Soggy Bagel Revenge!'s pick: Crash - 06/29/03 - 07/05/03

[Morticia]

This is a thread to discuss the technical and/or thematic merits of "Crash".

The purpose being to foster intelligent discussion of films without resorting to "It's a piece of crap." or "It's the greatest film ever." (And so that we all can gain a bit of a film education from everyone.)

We'll discuss a new film each week. Either slade or I will post the film in this forum in advance, and lock the topic until the first day of discussion.

Thanks everyone. We are open to any ideas about running this forum.

****SPOILER WARNING**** of course this entire thread is going to be full of spoilers.

thanks to Soggy for agreeing to participate in this discussion!

[MiddleEarthGirl]

the idea of sexual arousal in car wrecks did get kinda creepy but the film was very ture to the book.Spader's character did get IMO sucked into the lifestyle and it seems to show

[limacharliewhiskey]

This was about as disturbing a movie as I have ever seen. I rented this on laserdisc soon after the movie came out after hearing about the controversial NC-17 rating on it, and I had to see what all the hubbub was about. Well, now I know.

I was a bit surprised to not see director David Cronenberg's commentary track transferred over from the laserdisc to the DVD. There were some funny comments in the commentary track, as Cronenberg mentioned that James Spader took on the role because he "gets to fuck everyone in the movie", which didn't really occur to me as I watched the film.

Sadly, though, I think this film sank Spader's career in Hollywood, as I thought he had a good chance to become an A-list actor after just appearing in Stargate.

The scene that Cronenberg said that really disturbed the most people was the one scene I didn't pay attention to when I watched it the first time, where he goes at it with Rosanna Arquette. I thought he was going at her from behind, like you might seen in a porn flick, but he was supposed to be going at it in her scarred flesh wound, which I think was in her leg or hip. (it's been awhile since I've seen the film so I don't remember exactly). But I remember Cronenberg's comment that people in the test audience started to squirm and then whisper whether he was doing it in her leg wound. Many audience members apparently got up and left at that moment. Sick, perveted, twisted, all summed up in that one scene.

This movie is definitely not for the timid. It breaks ground in combining two elements that cannot be combined in film: sex and violence. You never see violence or rape even in porn flicks, so it does show how far Crash goes to push the boundaries of what is considered obscene. For that, I give David Cronenberg his props, but this is a movie that I will never watch again in my lifetime.

[Soggy Bagel's Revenge!]

Hey everyone, sorry I've been absent from my very own film class thread. A copy of "Crash" was in the mail on its way to me, and I was intending to view it before posting, in order to have the film fresh in my mind, and cite scene-specific examples of things. I just received it today, so I'll probably watch it tonight and post tomorrow. I had written something fairly long for the thread last night, but ended up never quite finishing it, so now I can just watch the film before I write.

Yeah, I know, excuses excuses :p

Be back in a bit!

[Morticia]

I rented it today as well -- Gomez and I will watch it tomorrow! Interesting stuff so far, I will of course be watching the unrated version...

[3DMan]

I remember telling a guy that there's lesbian sex with Rosanna Arquette and Holly Hunter. He said he HAD to see it then. Of course, I didn't tell him he had to watch James Spader and Elias Coteas have sex first.

I've only watched the movie once when it came out, but what I remember about it was that it didn't seem to have a very immersive style to me, which I thought hurt it. It is shot very cold and plain, which may be the point, given the subject matter. It needs a second viewing. With a date.

[electricsheep22]

I finally saw Crash last week, and I think it's fascinating. I've watched it three times and it hasn't gotten old, I keep understanding more of it every time. First of all, I don't see what all the fuss about the sex scenes is about....none of them are "explicit" or "graphic" compared to basically anything in your typical Hollywood "erotic thriller" (except possible the shot of Vaughan's hand on Catherine's crotch, but that's it). Most of them are seen from pretty far away and barely involve any movement or nudity. I don't think it deserves an NC-17 at all. I suppose it's because of the sheer amount of sex scenes in it rather than the explicitness. Oh well.

The tone of the film is just perfect; all of the different elements work together to create the incredible feeling of distance in it--the acting, colors, music etc. The deadpan acting really creeped me out at times (good thing)... everyone in it seems like a robot, their actions and reactions all seem programmed-- it serves the theme of man merging with technology well. I like how the world of the film is self-contained and seperate from "reality", as in they aren't being chased around by the police and you really don't see any people in the film aside from the main characters.

The two scenes I find most interesting are the car wash and the one between Vaughan and James. The car wash is incredible to me in how the actions of the car kind of seamlessly meld with Vaughan and Catherine's; when the window rolls up it seems to be just as much a part of their sex as Vaughan feeling Catherine's breast. It's difficult to describe, but hopefully you have some idea what I'm talking about if you've seen the film. The scene between Vaughan and James was not only quite erotic ( to me at least ) but cleverly shows the possible end result of overexposure to pornography. With pornography, images of intimacy and love are being fed to you by a machine, which is, in a way, sex with the machine since no human contact is involved. People could become more aroused by the technology that is showing them these images than the images themselves, as shown in the scene where they are licking the tattoos of car parts on each other's chests. Instead of human images displayed on a machine, it is machine images displayed on a human. I thought that was pretty cool.