Hitchcock’s “first real” film according to him, how does it hold up?
So, The Lodger is famously proclaimed by Alfred Hitchcock as his first film. And its obvious why. Just coming from Pleasure Garden this film is a huge leap in skill and craft.
Let’s begin with the strongest points of this film. Which is of course the insane power of the visuals. This truly is the beginning of the master at work. His visual style is absolutely striking. I’m no expert in visuals, but it all gives me an extremely gothic, noir and German expressionist feel. The cinematographer of this piece is the same as Pleasure Garden, Gaetano di Ventimiglia. Both of them just turned the visuals to 12. The lighting especially was such a huge improvement all the sequences and scenes out in the London streets were captivating. Again, Hitchcock as a perfect knack for the extreme close-ups that he punches in from time to time to showcase and highlight something. The other major standout visually is the beautiful use of different color tints on the film.
The thing that really blew me away with this film was the magnificent editing! Where in pleasure garden there were a few scenes of creative editing, this film goes all out. My jaw was on the floor the first time I saw character look up at a ceiling and like magic we see lodger above pacing back and forth. I’m not sure exactly how they captured and assembled it all together, but the effect is gorgeous and uncanny. I assume its just a frame slapped over another and faded in between the two. And it happens again even more beautiful in a footprint later in the film and AGH! I love it, I love it. These editing tricks are absolutely marvelous and modern cinema hardly does anything like this, modern cinema hardly even thinks about the effect of a cut, or a fade, or layering in such a unique way. So, Editor Ivor Montagu deserves tons of praise for pulling off what he did in this piece.
The other strong element is again the non-stop score! I’m loving how silent films really lean completely and absolutely on the score to drive the momentum of a film and to supply so much of the emotions. the score this time by Ashley Irwin & Nitin Sawhney.
One final fantastic thing I need to mention is the title sequence. My god. I know Hitchcock is famed for his title sequence’s, but I realized that in modern cinema there is essentially none of that left. No desire or care for anything artistic in title sequences. What a shame.
Now I purposely got all the great things out in the front of this review because. Believe it or not. This was an extremely difficult watch. Probably the most difficult watch I’ve ever had in my life. which is saying a lot. I mentioned in my previous Hitchcock review that the silent film aspect was not an issue at all. But for some reason in this film, it became an absolute struggle to watch through. It took two solid attempts to finish the film. The first I kept dozing and passing out, even after chugging coffee, the second attempt the very next morning was even more painful. This film is terribly slow. And even worse its terribly long. It has this long and winding story of “the avenger” who is a serial killer hunting women. Which sounds simple enough, but the plot revolves around a mysterious tenant and the paranoia that maybe its him? Which also sounds easy to take on.
But man. This film was a solid 30 minutes too long for me. And the pacing was sluggish. And I think the other thing that made it so difficult to get through was the amount of plot and story that didn’t really feel necessary for it. I can’t even recommend this film to anyone who isn’t a die-hard Hitchcock fan and wants to see the true roots because it was rough. Maybe it’s the form of silent film that it made it such a hard watch. Maybe when you’re trying to lay on this much exposition and narrative it just seizes up? I’m not sure. Maybe its just this film that doesn’t manage it well. I’m curious if anyone else found it to be a slog and hard to watch.
One last positive thing is the performances the titular character “the lodger” played by Ivor Novello does a fantastic job capturing his characters anxieties and fears.
So, in ending,
6/10 – Decent
This film should be heralded as a stunning achievement as its technical side is near masterful. With stunning visual work from Hitchcock and Ventimiglia. The editing from Montagu is even more spectacular. And the score is wonderful, but the huge problem of this film is the dreadful length and slow pace. It was one of the most difficult watches I’ve ever had. For that reason this comes down quite far even though it is a craft marvel.