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phase of his inquiries becomes clouded as his detachment evolves into an unhealthy fixation
regarding his father's true nature. The consequence of these obsessive, morbid perspectives is
that the impetus to piece together rationally the events leading to the death of Athos sr.
recedes. The disturbing scene in which Athos destroys in desperation a plaque
commemorating his father, typifies the way in which obsessive variants of crime fiction, as
discussed by Grodal, lead to a predominance of symbolism within the narrative, diverting the
viewers' focus of attention from establishing concrete facts to deciphering emblematic
meanings. This narrative strategy reflects Grodal's view that obsessive crime fiction, by
manipulating the reality status of what is seen, transforms narratives into 'proto-lyrical,
symbolic and allegorical patterns' (Grodal, 1997: 168-169).
Webs of symbolism and metaphor
In The Spider's Stratagem, elements of the proto-lyrical, the symbolic, and the allegorical
mentioned by Grodal are easily identifiable; the proto-lyrical emerges when the landscape is
either shot in dazzling sunlight or in the bluish dusk of the summer evenings, the silence
broken only by the sound of crickets, and these sequences appear designed to mark moments
of natural harmony as opposed to the dissonant human relationships in the film. Taking
inspiration from Magritte's work, Bertolucci wanted to reproduce the painter's famous shade
of blue (Ungari, 1982:63). hi this context, the film represents the first collaboration between
Bertolucci and Vittorio Storaro, and appropriate consideration must be given to the effect of
Storaro's input in terms of shaping the film's aesthetics and consequently modifying its
affective impact. Tlie Spider's Stratagem marked the beginning of a visual approach that
might be best described as 'painterly', a perspective that arguably characterized all
subsequent films by Bertolucci which featured Storaro's involvement; significantly, this is an
aesthetic that does not emerge in the films made by Bertolucci without Storaro's input. While
it is difficult to establish the impact of specific collaborators on a director's work, particularly
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