In the novel there is a lot of commentary on traffic, and the images the traffic brings to mind.  By way of character development it adds little, in fact one could assume it’s all rather mundane – I mean, how interesting is traffic?  However, JG Ballard allows some self-indulgence in these sections, drawing out beauty and points of interest from long lines of cars and buses.  The traffic serves the purpose of throttling the movement of these people around their physical locations.  The world of Crash, as it occurs, is actually very small.  The setting is Shepperton, and the airport that seems to pull everything toward it.  At intervals the author will discuss the highways as though it were the arteries of a town, with sluggish traffic trickling through, carrying in its avenues potentials for further exploration. 

When discussing the traffic, JG Ballard often allows his mind to wander beyond the cult of Crash into long descriptive passages where he seeks out every nuance, detail, and influence of the tiniest of details.  While this is repeated in scenes involving sexual acts, it is sometimes enlightening to examine these long passages to discover where our characters find themselves on their journeys between two points. 

Take for example the opening paragraph of this chapter:  “Brake-lights flared in the evening air, glowing in the pool of cellulosed bodies…… To our right the high wall of a double-decker airline coach formed a cliff of faces.  The passengers at the windows resembled rows of the dead looking down at us from the galleries of the columbarium.  The enormous energy of the twentieth century, enough to drive the planet into a new orbit with a happier star, was being expended to maintain the immense motionless pause.” 

This illustrates that the fantasy world built around Crash continues into the realm of the most mundane.  What is seen, or understood from the surroundings, extends beyond lines of cars and the rumble of an idling engine.  When it comes to technologies and our interaction and interpretation of it, there is no time for simple disinterest. 

In order to fully appreciate the artistry that goes into the craft of screenwriting, one would do well to study the main features of this chapter.  In essence, the core of the chapter is here, but for once Cronenberg expanded it, and the medium of film brings about different, but telling, tones.   

The car crash on the highway presents a scene of Vaughan experiencing an accident first hand.  Not only that, but this is the first time Ballard has experienced one with him.  With Catherine along for the ride, and her burgeoning interest in Vaughan, the stage is set to both examine where the characters currently are, what the possibilities are, and where they will go. 

The core of the car crash scenes within the novel are contained in a few lines;  “Clearly the most vivid erotic fantasies would be moving through our minds, or imaginary acts of intercourse performed with enormous decorum and solicitude upon the blood-stained loins of this young woman while she lay within her car…. seeding the infinite futures that would flower from the marriage of violence and desire.” 

And also:  “Already I sensed that the three of us had yet to make the most of this crash, play its quickening possibilities into our lives. ” 

This goes some way to explaining the fertilising process of accidents, of the mix of violence, accidents, and eroticism.  It also left Cronenberg with an interesting issue – how was he going to convey this? 

The accident scene is quite loyally portrayed cinematically, albeit dampened somewhat.  The crowds from the novel are largely missing, and within the film it seems odd that Vaughan and this group of people should be given such free reign to walk amongst the victims.   

However, the most poignant moment in the film isn’t the accident itself, the survival or death of the victims, nor the emergency workers going about their business.  Instead, Vaughan takes Catherine into the scene and poses her with the victims, sitting in their crashed cars as his camera flash insinuates the victim upon her (Catherine is the only person within the main set of characters who has not experienced an actual accident herself).  Ballard watches this from afar, aware that his wife has taken on Vaughan’s dreams and desires. 

By contrast, in the novel, Catherine remains at Ballard’s side, and Vaughan simply records scenes from the accident site.  As the quoted text illustrates, Cronenberg took the intent and adapted it for his medium in a most fascinating way.  Without the descriptive text, and with no opportunity for dialog, he instead turned the crash site into theatre, with the all too real somehow subsumed to the growing desires of these people.  He did this without completely rewriting the scene; indeed, it even includes a brief moment when an ambulance worker tries to grab the camera from Vaughan’s hands.  Cronenberg expands the ideas, and makes them surprisingly effective. 

Further, Cronenberg decided to expand the scene to take in a celebrity death, and the death of one of the main characters, Seagrave.  The cause of the accident cinematically is Seagraves desire to re-enact the Jayne Mansfield car crash.  Vaughan finds Seagraves dead in the wreckage. 

It is here that the script and film varies, with pieces of dialog extended on the written page, but either not spoken in the film, or edited later.  For example, when Vaughan finds Seagraves the script states: 

VAUGHAN

It's Seagrave. He was worried that we would never do Jayne Mansfield's crash, now that the police were cracking down. So he did it himself.  This is Seagrave's own solitary work of art.  The dog – God, the dog is brilliant, perfect. I wonder

where he got it?  Come with me, James. I have to document it. 

The actual dialog in the film is far briefer: 

VAUGHAN

Seagrave, you couldn’t wait for me?  You did the Jayne Mansfield crash without me?  Oh the dog, the dog is brilliant. 

There is also a minor, but interesting change regarding the motivation to attend an automated car wash immediately after the accident.  In the novel, Ballard says:  “You must have hit a dog – the police may impound your car while they have the blood analysed.”  As we learned earlier, Vaughan had been known to swerve off road in order to strike stray animals.  In the movie version Cronenberg makes the blood more poignant by tying it to earlier events.  Once again we have differences between what was originally scripted and what appeared on screen.  Scripted Ballard states (to Catherine):  “He must have driven through a pool of blood. If the police stop you again, they may impound the car while they have the blood analyzed.” 

On the screen we hear Ballard state:  “I must have driven through something.  There’s some blood on the car.  Here on the handle, and on the wheel.  Also on the wheel.  See?  If the police stop you they may impound the car.” 

The statement in the movie ties the events with what had preceded them.  If you recall, in the last chapter we experienced Vaughan being questioned by the police regarding a pedestrian killing.  This human blood on the car could therefore be a problem if they were stopped again.  This line of thought is not so obvious within the novel. 

The liaison at the car wash is another example of the fascinating use of film, of how Cronenberg was able to use his medium to pull more from the text than first appears to be there.  The Cronenberg addition of having the car fold itself about the inhabitants as they begin their sexual games, is a highlight of the film.  Vaughan’s love making with Catherine is an expression of desire, violence, and influence.  Catherine accepting him is odd, yet somehow inevitable.  Sitting in the front seat, Ballard observes his wife, both detached and involved, as Vaughan bruises her, pushes her, and accepts her lips on his scarred chest.  This scene is something beyond purely sexual, it’s more of a performance – a replay of the what we saw (and read) previously with the prostitutes in the moving car, except now Ballard is more personally involved. 

Vaughan’s love making extends to combining sexual positions with accident dreams, re-enacting possible contortions.  Catherine, never having experienced an accident herself, is forced into obscure positions, her body recording events as they occur:  “Her breasts were bruised by Vaughan’s fingers, the marks forming a pattern like crash injuries.” 

And:  “He leaned towards her on one hip, placing Catherine and himself in the postures of the injured diplomat and the young woman who we had seen sitting together in the cabin of the crashed limousine……in the same handholds that the ambulance men had used to lift the young woman from the car.” 

Ballard’s exploration of this event, cinematically, takes place in the solemn, but beautiful scene, immediately following.