Summary: The writing of J.G. Ballard displays a highly developed visual ¬– indeed filmic – sensibility, and has been the subject of numerous attempts to adapt it into cinematic form. Almost all of his 18 novels have been optioned at one stage or another, and there have been four feature films made from his work as well as a substantial amount of short films. This paper will initially focus on three of these adaptations: the short film Crash! (1970), directed by Harley Cokliss; the feature film Crash (1996), directed by David Cronenberg; and Jonathan Weiss’s The Atrocity Exhibition (2000). All three draw on material from a distinct period of Ballard’s career – 1968 to 1973 – and share striking similarities, notably across sound design, mise en scène and key narrative tropes such as the symbolism of crash-test dummies and the posthumanism of the automobile. This apparent fidelity is a testimony to the precise filmic nature of the original material, yet these films also convey the nagging sense that the ultimate Ballardian work has yet to be realised.
