History Literature / Crash

* BandageBabe: Gabrielle, who is forced to wear massive, black, fetish-like metal braces after being in a car crash herself.

* {{Polyamory}}: Most of the main characters are clearly comfortable with other people sleeping with their spouses or close friends. Ballard and Catherine have an open marriage and admit each other's affairs to one another, while Ballard is fine with Vaughan seducing Helen (a woman he later has sex with) and Catherine.
* SeriousBusiness: The car-crash subculture. Not only is there a glorified cult that holds meetings re-enacting famous/fatal car crashes, but Vaughan is horrified that one of the major drivers was killed - not that he's dead, but that said driver re-enacted a specific crash (and died) without his involvement.
* SettingUpdate: The film moves the setting from 1970s London in to director David Cronenberg's own then-contemporary Toronto.

** Averted in many cases, because (according to WordOfGod) the sex scenes were where the characters did most of their interaction with each other. Cronenberg deliberately shot most of them as involving penetration from behind, because he didn't want the actors to be looking at each other, and he wanted the audience to be able to see both their faces in the one shot.
** Played straight during Vaughan's lovemaking with Catherine in the car wash. It cuts from her being dragged downward on the back seat and giving in to his advances, to... her, ahem, wet hand grasping the driver's seat. Though, given how the preceding moments showed explicit shots of female nudity, this is probably more of a subversion.

* AnythingThatMoves: Ballard. In the film, he has sex with five different people: an unnamed camera girl, his wife Catherine, Helen, Vaughan and Gabrielle, who has a wound on her leg that both she and James regard as a functioning orifice.
* AssShove: In the long sex scene between Catherine and Ballard in bed, where she asks him if he's ever fantasised about having sex with Vaughan, she goes into quite explicit detail about what it would involve. According to WordOfGod, this trope is what he's doing to her while she's talking, although the moment where he actually does it is cut from some versions of the film.

* BlackComedy: The sequence where Ballard, Catherine and Vaughan find the accident caused by the other driver (Seagrave) from the car crash club. Vaughan is unbelievably more concerned with Seagrave having gone ahead and re-enacted the fatal crash without him (and dressed in a wig, no less), and uses Catherine as a model in crash photographs while all the [=EMTs=] ignore them.
* BodyHorror: Gabrielle's "scar" on the back of her thigh, which is... [[{{Squick}} capitalized on]] during the sex scene with Ballard in the car.

* ADateWithRosiePalms: In the uncut version. Both Ballard and his wife do this to each other early on in the film, followed by Vaughan doing it to Helen a short while later and Helen, Gabrielle and Ballard all doing it to each other soon after.

* DisabledLoveInterest: Gabrielle.

* EveryoneIsBi: Almost all of the lead characters (save for Catherine) are seen having sex with both men and women, including Ballard, Vaughan, Gabrielle and Helen.

* [[GrossOutShow Gross-Out Book]]: Both the novel and film go into disturbing detail at some of the wounds inflicted to the main characters; most notably, Gabrielle's scar, which is utilized by Ballard during a sex scene.

* HumansAreBastards: WordOfGod was that Crash was like a mirror held to the face of humanity, and "wanted to rub the human race's face in its own shit". Classy.
* InterplayOfSexAndViolence: Interplay of sex and injuries.

* OneWordTitle: Referring to the car crashes.

''Crash'' is an infamous 1973 novel written by J.G. Ballard, which details one man's journey into the heart of a bizarre group of individuals fascinated with AutoErotica.

''Crash'' is an infamous 1973 novel written by Creator/JGBallard, which details one man's journey into the heart of a bizarre group of individuals fascinated with AutoErotica.

''Crash'' is an infamous 1973 novel written by J.G. Ballard, which details one man's journey into the heart of a bizarre group of individuals fascinated with AutoErotica.

* AutoErotica: TheMovie.

Although the book was highly controversial (Ballard was initially referred to as "beyond psychiatric help" by one publisher who refused to print it), the book went on to some minor acclaim. It later inspired a 1996 film adaptation directed by Creator/DavidCronenberg, and starred Creator/JamesSpader as Ballard, Creator/EliasKoteas as Vaughan, Creator/RosannaArquette as Gabrielle and Creator/HollyHunter as Helen, among others.

Although the book was highly controversial (Ballard was initially referred to as "beyond psychiatric help" by one publisher who refused to print it), the book went on to some minor acclaim. It later inspired a 1996 film adaptation directed by Creator/DavidCronenberg, and starred Creator/JamesSpader as Ballard, Elias Koteas as Vaughan, Creator/RosannaArquette as Gabrielle and Creator/HollyHunter as Helen, among others.

* GrandDame: Gabriella is treated as one, as being in leg braces with her wound makes her the most venerated of the group, and she knows it.

* BittersweetEnding: The film ends with [[spoiler:Ballard forcing his wife's car to crash. While it is implied to have helped their marriage and intimacy towards each other, Ballard's final line[[note]]"Maybe the next one, darling, maybe the next one..."[[/note]] and Catherine's passive reaction to it suggests that they've each become a DeathSeeker like Vaughan, and that they hope to kill themselves in the next crash]].

In no ways, shape or form to be mistaken for the [[Film/{{Crash}} 2005 Oscar winner]] or a completely different novel by Jerry Spinelli.

Although the book was highly controversial (Ballard was initially referred to as "beyond psychiatric help" by one publisher who refused to print it), the book went on to some minor acclaim. It later inspired a 1996 film adaptation directed by Creator/DavidCronenberg, and starred Creator/JamesSpader as Ballard, Elias Koteas as Vaughan, Creator/RosannaArquette as Gabrielle and Holly Hunter as Helen, among others.

In no ways, shape or form to be mistaken for the [[Film/{{Crash}} 2005 Oscar winner.]]

** Averted in many cases, because (according to WordOfGod) the sex scenes were where the characters did most of their interaction with each other. Cronenberg deliberately shot most of them as involving penetration from behind, because he didn't want the actors to be looking at each other but he wanted the audience to be able to see both their faces in the one shot.

* BittersweetEnding: The film ends with [[spoiler:Ballard forcing his wife's car to crash. While it is implied to have helped their marriage and intimacy towards each other, Ballard's final line indicates that he's become a DeathSeeker like Vaughan, and hopes to kill himself in the next crash]].

[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/crash7.jpg]]

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* [[GrossOutShow Gross Out Book]]: Both the novel and film go into disturbing detail at some of the wounds inflicted to the main characters; most notably, Gabrielle's scar, which is utilized by Ballard during a sex scene.

-->--'''Vaughan'''

-->'''Vaughan'''

[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]