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Margaret Perry

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  1. 1. What I liked about the dolly shot was that it took time to get the characters from point a-b. Since it took the characters time, it took the viewers time as well. Within the narrative, this is the time for the characters and the viewers to experience the anxiety and uncertainty that a call to the headmaster's office entails - like the questions going round in your head of why you're there and what's going to happen and how much trouble you're in. 2. If Hitch had cut rapidly from the door to the desk, the pacing would not be conducive to the narrative, as it wouldn't allow the time to build the anxiety. Therefore, the dolly/tracking shots for me are less about POV and much more about the pacing/timing and the communing of the though processes of the characters and the audience. 3. This coming together of the character's experience and the viewer's experience is similar to the effect Hitch created in the scene from THE RING, though with the opposite result - the dolly shot is used here to slow the pacing down while the quick cuts in THE RING were used to speed up the pace. However, both techniques build a sense of anxiety and a sense of sympathy/empathy with the protagonist.
  2. 1. Not only is there a lot of movement within each shot, from the actors particularly, but the shots also change in rapid succession, moving the point of view of the audience around the scene. 2. By distorting certain visual elements, like the keys and the dancers, Hitchcock shows us how the mind of the protagonist is essentially getting 'bent out of shape.' I love the use of the dancers as a mini boxing match - when they get exhausted and fall into their separate corners to be fanned, then pushed back into the centre of the floor, not to fight, but to dance. 3. The use of overlay, with the image of the musical instruments over the protagonists head as he gets upset, shows how the sound is making him crazy. *SIDE NOTE: I'm not a huge fan of the music used here. It's only piano when clearly other instruments can be seen - which is fine, but it's best if the piano tries to imitate or give an impression of the other instruments, which isn't done here. Also, the music slows down just as they show the musicians going faster and the protagonist getting more worked up - this works against the Hitchcock thrust of the whole scene.
  3. Unlike THE PLEASURE GARDEN (1925), THE LODGER'S opening jumps straight into horror. The pace and tone of the two opens is drastically different. One needn't presume that the former film would become a horror, whereas there is no doubt the type of film the latter is to be. The use of music supports this effect, and the quick cuts to various faces, and to the press, give a sense of anxiety and urgency that was absent in the previous film's opening. The use of colour and shading sets the scene and gives the impression of night/outdoors/indoors, etc. without resorting to clumsy sets. Therefore the focus stays on the people and the action, not the background. In a way, I think the scream is even more terrifying in a silent film, like when you have a bad dream and are trying to scream but no sound comes out. The use of music conveys the sense of what we are seeing as well.
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