Seagraves death is represented in both the novel and the movie.  However, Cronenberg merged two accident events within the book, giving us the celebrity death the novel promises as pantomime – that of Jayne Mansfield.  In the novel, there has almost been a race between Seagraves and Vaughan, or perhaps Vaughan had simply so severely indoctrinated his friend and partner, there was simply no possible way for the event to wait any longer. 

Elizabeth Taylor has a special role to play within the novel.  Of course, it’s not her actions or words that power the narrative, but rather what she represents: fame, fortune, celebrity glitterati, and public figure.  By striking at Taylor, Vaughan is able to strike at the heart of the society in which he lives, to co-opt what they hold most dear by initiating one of their leading lights into the world of Crash.  Perhaps through her he could induct the legions of fans, their having suddenly realized there is fuel in destructive forces. 

Vaughan had held the eventual death of Taylor for his own elaborate farewell.  Taylor was his muse, and he had wanted to bring her into his world by his own hand.  Seagrave on the other hand, having accepted this theory, found himself on a personal collision course with the actress. 

Less we imagine that Vaughan and Seagrave were obsessed with simply the maiming of the actual Elizabeth Taylor, we have in this chapter the death of Seagrave in a violent play, apparently almost completely improvised.  Seagrave has dressed as Taylor, wearing the black wig and leopard skin coat, eager to perform a role.  This costume, part of the many rehearsals they had planned, had now found reality in an accident.   

Vaughan has no concern for Seagrave, but he is affected by this theft of an ideal.  Having planned Taylor's death on his own, seeing the rehearsal brought to bear on a highway, with attendants and spectators on the scene, somehow cheapens his entire war plan.  Taylor was no longer a virgin bride, but was now dead in the guise of Seagrave. 

In the movie Seagrave dies in the guise of Jayne Mansfield, accompanied in the death throes by a dog.  Catherine and Ballard attend the event, and they survey the debris while arousing passions in Ballard’s wife.  The Mansfield death, however, doesn’t have the same resonance within the novel.  The novel is about Taylor, and by stealing a start on Vaughan, Seagrave robbed him of his own end game. 

Examining the change, one of the most striking in the entire screenplay, we can see how Cronenberg was cleverly able to bring together two distinct events, and to make something more palatable (assuming I am accurate in my reasoning of why Taylor is missing from the movie) yet no less affective. 

In the movie and in the novel, Seagraves has acted impulsively.  He has taken his death drive without Vaughan being present, albeit with his ideals wrapped solidly in his mind.  In the movie however, the death is one that had almost been manufactured for Seagrave.  He was always going to be part of the actual accident representing Mansfield, Vaughan had planned it that way.  When Vaughan see’s Seagrave's body in the car, he is wounded, but not severely, by the impetuous nature of what has unfolded.  In the novel Vaughan is particularly troubled because the event he had been planning for some long had been put in motion without him.  After months of careful planning, Seagrave had rolled out the first act on his own. 

Seagrave's death in the movie, since it required bringing together two distinct scenes, meant that Cronenberg had to vary considerably from the source.  To this point, in terms of dialog and actions, the movie had followed a reasonably parallel path with JG Ballard's prose.  Here it differs with Cronenberg producing the following dialog: 

“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.  

(Vaughan turns back to look at the wreck again, almost reverent.) 

VAUGHAN

This is Seagrave's own solitary work of art.

(shakes his head)

The dog – God, the dog is brilliant, perfect. I wonder where he got it?” 

This was further edited for the movie, with much of the dialog being removed.  In fact, only the line about the dog remains in the film from these pieces of writing.   

It is also interesting to note that for the most part, when Cronenberg needed to have descriptive text within the script, he simply used passages from the novel verbatim.  However, in this instance this was not possible.  Here is the descriptive text about Seagrave's death: 

“James walks back alone, eventually spotting them amongst the throng of spectators, Catherine watching Vaughan's scarred face intently, provocatively, as he photographs every aspect of the accident. 

There is a calmly festive and pervasive sexuality in the air amongst the onlookers, and even a congregational feeling as one group of engineers works on the crushed sports sedan, prying at the metal roof which has been flattened onto the heads of the occupants. 

And now Vaughan poses an only slightly reluctant Catherine against the backdrop of the stricken taxi as though she were one of the shaken survivors of the accident. 

When the roof of the sports sedan is levered up, the hair of the driver, its only passenger, comes off with it as though scalped, stuck to the roof-liner with drying blood. But it's soon apparent that it's not hair, but rather a cheap, tangled, platinum blonde wig. 

Vaughan makes his way over to the sedan, intrigued by the dangling scalp. which is almost phosphorescent in the road-rescue work lights. Catherine trails obediently behind him, like a harshly disciplined puppy.

When the body of the driver is exposed to the lights, the effect is doubly grotesque, for not only is the driver dead and partially crushed, but he is also ~ cross-dresser: Seagrave, in Jayne Mansfield drag. His long, greasy hair is tied up in a knot on his head, he is unshaven, his huge, fake bosom is bloody and askew, his bloated,  muscular body strains against the pink 60s skirt and jacket, the blue suede boots with high heels. 

There is also a dead Chihuahua bitch inside the car with Seagrave, which Vaughan manages to move with his foot until a cop, outraged, shoos him away. The dog is stiff with rigor mortis, obviously dead long before the crash. 

An excited Vaughan has spotted James and now approaches him, breathless.” 

Tracking back to the novel we now have to deal with a few events that were not translated into the movie version.  At this point the changes Cronenberg had made affect the movie in significant ways.  Namely it changes the relationship between Vaughan and Seagrave, the mental state of Vaughan, and the relationship between Vaughan and Ballard. 

The novel, as we know, is written as a remembrance.  If we recall the first line of text:  “Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash.”  This has let the reader into a secret that the movie goer wasn’t afforded – Vaughan dies.  By this chapter in the book Ballard is once again musing about Vaughan’s death:  “However, during my last days with Vaughan his obsession with the crashed car became increasingly disordered.”  We know then at this point that Vaughan does not have long to live. 

We come to learn something of this unravelling at the scene of Seagrave's accident as Elizabeth Taylor:  “Later, I realized what had most upset Vaughan.  This was not Seagraves death, but that in this collision, still wearing Elizabeth Taylor’s wig and costume, Seagraves had preempted that real death which Vaughan had reserved for himself.  In his mind, from that accident onwards, the film actress had already died.” 

Vaughan has a real sense of loss, but like many things in Crash, it is not the loss we might have imagined.  It is interesting to speculate on how successfully the movie was able to portray this mood change for Vaughan.  Certainly there is a point in the film where he is no longer courting Ballard, but is rather tolerating, if not oblivious to him.  I have often read about confusion regarding the final scenes of the film – the why?  In effect, the why is here.  Vaughan has simply seen all there is to see, all that’s left is his narcissism.  

At this point in the novel there is also one minor, but touching moment of more than usual intimacy.  Seagrave is married in the novel, with children.  While Vaughan is focused on his own Crash agenda, Ballard thinks firstly of the wife, Vera:   

“Ashford hospital.”  He motioned me on.  “They’ll take Seagraves there when they’ve cut him loose.” 

“Vaughan,” I tried to think of some means of calming him.  I wanted to touch his thigh , press the knuckles of my left hand against his mouth.  “You’ve got to tell Vera.” 

“Who?”  Vaughan’s eyes cleared momentarily.  “Vera – she knows already.” 

Ballard’s relationship with Vaughan has changed considerably.  This is partly due to a maturing of ideas for Ballard.  In discussing the accident and sexual acts between Vaughan and prostitutes, Ballard now thinks only in terms of the relationship between the coupling of accident victims.  He no longer needs to be prompted by Vaughan, these pieces of dreaming come to him naturally, without a second thought. 

Vaughan has increased his drug use, and Ballard begins to see signs that this might be adversely affecting his friend:  “His face was whiter than I had ever seen it, and he moved in bursts of exhausted nervousness around the cabin of the car, like an uncomfortable animal.  This hyper-irritation reminded me of my own long recovery from a bad acid trip some years earlier, when I felt for months afterwards as if a vent of hell had opened momentarily in my mind, as if the membranes of my brain had been exposed in some appalling crash.” 

More telling, as Vaughan has begun to slip into some internal conflict, Ballard had taken the upper hand in the relationship.  He now chauffeurs Vaughan around, it is Ballard who listens in to the police bands on the radio, it is Ballard who drives them to the various daily accident sites:  “Already I felt the dominant partner in the relationship.”  Ballard muses. 

And before the chapter closes out we also experience another element that Cronenberg excised from the film – Vaughan’s self harming.  We learn at the close to this chapter that Vaughan has picked at the scabs on his legs causing the wounds to reopen, and that Ballard would suddenly brake in the car while Vaughan allows himself to be thrown against the dashboard:  “At a Western Avenue filling station he deliberately trapped his hand in the door of the car, mimicking the injuries to the arm of a young hotel receptionist involved in a side swipe collision in the carp-park of her hotel.” 

It is evident that at this point Vaughan has begun his final acceleration toward the end.  Starting with these minor rehearsals, and opening his previous injuries once again, he appears to be performing the final Crash rites before a glittering finale. 

Finally, if I can take one moment out of discussing Crash and/or Cronenberg, I must say that there is a passage of writing here that brought a smile to my face:  “Seagraves slim and exhausted face was covered with shattered safety glass, as if his body was already crystallizing, at last escaping out of this uneasy set of dimensions into a more beautiful universe.”  As a reader of Ballard’s canon, these lines reminded me of the wonder of JG Ballard’s The Crystal World.

.