One of the most suspenseful and eye captivating scene of Alfred Hitchcock’s film, “The Lodger”, was the scene where the map that the police officer (Joe) plotted out the locations of the crime scenes of the Avenger changes scene to the map plotted by the lodger (time stamp: 39:18-39:19). It arouses a feeling of doubt and suspicion in the audience to suspect that the lodger is the Avenger.
The cinematography and editing used in this scene support the idea that the lodger is the same person as the Avenger that has been murdering women with golden curly hairs every Tuesday. The camera takes a close-up shot of Joe’s map that is marked with circle and dots (time stamp: 39:18). Then, by the use of dissolve editing, Joe’s map gradually disappears while the lodger’s map that is marked with triangles gradually appears on the scene (time stamp: 39:19). The dissolved editing allows the audience to see the relationship between the two maps and by taking a close-up shot, it encourages the audience to focus on the different markings of the two maps. Because the lodger is using triangles to mark the map, the audience will instantly correlate it to the trademark of the Avenger. This event makes the audience infer that the lodger is the Avenger (story). While the actual plot is that the lodger was also plotting out the locations of the crimes committed by the Avenger to track him down in order to fulfill the promise he made with his deceased mother, which was to get the Avenger behind the bars for murdering his sister (the first victim).
Therefore, the mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound used to film “The Lodger” are important because they can completely change the interpretations that the audience can have. Alfred Hitchcock incorporated these key elements to make the audience believe that the lodger is the Avenger.
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