The Birds 1963

Fig 1. Film Poster Director: Alfred Hitchcock The Birds is a 1963 horror film, loosely based on the story The Birds (1952), a novel by Daphne Du Maurier. The plot of the film features Melanie, a young socialite who meets Mitch in a San Francisco bird shop. Mitch asks Melanie for assistance on finding a pair of love birds, even though he knew that Melanie did not work at the store, and that she is the daughter of a man who owns a news paper company. After their small confrontation, Melanie decides to pull a prank, to deliver the love birds he originally requested to Mitch's house in Bodega Bay, California, where Mitch spends the weekends with his mother, Lydia, and sister Cathy, who's name Melanie finds out through Annie, a school teacher who moved to the Bay from the city, who reveals her self in the film to be an ex lover of Mitch. Mitch and Melanie grow fond of each other, where Mitch's mother have troubles accepting Melanie. A seagull seemed to have attacked Melanie when she was on a boat delivering the birds, and later, more and more bird attacks appear, until bird flocks in great masses are attacking the schools and the whole bay. The Birds is a film where the sub-context reveals a different story to the apparent, revealing a much more in depth look of the development of the characters and their relationships. In this film, it feels as if the masses of birds and the humans had switched roles. The humans are but the victims, and the birds are the planning enemy who strike people when they're most vulnerable,

like an army. This sense of the interrelatedness of the characters psyches and the violent actions of the birds is borne out by the way the film routinely emphasizes the human over the avian. The impulses of the birds themselves, unusual as they are, are not the subject of nearly so much discussion as those of the human characters, which seem routine, even melodramatic, by contrast..(L.Goldsmith, 2012). Goldsmith explains how this begins to describe the behaviour of the characters, how every human character had seemed to be previously, before the appearance of bird attacks, living quiet lives, the bay had nothing of particular to offer, it was very peaceful. The attack of the birds perhaps is not to tell a story of how birds managed to acquire the intelligence to organise such attacks, but to emphasize that the routine lives of these people has been disrupted by some uncontrollable event. But Hitchcock practices a sly bait-and-switch, collapsing our confusion and bewilderment about the behaviour of humans with that of the birds, and the film exploits this behaviour on the part of both species as, at once, an obstacle to the formation of the couple and the very means by which this formation will be enacted. (L.Godsmith, 2012) Here, Goldsmith explains perhaps a reason of the birds attacking. As in the film, at the cafe/bar, a woman declared, it is Melanie's fault that the birds are attacking, that it only began since she had arrived. The first attack of the birds we see, is the swooping seagull that attacks Melanie on the boat, her first attempt to make contact with Mitch after their meeting. As the film progresses, the relationship between Mitch and Melanie intensifies, as to the attacks of the birds. The birds seem to be like an external force trying to separate the couple, though the reason why of their attack could be perhaps because of protection of their home, as if the birds were to show the attitude and behaviour of the mother, Lydia, protecting her Son, or out of jealousy, the battle for attention from Mitch between the mother, Melanie, and Annie. Perhaps the safest guess is to take it on Freudian terms, that it's simply a tale of three needy woman (all can be viewed as birds) who all need a man to protect them from their fears and give them affection. If that's your take, then the climactic scene where the birds carry out a massive and unrelenting attack on the Brenner farmhouse could be seen as a sexual attack both on a possessive mom and on the beautiful perfect woman who is there to take away her son. As a result of the attack, Melanie has to exit the small town cowering, in a state of fright, in the arms of Lydia, after arriving as a free spirit who was on top of the world and sure that she can get away with anything because she's rich, beautiful and powerfully connected (D.Schwartz, 2007) Schwartz begins to explain how the use of birds has been used as an metaphor, and that the birds, which represent this fighting for attention, has resulted in the mother winning the battle for the son, as the last scene shows her giving Melanie motherly care and attention, not so much as if she has accepted Melanie as a lover to her son, but that she has accepted her as another child to look after and rely on attention for. Goldsmith explains how the use of bird qualities and the contrast of the people's lives have been carefully put into place to reveal the feelings of the characters about this conflict, The Birds represents better than any other Hitchcock film the extreme polarities of his universe: vicious unpredictability and moral and emotional disorder on the one hand, and rigorous stylistic control and formal organization, on the other. These contrasts are often at play in the directors work, but here they take on an almost compulsive quality, allowing Hitchcock full control over the orchestration of chaos and leaving his characters with no consolation but each others companionship. (L.Goldsmith, 2012)

Fig 2. Film still 1 When the idea of a love triangle between the 3 characters is considered, and that the attack of the birds is to express how the love triangle is preventing to formation of the couple, we can begin to visualize the birds being a metaphor for the females them selves. When we are first introduced to Melanie's character, she is shown as a beautiful young lady, with wealth, and qualities to her that we can consider bird like, as birds are often described as elegant, beautiful, stern, with sharp watching eyes, we can see some of these qualities in each of the women. Malanie in the pet shop scene, when attempting to assist Mitch, walks around gracefully, but also claws at the cages with her bright red nails, which are long like talons. The colour red appears on all 3 female characters, Melanie's nails & lips, Lydia's dress, and Annie's mailbox. Red is known to be representative of lust and passion, and perhaps in The Birds, it also is an indication of the character's jealousy and willingness to fight for attention, as Melanie's red lips seem to become more and more dull through out the film, until when she is in Lydia's arms, she has no colour on her lips at all, like she has given up all hope to battle any more to be the top of the love triangle.

Fig 3.Film Still 2 Hitchcock in The Birds uses the familiar against the characters to create a true

sense of vulnerability and fear, like in his previous films, like Psycho 1960. Birds have always known to be peaceful animals, that fly around gracefully, for birds to actively attack humans is unexpected, and terrifying, as what we have come to know to be comforting is now posing a thread to our lives. The birds represent the unpredictable and arbitrary element of life, the unacknowledged invisible forces of destruction, that cannot be explained or controlled with rational reasoning or common sense. Hitchcock is intrigued with showing how a peaceful scene or setting can turn into the most horrible and violent. (E.Levvy, 2012) Hitchcock made it so the birds could even infiltrate our very homes, where we are thought to be most safe, and the confusion as to why the birds are attacking, and there being no preventing of the bird attacks, and no fighting back, the feeling of helplessness is very vivid. With the use of sub context, what appears to just be a horror film can also be read as a film looking into the love triangle, the battle for attention from the male character, and how the fight resulted quite worryingly with the mother, Lydia on top, being able to continue being the needed role of the characters. Bibliography Dennis Schwartz (2007) The Birds in Ozus World Movie Reviews [online] at: http://homepages.sover.net/~ozus/birds.htm (Accessed 11/02/2013) Emanuel Levy (2012) The Birds in www.emanuellevy.com[online] at:http://www.emanuellevy.com/review/birds-the-hitchcocks-last-masterpiecepart-two-of-two-7/ (Accessed 11/02/2013) Leo Goldsmith (2012) The birds in www.notcoming.com [online] at: http://www.notcoming.com/reviews/the-birds/ (Accessed 11/02/2013) Illustrations: Fig.1 Film Poster (film poster):
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/The_Birds_original_poster.jpg

(accessed (accessed

11/02/2013) Fig 2. Film still 1 (film still):http://2.bp.blogspot.com/

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11/02/2013) Fig 3. Film still 2 (film still):http://pixhost.me/avaxhome/e6/4d/00244de6.jpeg (accessed 11/02/2013)