Crash

Ballard 435 Happy birthday J.G. Resuming my Cronenberg rewatch. Even with the break, what an insane leap from M Butterfly and Naked Lunch. Sure, in the abstract everything about this screams obvious pairing of director and material but David was told this would kill his career. The guy making geisha softcore for his chest vagina movie adapting another subversive book? Unfathomable.  There’s no staginess. Back in the open (albeit exhaust choked) air and not in the parka-wrapped Canadian winter. The automotive fetishism has been there from early on. Dead Zone, Fast Company, Scanners, and Rabid all had crashes. There’s some experimental medical apparatuses. The danger here is that this feels too much like a real movie. It’s a transgression in a field that’s supposed to be about feeling guilty about coloring a little outside the lines of bourgeois sexual boredom. It’s not aberrant in the wider scheme but for a slick movie with a powerhouse cast, I think it’s a little more than some might expect. Ditto for the fangoria fans wearing blinders for Cronenberg’s other hits to only look at the special effects. It’s erotic, I guess, but I personally don’t see it that way. I think that’s a credit to the direction but I know this is porn to some so… I just think there’s a credible case beyond the strength of the material and the adapted script, beyond one of the best casts ever assembled, the way this is shot is incredible. Purely on the level of imagery. You’d lose the wild score and sound design and a lot of the performances but this could work silent. The fatal crash of James Dean reenactment. The Hollywood ending.