The Lodger, Week 1

    After watching “The Lodger” (the better resolution version), I found that several scenes in the beginning of the movie use foreshadowing and focus to instill a feeling of mystery into the audience. For example, as the telegraph machine is relaying the message (time stamp: 3:12), the focus is blurred everywhere except for when it focuses on words such as, “golden-haired,” “victim of mysterious murders,” and “the Avenger.” I believe that Hitchcock purposely blurred the rest of the telegraph message in order to associate the Avenger with those particular phrases, which come up throughout the rest of the film.
    Another scene that I found interesting was when Daisy is first introduced (time stamp: 6:12). I found this scene to be perplexing because it introduces Daisy, who happens to be a young blonde girl. In this scene, it shows Daisy and her friends reading about the Avenger’s latest victim in the newspaper. What I found to be intriguing was when Daisy was reading the newspaper, the screen flashed to “TO-NIGHT GOLDEN CURLS” and focused back on Daisy again, who was now looking at the mirror and running her fingers through her hair with a nervous look on her face. This particular moment is interesting because it also foreshadows that something bad might happen to Daisy, or it could be used as another technique to further convince the audience that the Lodger and the Avenger are indeed the same person.
    I noticed that when Daisy is first introduced, the camera focused on her reflection in the mirror, leaning the focus onto her face. After examining this, she bears some similarities to the girl in the beginning that was presumably the Avenger’s next victim (time stamp: 0:54). Clearly, the Avenger has a certain type, and based on his past kills and the evidence shown in the film, his type is young and beautiful with blonde hair (coincidentally, Daisy fits this description perfectly).
    In the scene where the police are at the crime scene (time stamp: 1:35), the policeman opens up a piece of paper with “The Avenger” written on it in the middle of a triangle. In another scene (time stamp: 6:55), Daisy’s name appears with a triangle next to it. This may be coincidental, but it also goes back to possibly foreshadowing that something bad may happen to Daisy. The triangle on the note and the triangle next to Daisy’s name also subconsciously connects them together, before the Lodger/Avenger and Daisy even meet.