Alfred Hitchcock began his career in the silent era, first as a title designer and then as an art director, before moving onto directing his first (unreleased and unfinished) feature in 1922. As a young man, Hitchcock had an interest in the movies as an art unto itself, and he was influenced by Russian, German, U.S., and of course British films of the period.
This video explores the German influence on his 1927 film, The Lodger, putting Hitchcock himself in loose conversation with German film critic Lotte Eisner by incorporating clips from a 1966 Hitchcock interview and quotes from Lotte Eisner’s iconic 1952 book, The Haunted Screen: Expressionism in the German Cinema and the Influence of Max Reinhardt.
See The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog at the IU Cinema on November 2 at 7 pm as part of The Days of Silent Cinema: Le Giornate del Cinema Muto at Indiana University. This screening will be the U.S. premiere of Neil Brand’s new score, which will be performed by Jacobs School of Music students.
Laura Ivins loves stop motion, home movies, imperfect films, nature hikes, and Stephen Crane’s poetry. She has a PhD from Indiana University and an MFA from Boston University. In addition to watching and writing about movies, sometimes she also makes them.