CRASH
Added 2021-11-09 02:39:27 +0000 UTCI saw Cronenberg's Crash for the first time the other day. I feel like I'm still working out my reaction to it, and I think it demands another viewing for sure. But if you've seen it, how did you feel about it initially?
Comments
Ditto
Deepfocuslens
2021-11-11 01:18:16 +0000 UTCHaha mann...yet again, we think a lot alike. I have been thinking about the film a lot, and much of what I feel about it...you've said here. It's fascinating, and a more abstract dreamy experience that takes the Videodrome concept and explores it from a different point of view, though still carnal. But I do feel like you, not quite anchored into the film due to lack of real characters, or characters who contrast other characters. Instead it becomes this weird melange of orgy soup, indistinguishable. Though I still need to watch again, and see if I respond differently. I do prefer Videodrome for a lot of the reasons that you mentioned here.
Deepfocuslens
2021-11-11 01:14:17 +0000 UTCI want to put Scorsese and Coppola in a room together and listen to them argue about this film.
Bennett Oliver
2021-11-10 06:48:10 +0000 UTCAlright, I’m posting again, now having rewatched it after many years. God, what a strange film, but I now have a greater appreciation for what it’s trying to achieve. Crash seems to serve as a kind of erotic counterpart to Cronenberg’s Videodrome in that it examines how technology has shaped modern lives, in this case as a sort of sexual stimulation. But it also examines the link between sex and death, and how they’re the flip side of one another. In this film, the characters’ sex drives and death drives are very much intertwined. All three of these elements and their relationship to each other are depicted through the characters’ fetishism of car crashes. Having seen it again, it was unfair of me to dismiss it as porn, but I still can’t say I like the film much. It placed me at too much of a distance from the characters and events taking place. It doesn’t allow us to judge the characters, but it doesn’t allow us to identify with them either. And what’s more, there needed to be an anchor to normalcy in the film. Everyone’s weird. I felt that the main couple, in their alien, detached way, were even stranger than Vaughan, who in a more sensible narrative should be a kind of Tyler Durden figure who takes them down the rabbit hole. But no, it’s the perverse leading the perverse around. I thought that whatever thematic ideas the film was trying get to across was given in a more cerebral manner rather than visceral, which is strange to say about a film filled with sex and car crashes. I felt like I was in a strange limbo while watching it. But I’ll chalk up my disliking the film as ultimately a matter of taste. Some people consider this a masterpiece, so to each their own. But there are other films where I’ve gained a greater, deeper understanding of Cronenberg’s unique view of human nature, such as Dead Ringers, where he’s allowed us to be closer to the characters and more involved with the story. I consider those better films.
Bennett Oliver
2021-11-10 06:04:30 +0000 UTCIts been a while since I've seen it but I remember liking it while also thinking this is easily the weirdest Cronenberg movie that I've seen.
Stephen
2021-11-10 02:02:40 +0000 UTCIt has been a long time but I remember I felt that it was kinda weird but that it did have something to say about the nature of fetishes/how one can go 'off the road' (pardon the pun) when one pursues ever more extreme sexual release. I think it does have artistic merit.
Ross Skilton
2021-11-09 19:17:59 +0000 UTCI just had the Criterion Collection come in the mail. Im going to see it for the first time myself. I love David Cronenberg
Marcus Chandler
2021-11-09 17:12:00 +0000 UTCI didn’t know what to think on my first watch either. Most Croenberg films resonate with me on a philosophical, thematic level , but with this it’s pure sensory. I still don’t know what to make of this film, but every time I re-visit it(similar to Naked Lunch) I become more and more under its spell
jared Clarke
2021-11-09 14:56:26 +0000 UTCIt’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I remember hating it. The worst, most overrated Cronenberg film I’ve seen. Roger Ebert, in one of my favorite reviews, had a very interesting take, explaining that it seeks to explore desire and fetishism by attaching them to something that has absolutely no sex appeal whatsoever (car crashes), thereby allowing the viewer to more objectively observe the themes being played out. I recommend that review to anyone and everyone. But even if one feels that the film has some original and provocative ideas on those themes, I still find it to be very tedious—a clinical, cold fish of a porno acted out by people bored with themselves and detached from everything. The one bright spot: the magnetic performance of Elias Koteas as the leader of the fetishists. He’s the one character who seems even remotely human, the only one who seems like he’s got blood running through his veins, which I suppose is the point. Otherwise, this film is a drag. EDIT: I’m rewatching this film again to see how I feel about it now.
Bennett Oliver
2021-11-09 13:57:36 +0000 UTCInitially, i felt indifferent. Clearly not his best work in my opinion.
Ryan
2021-11-09 10:23:02 +0000 UTCIt was kinda hot :D
Ronet Jankovski
2021-11-09 05:03:15 +0000 UTCI found it transgressive without a point. Most of Cronenberg's films have a lot going on in them and I think this is an exception. I like Jg Ballard but Crash is not his best work are really is more like erotica than film.
Nixon Strmelj
2021-11-09 04:20:45 +0000 UTCNo, that was Paul Harris. I was going to post the only thing I know about Cronenberg's Crash is I listened to a video game podcast where anytime they referenced "crash" (like the verb) one of the hosts talked briefly about how cool Cronenberg's Crash was.
Arthur Augustyn
2021-11-09 03:37:05 +0000 UTCWas that the 2005 film?
Tony Moro
2021-11-09 03:14:30 +0000 UTCIf it didn't star an orange bandicoot, I didn't see it.
Wolfman Brandon
2021-11-09 02:54:27 +0000 UTC
