‘Crash’: The David Cronenberg movie Bernardo Bertolucci called a “religious masterpiece”
Starting out as far back as 1969, David Cronenberg has been making boundary-pushing films for decades, showing particular interest in body horror and sci-fi. In his first film, Stereo, the filmmaker undertakes much of the production aspects himself, including production, cinematography, and editing. Evidently, Cronenberg has been passionate about independent filmmaking from the beginning, subsequently developing his craft in the ‘70s.
With titles like Crimes of the Future, Shivers, and Rabid, Cronenberg cemented himself as a necessary force in the changing landscape of cinema. His films shocked people with their blending of gore, violence, and eroticism, as displayed in Rabid, where the lead character (played by Marilyn Chambers, a pornographic actor) develops a phallic growth under her armpit.
However, Cronenberg’s most erotically-charged film is easily Crash, which follows a group of people who all possess a fetish for car accidents. The characters often stage accidents so that they can have sex in the wreckage. This blending of pain, violence and sex left many audience members gobsmacked, and some countries even tried to ban the film. When the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) allowed the film to be released in Britain uncut, the Daily Mail were particularly outraged, printing ‘Censor’s Yes to Depraved Sex Film’ right on the front page.
Evidently, Crash wasn’t for everyone. But to many, it was a beautiful and daring film, seductive and horrifying all in one. Bernardo Bertolucci, the director behind the erotic classic Last Tango in Paris and the political drama The Conformist, was a huge fan of Cronenberg’s movie, calling it a “religious masterpiece”.
Talking to Film Comment, Cronenberg shared a bit of insight into what he thought this meant. “Not that I think of myself as a religious person, but preparation for death is a part of almost every religion. I’ve been pondering what Bernardo Bertolucci said, that Crash is a ‘religious masterpiece.’”
He continued, “As I think about it, part of what he was saying was these people are almost Christ-like, doing this so that we don’t have to do it —we can see it, we can have it done for us.”
The filmmaker added: “But there is also an attempt to transcend, which is also a religious project. I think that we are always transcending our origins because we are constantly transforming and mutating. So in a way evolution becomes almost a religious process.”
The characters within Crash are obsessed with the idea of death and destruction. Coming towards the edge of death and defining these dangerous moments with euphoria makes living worthwhile for them, even if, to many viewers, this sounds preposterous. They want to transcend pain and suffering through erotic sensation, blurring the lines between the two in an attempt to discover life’s greater meaning.
Crash, which starred James Spader, Holly Hunter, Rosanna Arquette, Elias Koteas, and Deborah Kara Unger, won the Special Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival, proving its popularity with many critics. It remains a very controversial movie but also one of Cronenberg’s best.
