Comments on: Ballard before Cokliss, Cokliss before Ballard, Ballard before Cronenberg

By: just another reader

just another reader — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:57:05 +0000

thanks for your post, very inspiring indeed.

your writing reminds me of two documentaries on parkour i have seen a few years ago.
they are called ‘Jump London’ and ‘Jump Britain’.

here we see people use their very vulnerable bodies to experience the topography of cities designed against their nature, a very conscious act/desire to challenge the physicality of both their own bodies and the environment.

By: barry

barry — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:13:47 +0000

http://www.ballardian.com/crash-full-tilt-autogeddon

By: Jonathan M

Jonathan M — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:06:11 +0000

I haven’t seen Radio On. I shall have to track it down.

I haven’t seen Cronenberg’s Crash since it was released and one of the reasons why I glossed over it in this piece is that I’m holding off on it till after I’ve re-read the novel. I have a number of quite clear memories of it (particular the scene in the car show room when she tries to climb into the back seat of a car with the braces on her legs) but my memories are mostly of it being just one of several kinky dramas with James Spader in them (I actually remember Secretary a lot better).

What I really loved about Cokliss’ film (aside from the inspired SF casting of the woman from Gerry Andersen’s UFO) is the incongruity of Ballard driving a big American car around 70s London. I was quite surprised by the extent to which the two elements did not quite fit together.

By: Richard Kovitch

Richard Kovitch — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:48:05 +0000

I knew of this earlier version of Crash but had not seen it. What a fantastic film essay. The imagery of early 70′s Britain serves the material incredibely well – in fact, the imagery is far more potent and unsettling than Cronenberg’s displacement of the material to his native Canada. There is something apocalyptic about the sound design in the earlier film that works. Despite the austerity of Cronenberg’s vision, aurally it never explodes, Howard Shore’s guitar refrain working against the anxiety at the heart of the story. Ballard’s earlier effort seems far more traumatised, and a clear blueprint for Chris Petit’s later musings on British topography in ‘Radio On’ (1979)