer, and too strenuous on the psyche. For others, it's just not their cup of tea, and that's totally valid. But for me, the car's on fire and Cronenberg's behind the wheel. I'm just along for the ride. Round of applause for Hamish at Writing on Games for his invaluable editorial input on this episode's script. A James Spader O-Face for our Patreon producers Jennifer C, Claire MD, Beckio, Jay Carr, Scared Confusion, and Nicholas Lea-Riviere. And a Cronenbergian monstrosity for all these amazing folks who support us over on Patreon. So what do you make of Crash? and what films do you think are unfairly deemed controversial? Share these videos on Reddit and with a friend, and make sure to like, subscribe, and comment. If you're in a position to do so and want to sign up for the In Frame Out Film Club, check out the link to our Patreon in the description below, where you can also get your Name in the End credits and access to our private Discord. As always, thank you for watching. Until next time, this is In Frame Out. Out.

Transcript for:Crash Film Analysis

Transcript for:
Crash Film Analysis