ИСТИНА

The paper focuses on the role of naming and narrativization in diagnosing and healing, as represented in films noirs of a German-American director Robert Siodmak (Phantom Lady (1944), Dark Mirror (1946), The Spiral Staircase (1946)). His films deal with a neurotic character. In Phantom Lady, Jack Marlow (Franchot Tone), a murderer and a talented sculpturer, suffers from a nervous tick and fainting. In Dark Mirror, the twin sisters Terry and Ruth (Olivia de Havilland) experience sibling rivalry, complicated by Terry’s ‘paranoia’. In The Spiral Staircase, Helen (Dorothy McGuire) develops mutism in her childhood, making her a potential victim of a local maniac. Naming the diagnosis, though potentially externalizing the illness and stabilizing the patient, is represented as a highly destabilizing activity. Narrativization, which allows for fluidity and embodiment of contingent experience, works as a potentially healing practice. In the film mise-en-scène, the mirror and the telephone function as instruments of diagnosing. Both can be linked to naming/showing the illness (Marlow’s facial tick is first shown in the mirror; Terry and Ruth are represented as dark and light reflections in the mirror; Helen tries to phone the police but fails due to mutism). The telephone, associated with the process of telling, also functions as an instrument of healing: the healed Helen says her first words on the telephone. The paper delves into Siodmak’s—ideologically and stylistically controversial (mingling German expressionism with Hollywood’s discovery of the abnormal)—imagery for sharing and questioning the experience of illness.