Even before it opened at the 1996 London Film Festival, David Cronenberg's latest film Crash, based on the novel by JG Ballard, was subjected to vitriolic abuse in the right-wing tabloids and to outraged moralising by politicians, none of whom had seen it. Preempting a British Board of Film Classification ruling, Westminster City Council banned its screening throughout London's West End cinemas.
... [Show full abstract] Only on 18 March did the often over-cautious director of the board, James Ferman, defy general censure and give it a clean bill of health and an 18 certificate, saying that while ‘unusual and disturbing’, the film was neither illegal nor harmful. Author and film-maker discuss the renewed furore surrounding Crash 25 years after its first publication