Crash

From Robo Culture Wiki

David Cronenberg's 1996 adaptation of J.G. Ballard's 1973 novel Crash, about a group of individuals whose sexual identities and practices are connected to an underworld of high speed chases and car crashes, was met with much controversy at the time of its release, particularly in Britain where an entire censorship campaign was launched against the film [cite].

Crash explores themes of human sexuality in relation to technology and machines, with automobiles serving as the ultimate symbols of convenience and progress that modern society has to offer. In Crash, sexuality and technology are associated with pleasure, and ultimately with death. The narrative plunges the viewer into a world of car crash victims and their search for fulfillment through traffic accidents - the audience watches the characters end up badly scarred (physically and emotionally), paralyzed, and even dead.

[edit] Cronenberg and Crash

Crash marks a departure from the conventional ‘body horror’ of David Cronenberg's film work in the 1970s and 80s, and is perhaps more thematically and stylistically similar to his 1988 film Dead Ringers in that it explores a ‘horror’ that is more psychologically based but still contains a fascination with technology and its effects on the human body. Although the film lacks classic horror elements that are present in other Cronenberg films, it still stays thematically consistent within the director's body of work. Crash shows the struggle to control the body and to control technology, and what happens when both appear to be beyond the control of their 'owners.'

[edit] Flesh and Metal

According to William Beard, the characters in Crash feel alienated and disconnected from their technology-dominated environment and each other, and search for a ‘reconnection’ of the flesh with technology through the car crashes they participate in (Beard, William. (2006). The Artist as Monster. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p387.) Beard also states that, as much as humans may attempt to become ‘one’ with technology,"we cannot truly become machines ourselves” (p387).

Although this point of view does not take into consideration the fact that humans might be very similar to machines already, it does draw attention to the corporeality of the body and the way it ‘contains’ the individual and marks a seemingly clear boundary between the organic and (in the case of Crash) the metallic. It is this boundary that the characters in Crash attempt to overcome.

[edit] Notes and References