The Cobweb (1955)

The action in the Cobweb (1955) takes place in a clinic for nervous disorders in the countryside near Chicago, and the clashes of desire and ego that are exchanged over the replacement of a set of drapes. It is a good representative example of the ways psychiatric disorders and their treatments are depicted in films of the period immediately after WWII, but has a number of interesting quirks that make it really stand out – aside from the complexity of the writing and a really stunning cast, the film uses the action set in a clinic to explore notions of individual agency, by depicting competing attitudes towards the way that psychiatric treatment should be undertaken.

The film very early on links mental disorder to everyday life, emotions, feelings and leaves out biological considerations, quite typical of representations of psychiatry during this period that were generally quite suspect of the worth of physiological treatments like those mentioned above (See piece on Suddenly Last Summer) – in short, they undermined the individual and their powers of autonomy. The Cobweb does this too – it describes people who reside in the clinic as not having the abilities to cope with ‘the normal strains of living’, and patients are not described by their category of psychopathology – in its two hours, the film does not use one diagnostic category. During an early on conversation between two fo the main driving forces of the narrative, the old link between artistic prowess and mental illness is raised. Stevie, a talented young resident of the clinic is picked up whilst hitchhiking by Karen the wife of the clinic’s newly appointed and somewhat idealistic lead psychiatrist, Dr McIver. Stevie dismisses the connection when Karen brings up Van Gough’s mental illness, saying that the painter was probably better off dead because that at least led to his fame, and if he had continued living then he may not have attracted that fame. Stevie himself is an artist, and he craves recognition for his work, which is currently being used to decorate a set of drapes that will be used in the clinic’s main recreation room, and are set to be made by the residents – this is part of a bigger plan of Dr. McIver’s environmental therapy, whose key component is to grant patients more power over their living conditions.

Underlying Dr. McIver’s plans for the clinic is a fundamental assumption that there is no huge division between its residents and those who are part of ‘normal society’. Accepting this fully means it is important to preserve the kind of rights they would expect beyond the clinic. These include the right to privacy and the right to control one’s own property, but this leads to frequent clashes between McIver and other staff who may accept this on one level, but are conditional upon the maintenance of order: if the patients become troublesome or step outside of the rules at any point, they call for their rooms to be searched, contraband confiscated and other measures that one would not be subject to in everyday life. Instead, McIver thinks that self-discipline is needed, and if the patient is a nuisance to other patients, then it is important to create channels to allow the patients to raise these concerns. His establishment of a staff-patient committee with a set of representatives appointed by fellow patients is key to realising this goal. The connection here between the potentials of a society that rules itself and whose powers cannot undermine basic rights of private property and privacy were especially politically charged during the Cold War, and them being expressed through the powers that the kind of self understanding that psychiatry could bring again suggests that it will allow us to become less directed by our feelings and emerge as rational agents in a self-organising society. 

There are however at least three powers that stand in the way of this goal: unrestricted power, uncontrolled emotion and traditional dogma. As alluded to, the set of dogmas that have built up around psychiatric treatment are still present in its institutions – these are represented by the disciplinary attitudes of orderlies, who are used to associating discipline and treatment and justifies undermining the rights of patients because it regards them as essentially irresponsible and lacking capacity. McIver instead thinks that they should be allowed to make the kinds of mistakes that a person would be allowed to make in civil society – getting too drunk say, or playing music too loud of an evening. These become a problem when the other patients say ti is a problem, and not when the clinic decides it infringes rules that they themselves have established. These filter into unrestricted power, and if you undermine the capacities that make us responsible, then this ultimately has a less favourable therapeutic outcome, with the patients abandoning responsibility. The connections to wider society are again clear, and the film is making subtle reference to the prevailing attitude of the time that the lack of moral agency that results from totalitarian power, and that a whole nation’s people can be complicit in morally wrong actions. If we respect the fundamental rights of people, then we can increase their powers of judgement and decision making. The final piece of this puzzle is perhaps the most important, and comprises the Cobweb of the title – the network of desires and feeling that if allowed to go unfettered and untreated, can trap humankind in webs of their own. This is where the drapes come back in which are the McGuffin – these three powers clash over the drapes – those of the clinic who want to choose the best for the patients, those who want to choose the most cost effective ones, and the powers who want to give the patients the power to choose for themselves.