Spoilers for The Birds and Psycho
Do I own The Birds on Blu-ray and can watch it comfortably at home? Yes. Did I still head out to a theatre to see a 60th anniversary showing of the film? Also yes. There's something cool about seeing classic cinema on the big screen and since it's one my favourites from my favourite director, I'm almost obligated to go). It got me thinking that there was a time where you had to see a movie in theatres, it wasn't as easy as it is now to see films. There was something special about something being shown on TV or getting re-released. Now it feels like something's in theatres for a week before it hits streaming. But anyway, back to The Birds. This was Hitchcock's follow-up to Psycho and its notable the only two horror films in his career were made consecutively. They actually make pretty good companion pieces: with both of them displaying Hitchcock experimenting in the later part of his career (he was in his 60s when he made them) Psycho was a lower budget film shot in black and white with his crew from his TV show Alfred Hitchcock Presents, coming on the heels of the proto-blockbuster North by Northwest nd was subversive in its plot structure, particularly the murder of its supposed main character almost an hour in. The Birds showed Hitchcock forgoing plot almost all together in favor of atmosphere and metaphorical/apocalyptic horror.
The first way Hitchcock experiments in The Birds (and Psycho) is how he subverts genre expectations. The thing is, people walked in to Psycho knowing there was going to be a character who was a psycho. They also walked in to The Birds knowing there were going to be bird attacks. The suspense comes from how long Hitchcock takes to get to the shower scene and the initial bird attack. What Hitchcock does mischievously is begin the films not as horror but as a noir crime film (Psycho) and a romantic comedy (The Birds) It's almost a hour before Marion Crane (Janet Leigh), a bank clerk who steals money from work to start a life with her boyfriend, is killed in the infamous shower scene.
In The Birds it takes a half hour before a gull attacks socialite Melanie Daniels. The film begins with her being spotted at a bird store by Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), a lawyer whom recognizes her from court appearance regarding a practical joke. He pretends to mistake for a employee, giving her a taste of her own medicine. He thinks she should've gone to jail. She thinks he's "a louse." Basically, it's the "He's arrogant, she's stuck-up but they're obviously attracted to each other" romantic comedy set-up. Mitch inquired about some love birds for his sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright's) birthday so Melanie gets two and travels all the way to his family farm in Bodega Bay. While she's watching Mitch discover them from her boat, a gull attacks her. The gull attack parallels the shower scene- a stroke of violence in the midst of water, in a moment of calm. It also puts the audience on edge for another instance of violence.
The Birds also has something in common with one off Hitchcock's earlier film, Shadow of a Doubt (1943). In both, a small community is invaded by a sinister force. In the former it's a serial killer played by Joseph Cotton, in the latter it's, well...birds; but not only birds, but normally docile birds. In in the indispensable book Hitchcock/Truffaut, which transcribes interviews between Hitchcock and filmmaker Francois Truffaut, Hitchcock says "I think that if the story had involved vultures, or birds of prey, I might not have wanted it. The basic appeal to me is that it had to do with ordinary, everyday birds." Hitchcock contrasts these normal birds' usual docile nature with random bursts of violence. And like Shadow of a Doubt, the violence is juxtaposed with a low-key setting.
Truffaut later on in the interview says of The Birds' structure:
The story construction follows the three basic rules of classic tragedy: unity of place, of time, and of action. All of the action takes place within two days' time in Bodega Bay, The birds are seen in ever growing numbers and they become increasingly dangerous as the action progresses.
Screenwriter Evan Hunter and Hitchcock understand the need to make each attack bigger, until the film takes on apocalyptic overtones. By the climax it feels the like the world is ending. However, keeping the story in one setting and focusing on a small set of characters also makes the story intensely intimate. M. Night Shyamalan was clearly inspired by Hitchcock and this film when making his alien invasion thriller Signs, which I wrote about here: Davies in the Dark: The Essential Films: "Signs" (2002) (thenoirzone.blogspot.com)
I want to take some time now to focus on the character dynamics which foreground much of the film, particularly the relationship between Melanie and Mitch's mother, Lydia (Jessica Tandy), whom she meets after Mitch has looked to her wound. Mitch invites Melanie over for dinner where she also meets Cathy, who takes a immediate liking to Melanie, clearly liking her present. Lydia, however is more aloof. Melanie is staying with schoolteacher Annie Heyward, who once had a relationship with Mitch. That night, Melanie and Annie discuss Annie's former romance with Mitch and her complicated relationship with Lydia.
Annie: I was seeing quite a lot of him in San Francisco, you know. And then, one weekend, he asked me up to meet Lydia.
Melanie: When was this?
Annie: Four years ago. Of course, that was shortly after his father died. Things may be different now.
Melanie: Different?
Annie: With Lydia. Did she seem a trifle distance?
Melanie. A trifle.
Annie: Then maybe it wasn't different at all. You know, her attitude nearly drove me crazy. I simply couldn't understand it. When I got back to San Francisco I spent days trying to figure out just what I'd done to displease her.
Melanie: And what had you done.
Annie: Nothing. I simply existed. So what was the answer? A jealous woman, right? A clinging, possessive mother. Wrong. With all due respect to Oedipus, I don't think that was the case at all.
Melanie: Then what was it?
Annie: Lydia liked me, you see. That was the strange part of it. In fact, now that I'm no longer a threat, we're very good friends.
Melanie: Then why did she object to you?
Annie: She was afraid.
Melanie: Afraid you'd take Mitch?
Annie: Afraid I'd give Mitch.
Melanie: I don't understand.
Annie: Afraid of any woman who'd give Mitch the only she can give him- love.
Melanie: Annie, that adds up to a jealous, possessive woman.
Annie: No, I don't think so. She's not afraid of losing her son, you see. She's only afraid of being abandoned.
On a sidenote, Hunter's dialogue is so good. While Hitchcock always believed in the idea of "pure cinema," telling the story strictly through the visuals, his films often had stellar dialogue passages. What I like specifically about this passage is it's all about small but significant differences. While everything points to Lydia being a "jealous, possessive woman," Annie doesn't feel it's that simple. She can't see Lydia as purely jealous, she even says Lydia liked her. Annie also makes distinctions between fear of giving vs. fear taking and fear of lost vs. fear of abandonment. Minute differences but they tell us about how Annie views things and maybe tells us something about Lydia as well.
We get to understand Lydia quite a bit in a later scene, which comes after Lydia's seen the dead body (with eyes gouged out by birds) of a neighbor. She's alone with Melanie and in a vulnerable position. She talks about the death of her husband, her reliance on his strength throughout the years and her wish to be a stronger person. It's the first time Lydia warms up to Melanie and she says something surprising to her, which is she's not sure if she even likes Melanie. A honest statement, and one that reflects Lydia's complicated feelings towards Melanie and her relationship with her son. It'd be easy to just have Lydia outright hate Melanie but her confession feels more nuanced and sympathetic.
Mitch also has his own complicated relationship with Melanie. His lawyer side dislikes her troublemaking side but when he spies her on the boat, he smiles, amused, and probably surprised she went though all that trouble to bring hum those birds. He's clearly concerned when she's attacked by a gull and invites her over for dinner. So, he's not completely hostile towards her. And I suspect there was likely already an attraction towards her. There's something playful already at play in the initial encounter,
And how are we, the audience, supposed to take Melanie? She's maybe not as easily "likable" as the main character is "supposed" to be. Hitchcock, Hunter, and Hedren allow us to feel our way through the character as we learn more about and spend more time with her. I personally find Mitch to be kind of a judgmental ass at the beginning, though as I said, he's compensating a little for his attraction to her.. Watching the movie this time, I quite liked Hedren's performance. She has the right amount of cool and warmth needed for a character who goes from socialite who glides through life to a more mature, deeper feeling person who becomes part of the Brenner family. Just before the first bird attack at Cathy's, Melanie and Mitch have a conversation where Melanie, like Lydia a few scenes later, shows her vulnerability. We learn Melanie's mother abandoned her when she was young and Melanie tells about the things she does with her life, including putting a Korean boy through school. Of course, it's obvious what's Melanie is missing in her life- a family.
Okay, let's come back to how Hitchcock is experimenting in this film. What I find notable about The Birds in contrast to Hitchcock's other work is it's virtually plotless. Hitchcock usually has a Macguffin (the thing every character wants but doesn't matter what it is, it's just there to get the ball rolling), a murder, or an innocent man on the run. According to Hunter there was almost going to be a murder mystery plot, with the birds being the culprits. Instead, there's no real mystery except when the birds are going to attack. Hitchcock once used the example of a bomb under the table to highlight surprise vs. suspense. You see two men at a table. A bomb suddenly goes off- that's surprise. What's suspense is seeing the bomb under the table and wondering when it's going off. The film goes for the latter approach and I think that's the proper choice. It also allows the film to foreground the characters more.
I mentioned earlier the escalation of the bird attacks gave the film apocalyptic overtones, which again shows Hitchcock playing with something new- a world ending scenario, as well as a "monster movie." Hitchcock's monster were typically serial killers or Nazis. But here, the monsters aren't really monsters. Mother nature is simply fighting back against humanity for taking them for granted, or at least this was Hitchcock's explanation. I believe the film is thematically more fascinating and starker if there isn't an explanation for the bird attacks. In his book, Hitchcock's Films Revisited, Robin Wood views the birds as
a concrete embodiment of the arbitrary and unpredictable, of whatever makes human life and human relationships precarious, a reminder of fragility and instability that cannot be ignored or evaded and, beyond that, of the possibility that life is meaningless and absurd.
He also compares the bird attack to Marion murder in Psycho, in that they're both unprovoked and unearned. Horror often has a nihilistic streak to it. In horror we witness innocent people die and evil winning out. It's a ruthless genre and Hitchcock showed how ruthless he could be in Psycho. He further shows this mercilessness when Annie is unceremoniously killed by the birds offscreen. Annie's death is more painful because it's not seen and it demonstrates Hitchcock's preoccupation with placing us in the mind of his characters. We have to imagine Annie's end as Melanie and Mitch must do.
Aside from providing no clear explanation for the birds' war against humans Hitchcock also doesn't give us a neat ending either. Melanie and the Brenners live but the final shot is the car driving off in to an uncertain future, with the birds still covering the Brenner house, in what we already know is a short reprieve from the attacks. This is arguably the most ambiguous ending Hitchcock ever concocted, though Psycho and Vertigo's endings also create a sense of unease in the audience. The Birds was ahead of its time, for a Hollywood movie at least, in providing no clear finish for the story. The film end before it seems to end.
The only resolution the ending contains is the shared look between the injured Melanie and Lydia in the backseat of the car, suggesting Lydia has finally accepted Melanie and will care for her in her weakened state. Is the ending partly hopeful? I don't know. However, it does suggest that as the world is ending, people will stick together, that we need each other and must accept one another. It's also the resolution to Melanie's arc, where she starts out as an aloof loner but becomes part of a family.
Adding to the film's escalating terror is Hitchcock's choice to forgo an accompanying score, another experimental choice. During the bird attacks all you hear is the flapping of wings and squawking sounds. This accomplishes two things: giving you the felling of being in the middle of a bird assault, with your senses being overwhelmed. It's also another way the film sets itself apart from a traditional Hollywood feature. We may not first notice the absence of a musical score but when you realize it it's a brilliant way to an even stronger sense of fear in the audience. When Melanie is waiting outside the school for Cathy, the children's choir is the ironic soundtrack to the birds gathering behind Melanie on the jungle gym. George Tomasini's editing is so in tune with Hitchcock's dark sense of humour as the editing steadily builds the flocking of the birds behind the oblivious Melanie. Tomasini deserves recognition as being a key Hitchcock collaborator, editing several of Hitchcock's most famous films, including Psycho, Rear Window, and North by Northwest. He also edited the original Cape Fear, which I wrote about on this blog as having a heavy Hitchcock influence.
Why did Hitchcock move towards something more experimental, forgoing plot and certain Hitchcockian tropes. It may have something to do with Hitchcock's fascination with the international art house cinema of the 60s. Richard Allen, in his essay "Hitchcock and the Wandering Woman: The Influence of Italian Art Cinema on The Birds," argues that Hitchcock was
challenged and provoked by the remarkable and rapid developments taking place in European art cinema. The Birds was conceived by Hitchcock in part as a response to this challenge, a work that at once would continue continue his commercial success and confirm his status as an auteur on a par with the European directors he so admired. Hitchcock engaged with art cinema to inspire creativity and sustain his critical reputation
In an interview with Charles L.P. Silet, Hunter also makes the claim that Hitchcock want be seen as a serious artist:
Hitch also told me later, and I learned later from other sources, that he was looking for some 'artistic respectability' with The Birds. This was something that always eluded him, and he deliberately chose to work with a successful New York novelist, rather than a Hollywood screenwriter.
Hitchcock was embraced by the French critics as a genuine artist, an auteur, whereas he wasn't as highly regarded in the states, seen as more of an entertainer than an artist. Of course, he wasn't one who was reclaimed by the French: Howard Hawks, another great mesher of entertainment and artistry, was another to whom the French applied the Auteur Theory approach of criticism, the idea that the director was the "author" of their films and had a singular visual style and consisitent themes running through their work.
Not only did Hitchcock go to a novelist for screenwriting duties, he chose a short story from Daphne Du Maurier, the author who wrote the basis of his first American film, and the only one of his that won Best Picture: Rebecca. While Hitchcock considered Rebecca as belonging to its producer, David O.Selznick, he may have felt the Best Picture victory and Du Maurier's literary pedigree could provide him with the basis for a true artistic picture.
As relating to the thesis of Hitchcock being influenced by European cinema, Allen argues that The Birds shares quite a bit in common with F.W. Murneau's 1927 silent film, Sunrise, where a woman enters a small town to seduce a man who lives with the family. Allen argues that Hitchcock drawing from Murneau displays a return to Hitchcock's roots in the 1920s as a young filmmaker, where he also took inspiration from directors he admired. Allen also sees a reverse influence by way of Michelangelo Antonioni recontextualizing Rear Window and The Lady Vanishes in the shape of his 1960 film L'Avventura. In that film a woman goes missing, after which her boyfriend and friend engage in an affair, which echoes the disappearing women plots of the former films.
Allen further develops the Antonioni connection by citing David Bordwell's classification of the art house protagonist, a wanderer who is in a passive relationship with the environment. "The wandering woman" walks without purpose, and is both observed and observing. This is a character that can be found Antonioni's films in the form of actress Monica Vitti. Allen relates Melanie to the archetype of the wandering woman but stresses that the difference between the women in Hitchcock's film have agency, whereas the women in Antonioni's film don't. In the early parts of the film, where Melanie travels to Bodega Bay show us a woman on a mission but by showing us every part of her journey suggests something distinctly European in terms of plot, or lack of plot I should say. It's all very banal, but in its banality it creates the proper contrast to the gull attack.
I'd say Hitchcock combined the art-house with the monster movie, but also blurring those lines, where the birds take on the same thematic weight as the environments do in Antonioni. Admittedly, it wasn't until this viewing of The Birds and reading up and thinking about the connection between the art-house and Hitchcock that I saw it as the experimental work it really is. While Hitchcock would eventually retreat in to familiarity with Torn Curtain, when looking at Psycho, The Birds, and his next film, Marnie. these films showcase what could be called Hitchcock's art-house phase- and I think you can certainly add Vertigo in there as well. While some see these films as quaint, I'd argue they represent an artist in his later years re-thinking of what he was capable. The Birds is singularly Hitchcock, however one looks at it, however, and one of his boldest experiments in suspense.
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