Film Reviews - The Birds

Fig 1. The Birds Poster (1963)

Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 film The Birds is a horror film that presents us with an unlikely villain, be it that the villain is that hinted to in the title or Hitchcock’s own opinion and view of a particular gender and the way that it is perceived and acts round the opposite sex.

The story of The Birds seems to be a simple one at the start with a prankster named Melanie Daniels getting her own on lawyer Mitch Brenner after he pulls his own prank on her at a pet shop saying he wants to buy some birds for his sister’s birthday. After finding out where he lives she plans to give him the birds he said he wanted to get her own back only to find that he has gone to Bodega Bay for the weekend, still going through the plan Melanie drives up to the bay and delivers the birds. As she makes her escape Mitch spots her and plans to confront her only to see her suddenly get attacked by a seagull from out of nowhere. The longer Melanie stays in the bay the more she comes to know the different females in Mitch’s life but the bird attacks start to increase with no clear reason as to why it is happening.

At the end of the film we are shown that Melanie has become a victim of the birds after being attacked but it is possible to view Mitch as a victim as well, not of the birds but of the other female characters. There are no other men around Mitch in the home after the death of his Father and only ones who share anytime with him are his Mother, sister, ex-love and later Melanie, it can be said then that the birds are a metaphor for these women and the way that they are all focused on Mitch and looking out for anyone who they think is a threat in taking him away from them. “It is about three needy women (literally 'birds') - and a fourth from a younger generation - each flocking around and vying for varying degrees of affection and attention from the sole, emotionally-cold male lead, and the fragile tensions, anxieties and unpredictable relations between them.” (Dirks, s.d)

One question that almost everyone has thought when watching the film is what made the birds suddenly start attacking the humans? Could it be that Hitchcock was also trying to make an environment statement as well as one about women? “It connects strikingly with modern environmental crises that stress the importance of not taking nature for granted. What can appear harmless one moment can become a threat the next if the proper attention is not devoted to its needs.” (Indie Outlook, 2014) The easiest answer people can come up with when looking at the film in this way is that the birds have had enough of humans putting them in cages, killing them for food and destroying their homes.

There is also the idea that the bird’s attacks are in some way linked to Melanie coming to Bodega Bay. When she arrives the residents that she encounters all seem to eye her warily as if they have already gotten the feeling that her big-city ways might bring chaos to their small fishing town. The women of the town clearly view her as a threat in that she might leave the local men astray because of her good looks as she has not been worn down by doing day-to-day work around the house. Therefore, Melanie’s arriving at the same time the birds start attacking, along with the way a distressed woman shouts at her after one of the birds attacks, is the suggestion that she is seen as a kind of sin that has brought her plague (the birds) upon the bay. “Alternatively, they might be viewed as an eruption of rage. The film's first act, after all, is an uncomfortable buildup of tension (both sexual and social), an ongoing joust of loaded glances and teasing evasions.” (Brooks, 2012)

The way in which Hitchcock’s that shows the sheer violence and destruction of the birds is by using a series of quick cuts that jump back and forth from the target and attacker, similar to the ones used in Psycho (1960). This way of montaging together gives the viewer the feeling that there is no escape from the birds attacks as well as giving an idea of the confusion and chaos that is happening on screen. Also, this idea of cutting back and forth does not just happen in the attack sequences one clear example of this is when Melanie is waiting for the children to come out of the school, the camera focuses on her for a short while then cuts to a shot of the playground behind her to show that some birds have gathered before cutting back to her and then back to the playgrounds showing that even more birds have appeared with the intention to launch an attack as soon as the children leave the building. Hitchcock also uses a number of aerial shots or shots that indicate the characters looking up the reason he does this is the make the viewer feel just as wary as they do of something coming out of the sky to harm them, this is most notable at the very end of the film as the camera starts to look up as it warned the viewer that an attack from the sky can happen at any moment.

Fig 2. The Waiting Game (1963)

To give the birds a more ominous feel they were given no soundtrack to indicate their approach or to heighten their attack instead it was only their cries and flapping wings that could be heard. This strange soundtrack was created by the composer Bernard Herman, who also created the iconic violins in Psycho, by using electronic recordings of bird sounds.

Illustration

• Figure 1. The Birds poster (1963) [Poster] At: http://www.impawards.com/1963/birds.html (Accessed on 08/02/17)
• Figure 2. The Waiting Game (1963) [Film Still] At: http://www.audienceseverywhere.net/still-scary-alfred-hitchcocks-birds/ (Accessed on 14/02/17)

Bibliography

• Brooks, Xan. (2012) My favourite Hitchcock: The Birds At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jul/31/my-favourite-hitchcock-the-birds (Accessed on 14/02/2017)
• Dirks, Tim. (s.d) The Birds At: http://www.filmsite.org/bird.html (Accessed 14/02/17)
• Indie Outlook. (2014) Why “The Birds” is a film for our time At: https://indie-outlook.com/2014/07/09/1117/ (Accessed 14/02/17)