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David Cronenberg's "Crash" (1996) attracted controversy when it was first screened in London, and remain banned in 1998 by at least one borough council. The film won a Special Jury Prize at Cannes, only for some members of the jury to dis-associate themselves from it. And yet it is a controlled, formal film, unsensational; more analytic than titilating. It is an expose of modern pathologies. It has almost none of the violence and explicit sexual content of the J.G. Ballard novel from which it is adapted. So, what is the relationship between Cronenberg's film and Ballard's book? And further, what is the relationship between Ballard himself and the character "James Ballard" in Crash? In this book, which includes an interview with Ballard, Iain Sinclair explores the temporal loop which connects film and novel. If Cronenberg "adapted" Crash, he also absorbed it and made it into something new. Yet, the novel controls the film, or uses the film to disguise its subversive intent.
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
One of the longest of the BFI monographs on classic films. Readers familiar with Sinclair's oeuvre will feel thoroughly at home. However whilst it is the the rich, allusive density of his prose which gives his other books their highly distinctive character, here it tends to get in the way of the book's ostensible job: to discuss the film "Crash". If the reader is looking for a reference-packed, free associating examination of the relationship between J.G.Ballard,"James Ballard", Ballard's book and Cronenberg's film, highly mediated by Sinclair's prose style, they will not be disappointed. However, as a straightforward, well-focused discussion of the film the book is less than ideal.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Iain Sinclair's study of Crash for the BFI Modern Classics series is fascinating and insightful, both with regard to the film by David Cronenberg and especially with regard to the book it was based on. It benefits from an in-depth interview with the original author, J.G. Ballard, and from Sinclair's familiarity with a number of other films, novels and television programmes (most of which I had never heard of) based on or inspired by Crash. There comes a disturbing moment, about halfway through the book, when you realise that both Ballard and Sinclair are certifiably insane and beyond help. But only men this insane could produce such genius. Reccommended to any fan of Ballard or Cronenberg. Not reccommended for the faint of heart.
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6 of 9 people found the following review helpful
A brilliant essay on the origins of the movie
1 Jun 2000
Format:Paperback
As a fan of Ballard I am definitely not a fan of Cronenberg, whom I find superficial, sensational and laddish in the extreme. The movie extracted the least interesting elements of the book and turned them into a kind of techno-porn which I associated with Cronenberg's preferred genre before this book. Now I have a clearer idea of what disturbs me about Cronenberg's versions of books which I have admired -- including The Naked Lunch -- and Sinclair subtly teases out the woman-hating elements which are in both Ballard and Cronenberg, attacks the specious nature of the treatment and reveals the film for the piece of faux-auterism that it is. I didn't know why I didn't like Crash until I read Sinclair and Sinclair in no way attacks the film. He just collects the evidence and presents it. A respected film maker himself (Cardinal and the Corpse, The Falconer, Asylum) Sinclair must be one of the smartest critics in the business. I always follow his essays in the London Review of Books and would recommend them. Sinclair may make films about 'illuminati' but he is himself wonderfully illuminating. I can't recommend this clever, precise essay enough.
7 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Concerns Ballard's novel, not Cronenberg's movie
11 Aug 1999
Format:Paperback
Sinclair all but ignores David Cronenberg's adaptation of "Crash," focusing instead on Ballard's novels "Crash" and "The Atrocity Exhibition." Unfortunately, he offers little fresh insight into these seminal works.
The BFI series are supposed to be about FILMS, not the novels that inspired them.
The RE/Search volume on J. G. Ballard still remains the best introduction to his work, rendering Sinclair's book unnecessary.
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