Cronenberg implements many scenes that reiterate negative assumptions about the mentally disabled. The first involves the opening credits, during which comforting piano music plays behind disturbing and indecipherable images. The piano music playing during the opening credits is melodic and soothes the audience, but at the same time misleads the audience through the disturbing images being shown in the background. This creates confusion, as well as a sense of something being amiss.

This disturbing feeling carries over to the next scene, giving the audience their first glimpse of Dennis. This scene begins with people exiting a train in a naturally lit train station. After all the people exit the train as well as the view of the camera, Cronenberg uses the camera to capture a long shot of Dennis awkwardly exiting the train himself. This scene is not accompanied with any musical score, allowing viewers to concentrate more intently on Dennis and his odd movements. Before viewers attribute Dennis's strange movements to a physical deformity, Cronenberg switches to a close up shot of Dennis mumbling incoherently to himself. The camera then focuses on Dennis pulling a sock out of the groin of his pants, containing a piece of paper which Dennis slowly removes. These actions, paired with the disturbing feeling instilled from the beginning of the film, convey that Dennis suffers from some sort of mental handicap.

One particular scene that vividly portrays the mentally handicapped as disturbed is the one in which Dennis is lying down on his stomach while fondling and spooning with the ground on a small patch of farmland. As he performs this peculiar act with the ground, Dennis begins mumbling incoherently again. But unlike the incoherent mumbling which took place towards the beginning of the film, Dennis's mumbling in this scene has much more sorrow and volume within it. The melodic yet discordant piano music playing in the background gives the scene an eerie feel. For the lighting, Cronenberg chose a natural radiance, which ironically makes this specific scene much more disturbing in conjunction with the eerie music being played and Dennis's bizarre behavior with the patch of land. Again, Cronenberg effectively perpetuates the negative notion that the mentally disabled are strange throughout this scene.

Another pivotal scene Cronenberg includes to suggest that all mentally handicapped people are weird and pitiful shows Dennis lying in a bathtub full of yellowish, murky water. The near-fetal position into which Dennis has curled up reminds us of an infant and demands our pity, as does the lost, confused, and dejected expression on Dennis's face. Starting with a high-angle, long shot of Dennis, the camera gradually zooms in on his face to convey to capture his distressed facial features. Cronenberg employs hard lighting in this scene as well, acutely illuminating Dennis and the bathtub in an otherwise pitch-black room. Such lighting helps establish an ominous tone consistent with what has gone before. The eerie and discordant piano music playing through this entire scene further contributes to this disturbed and piteous image Cronenberg paints of the mentally disabled.

Cronenberg also concretizes the notion that the mentally handicapped are unfit for society. Towards the later half of the film, while Dennis is meandering outside the half-way home, we observe a woman walking out of a building with her baby. She carefully gives Dennis a glance that reveals she feels uncomfortable around him and fears he might harm her or her baby in some way. Cronenberg utilizes natural lighting and the camera to capture a wide, mid-angle shot of the woman and her baby not only to induce a sense of empathy within the audience, but also to point out how normal the neighborhood seems in contrast to the presence of the very disturbed and schizophrenic Dennis. This creates an effect which will compel many viewers to evaluate their own neighborhoods and the people which reside in them in the same way, perpetuating the idea that the mentally handicapped should be removed from public spaces.

Dennis's inability to read reinforces this idea that the mentally handicapped cannot function in the normal world. Being able to read in one's native language is an important tool for functioning in society, no matter what the language might be. Throughout the film, Dennis can be seen fervently scribbling undecipherable words into his journal. During some of those scenes, the camera zooms in on the scribbles of writing to reveal that the scribbles are unreadable. Presumably, only Dennis himself can decipher the scribbles, leading viewers to question his ability to read and write in any sanctioned language. There has only been one instance in which Dennis demonstrated any ability to read English, and that occurred towards the film's beginning when Cronenberg introduced Dennis to Mrs. Wilkinson at the halfway home. Even then, however, Dennis's abilities were questionable.

Today's films continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes about people with mental disabilities. In Cronenberg's Spider, we have yet another, sad example of this trend. The directors deft use of the camera, lighting, and music combine to eternalize the idea that people with mental disabilities are disturbed, pitiful, and unfit for society.

by Nian "Leo" Chen

WORKS CITED

A Beautiful Mind. Screenplay by Akiva Goldsman. Dir. Ron Howard. Perf. Russell Crowe, Ed Harris, Jennifer Connelly. DVD. Universal Pictures, 2001.

Donnie Darko. Screenplay by Richard Kelly. Dir. Richard Kelly. Perf. Jake Gyllenhaal,
Holmes Osbourne, Maggie Gyllenhaal. DVD. Pandora Cinema, 2001.

Marnie. Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. Perf. Sean Connery, Tippi Hedren. Universal Pictures, 1964.

Spider. Screenplay by Patrick McGrath. Dir. David Cronenberg. Perf. Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne. DVD. Capitol Films, 2002.