The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock was a very confusing film to say the least. Throughout the film I found myself asking what the purpose of this film could be but I could not seem to find the answer. But nonetheless, the film starts off with many black birds flying across the sky which was obviously a key part of the film, foreshadowing what is to come. Melanie Daniels was a person known to get herself into trouble and Mitch Brenner was a lawyer, the two found themselves in a bird shop and began talking. Mitch was in the bird shop to find his little sister lovebirds for a birthday present, and Melanie happened to be in the right place at the right time. When Mitch left she was intrigued by Mitch's charm and decided to buy lovebirds and take them to his residents. But she discovered the he goes to Bodega Bay over the weekends. She then proceeds to drive herself to Bodega bay and soon tracks down Mitch and discretely leaves the birds at Mitch's house but she doesn't go noticed. While she is rowing back to the boat rental dock she was attacked by a blackbird, this is where we get a first glimpse of what these birds are going to do. Melanie ends up staying the entire weekend and slowly everything starts going south. Soon, the bird attacks start occurring but become more and more frequent. It comes to a point where everyone in the town thinks that Melanie is the cause of this chaos in what is otherwise a peaceful town. But soon everyone begins to realize there is something going on that is much deeper than meets the eye. Eventually, the bird attacks become much stronger and begin to kill more people and even boarded up houses are no match for these psychotic birds. The film ends in a strange way because the birds don't attack Mitch and his family or Melanie as they are leaving town. But the real frustrating part was the viewer never finds out what was motivating the birds to cause so much terror. For much of this movie there is a bird in the scene and Hitchcock did a fantastic job making them look like they were the ones in charge. "Birds control the actions of the characters from the very beginning. The film’s first shot, which is an establishing frame of San Francisco, swoops down and picks up the motions of Melanie Daniels as she approaches a pet store" (Saporito). I think this was a key part of the film because it really brought to picture what was happening. It brought to attention of what was to come throughout the rest of the film. During the rest of the film, Hitchcock does a fantastic job making the birds look like they are the ones calling the shots. To when the birds are sitting and waiting on the jungle gym, to when they are sitting and waiting for the family and Melanie to leave at the end of the film. They were really the underlying makers of the film. This film is made up of a lot of foreshadowing and symbolism. I think that there was no greater form of foreshadowing than when Melanie and Mitch's mother meet for the firm time. Mitch's mother seems to have her doubts about Melanie and questions Mitch's choice in women. This raised a big red flag because whenever a mother disapproves of someone their son is seeing that's always a bad sign. His mother went as far as bringing up a incident that Melanie had while on vacation, but that was quickly dismissed as a act of revenge against her fathers newspaper company. Its made very clear from the beginning that Mitch's mother does not like Melanie and apparently neither do the birds. "It’s as if she brings this bird craziness upon them to rid their lives of Melanie, the potential threat to her family" (Boverg). This made so much sense to me after the movie because it makes you think about what the mothers role in the movie really is. All shes does in the movie is disapprove of Melanie and scream in an annoying manor when the birds attack. I think that this movie could have been made without her in it. But, nearly every time she sees Melanie and Mitch together, the birds attack shortly after.
"The lack of a score in this film totally makes you realize how alone you can feel among all these birds" (Boverg). I realized this about halfway through the movie and it confused me a little bit. This was the first movie I have ever seen that didn't have any sort of music playing throughout the movie. When the movie begins, there are birds chirping and it carries throughout the film. But during the beginning the viewer gets a sense that this is going to be a happy movie about two people who are attracted to each other but clearly that is not the case. The score of this film was created solely on the reliance of the evil birds, every time they attacked you would hear the terrifying shriek. This movie was definitely not my favorite, but now after writing about it I understand why we watched it. Its so different than any movie I have ever seen it made me look for differences. It made me think deeper about what each character was symbolizing and what was their significance to the plot of the movie.
1 Comment
Carissa Tinker
3/13/2017 08:46:06 am
I like the connection you made with Mitch's mother and her screaming going almost hand-in-hand with the attacks from the birds. I also liked that you pointed out the lack of scoring throughout the film, making you feel like the characters were completely surrounded and alienated because of them.
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AuthorI normally only watch comedies and action movies so this should be an interesting change. Archives
May 2017
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