Over
the course of some 30-odd years, David Cronenberg has displayed a highly
individual (and quite appropriate) penchant for the bizarre in a number of
memorable, and even stylish, horror films. His peculiar combination of the
mechanical and the biological distinguishes his work from that of most of his
fellow toilers in the dark and bloody fields of shock and gore. Such titles as Videodrome, Dead Ringers, The Fly,
and the entirely weird eXistenZ —
not all of them grand artistic successes — suggest the qualities that
differentiate his movies from, say, all those endless celebrations of Halloween, the months of Friday the 13ths, and the endless Nightmares on Elm Street.
           Given the director’s track record,
the latest Cronenberg film, Spider,
should promise his fans something special (even, perhaps — judging by the
title, at least — some connection with The
Fly). But, in fact, the new movie represents a surprising departure from
his usual style and content. A small, dark, understated work, Spider (scheduled to open at the Little
in early May) examines the interior of one character’s mind, telling a sad,
hopeless story of childhood and loss. The movie employs none of Cronenberg’s
typical biotechnology. There are no special effects and no monsters. As a
result, Spider offers almost nothing
in the way of shocks, frights, and thrills.
           The movie concentrates on a single
character, a mentally disturbed man named Dennis Cleg (Ralph Fiennes); and one
small story, the exploration of Cleg’s memories. Apparently suffering from
schizophrenia, Cleg resides in a bleak London halfway house administered by the
strict Mrs. Wilkinson (Lynn Redgrave), but spends his days walking the squalid
local streets and, more importantly, wandering through the labyrinth of his
troubled psyche.
           As he roams the neighborhood, Cleg
repeatedly registers a number of objects, structures, signs, pictures, and so
forth, that recur throughout the film, each gradually accruing a particular
place and meaning in the jigsaw puzzle of his mind. He apparently peeps through
the window of the modest home of a working-class family — wife (Miranda
Richardson), husband (Gabriel Byrne), and a 10-year-old boy (Bradley Hall),
nicknamed Spider by his mother. When Cleg enters the family’s home and follows
the individual members everywhere, focusing especially on Spider, we realize
that the characters all constitute fantasies, inventions of his disturbed
imagination.
           As the family’s drab, commonplace
story unfolds, the picture both confuses and clarifies their identity and
Cleg’s relationship to their life. He identifies with young Spider because, in
fact, Spider is his younger self, and Richardson and Byrne are his parents. He
does not eavesdrop on their conversations or spy on their activities, but
constructs them all out of his own past — spying, in effect, on his own life,
his own childhood.
           As the picture’s puzzle gradually
emerges from the mists of Cleg’s memory, the background of his insanity also
coalesces into a meaningful configuration, allowing us some understanding of
his condition and, perhaps, its causes. His mother’s story of spiders and their
webs, Spider’s own fascination with weaving patterns from string, and the
web-like shapes of various objects all form a coherent shape to explain the
truth about the catastrophe that obsesses Cleg/Spider. That truth generates a
series of metamorphoses that suggest the curious lucidity of lunacy, the
paradoxical clarity of a deranged mind following its own particular logic.
           With its stringent control and
absolute concentration on its small cast and drab locations, Spider displays an impressive unity and
a remarkable restraint. It never strays from its subject, never cheats on its
characters and story, and for all its bleakness and austerity, it maintains an
admirable integrity in its purely visual narrative.
           Though based on a novel (by its
screenwriter, Patrick McGrath), and somewhat indebted to the works of writers
like Henry James and Graham Greene, the movie never turns into the sort of
“literary” narrative that dooms so many high-minded films. The circumstances of
its world and the lives of its characters demand a concomitant restraint by the
actors, who demonstrate the uniform level of excellence typical of British
actors. From the least important part all the way up to the protagonist, the
cast behave with complete conviction, so that we, along with Cleg, sometimes
feel as though we are spying on their lives.
           Spider provides a remarkable vehicle for Ralph Fiennes, who immerses himself entirely
in the part of Dennis Cleg. Buried within himself, uncertain in his movements,
shrinking from human contact, mumbling unintelligibly — he may not utter one
complete sentence in the whole movie — the romantic hero of The English Patient, the angry writer of
The End of the Affair now looks
unclean, frightened, and completely lost, a pathetic victim of his own sad
thoughts and deranged perceptions. Fiennes suits the form and content of the
movie perfectly, matching an avoidance of melodrama with an absolute commitment
to his character. Like the film, his performance constitutes something of a tour de force.
Spider, starring
Ralph Fiennes, Miranda Richardson, Gabriel Byrne, John Neville, Bradley Hall,
Lynn Redgrave, Gary Reineke, Tara Ellis; based on the novel by Patrick McGrath;
written by Patrick McGrath; directed by David Cronenberg.
You
can hear George and his movie reviews on WXXI-FM 91.5 Fridays at 7:15 a.m.,
rerun on Saturdays at 11:15 a.m.
This article appears in Apr 23-29, 2003.
