CRASH COURSE:
CRONENBERG
David Cronenberg’s controversial 1996 classic Crash – based on the profoundly disturbing underground novel by J. D. Ballard – is a hypnotic, harrowing journey through a landscape of aberrant sexuality, sterile modernist architecture, emotional blankness, and smashed automobiles. On August 6th this daring and frightening film will be re-released in a brand-new, stunning 4K digital restoration. Alongside it we shall screen a small selection, a ‘crash course’ if you will, of some of Cronenberg’s most subversive classics.
Like Tobe Hooper and George Romero, David Cronenberg sprang into public consciousness with a series of low-budget horror films that shocked and surprised audiences for their sheer audacity and intelligence. Unlike the former two filmmakers, Cronenberg has been able to avoid being pigeonholed into a single restrictive genre category. His works, which consistently explore the same themes, have the mark of a true auteur in the strictest sense of the word. Cronenberg’s films have the unnerving ability to delve into society’s collective unconscious and dredge up all of the perverse, suppressed desires of modern life. His world features grotesque deformities, hallucinatory couplings, and carnality unhinged from its corporeal moorings.