The Birds 1963

Fig 1. Movie Poster.

Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds is a 1963 horror film adapted loosely from 1952 short story by Daphne du Maurier. The story follows protagonist Melanie a secured, rich background trickster who caught the eye of lawyer Mick in court. After pulling a prank on Melanie in a bird shop as she didn’t see him in court, she has to have the last laugh so personally delivers two love birds to his weekend home in Bodega Bay because her pranks couldn’t wait until Monday when he was back. When she arrives the birds begin to start acting strangely and vicious starting with a sea gull attacking Melanie when leaving her latest prank. When she is attacked and her elegant hair do is messed with is karma starting to catch up with Melanie and we begin to see a change in her - her confidence has taken a step back. By the end of this film Hitchcock has been so brutal with his protagonist that by the end, she becomes a damsel in distress covered with birds attacking her, Melanie is gone and all thats left is a shell. The punishment begins subtly with Hitchcock when he uses the camera to objectify her and starts her off in Bodega Bay by applying a stereotype to her for example the boat employee giving her a surprised look that she can work a boat. 

Unlike Psycho, Hitchcock doesn’t give us all the answers, “Electrifying, insurrectionist Psycho still felt the need to wheel on a psychiatrist to explain Norman Bates to the audience. But The Birds floats free. There is no motor driving it, no music to tether it, and nothing to hold it aloft apart from that up-draft of sensual atmosphere and existential dread.” (Brooks, 2012) he gives us an open ending it’s up to the audience to decide what happens - there are several possibilities, in the final scene it ends with the surviving main characters driving off through the birds into the night and ends there providing “the perfect closing image that leaves the world in the balance and its mysteries all intact.” (Brooks, 2012) see fig 2.

Fig 2. Last Image

The biggest mystery is why are the birds attacking Bodega Bay,? “many critics take their lead from the hysterical woman who links the attacks to Daniels' arrival (“I think you're the cause of all of this"). This implies that the birds are a manifestation of sex, some galvanic hormonal storm that whisks sleepy Bodega Bay into a great communal lather.” (Brooks, 2012) this implication in some ways could be connected to sin and could link with this theory “Whether Mr. Hitchcock intended this picture of how a plague of birds almost ruins a peaceful community to be symbolic of how the world might be destroyed (or perilously menaced) ... whether he meant the birds to represent the classical Furies that were supposed to pursue the wicked on this earth.” (Crowther, 1963). Melanie is basically a foreign attack on the eco that is Bodega Bay with all her antics disturbing the peace also her causing romantic uproar, the mother and Mick’s ex didn’t get along because the mother couldn’t stand someone taking her son away from her when she had already lost her husband, all the emotion she had for her husband goes to Mick so when Melanie arrives on scene there’s that tension there, this is enhanced by the simultaneous arrival of love birds for Mick. But again Melanie is punished in this film to the point she is broken and doesn’t get Mick - the mother takes it all. “But the true genius of the film, based on a 1952 short story by Daphne du Maurier, is the way Hitchcock makes the malevolent birds seem like manifestations of his characters' mental unease –especially that of Mitch's mother and his former lover, Annie, now a local schoolteacher.” (Sooke, 2015).

Fig 3: Love birds.

The colouring in this film is dominated by green and red, Melanie is always dressed in green and romance is a red colour, love birds are a green and red colour also, it can be interpreted that these two colours together are chaotic like traffic lights if they’re both lit at the same time, everything starts and stops unorganisedly causing chaos. Melanie is the chaos in her human society and the love birds she brings in with her are the equivalent her in bird society as the native birds in Bodega Bay are crows, sparrows and seagulls, but unlike Melanie they are protected and left unharmed - true masterminds.

Fig 4. Chaos signs using red and Green.

Bibliography:

Brooks, X. (2012) ‘My favourite Hitchcock: The birds’ In: The Guardian [online] At: https://www.theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2012/jul/31/my-favourite-hitchcock-the-birds (Accessed on 2 February 2017)

Crowther, B. (1963) Movie review - - screen: ‘The birds’:Hitchcock’s feathered Fiends are chilling [online] At: http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9D05E7D9143CEF3BBC4953DFB2668388679EDE (Accessed on 2 February 2017)

Sooke, A. (2015) ‘The birds, review: “Disturbing”’ In: The Telegraph [online] At: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/11334674/The-Birds-review-disturbing.html (Accessed on 2 February 2017)

Illustration List:

Figure 1. The birds movie poster. (1963) (1963) At: http://www.impawards.com/1963/birds.html (Accessed on 2 February 2017)

Figure 2. Last image. (1963) (2012) BasementRejects. At: http://basementrejects.com/review/the-birds-1963/ (Accessed on 2 February 2017)

Figure 3. Lovebirds. (1963) (2015) At: http://screenprism.com/insights/article/how-does-the-cage-motif-in-the-birds-enhance-the-films-themes (Accessed on 2 February 2017)