Hitchcock’s “The Birds”: Review & Analysis of Main Elements

The Birds [1963] – ★★★★★

🐦 Fifty-five years on, Alfred Hitchcock’s highly atmospheric, suspenseful and original horror creation is still a “must-see” film.

This film by the “master of suspense”, Alfred Hitchcock, takes inspiration from a story by Daphne Du Maurier (Rebecca (1940)) of the same name, and is about strange behaviour of birds in Bodega Bay, California. The centre of the story is Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a wealthy socialite, who romantically pursues a lawyer, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). While we watch this pair’s romantic tension and a love triangle developing, the birds in the area start to attack people, and what initially looks like a light and intriguing romance story takes a sinister turn as we are confronted with unimaginable horrors. Technically complex, The Birds represents one of Hitchcock’s most admirable accomplishments. In it, an intriguing romance story with some thought-provoking elements meets an original take on horror, and the result is a truly classic, “must-see” film.

The Birds starts innocently enough: one wealthy and opinionated young woman, Melanie Daniels, meets one charming young lawyer, Mitch Brenner, in a pet shop in San Francisco. However, this is no ordinary Hollywood romance. Unusual by the standards of that time, Hedren plays a strong-willed, clever lady who first teases the man she fancies and then pursues him actively. Even though Melanie is presented as feminine, enticing and flirty, we also guess that she is not “one’s usual blond” or spoiled socialite. There is more to her than first meets the eye. As she encounters Mitch in a pet shop, she lets him believe that she is a shop-assistant, and advises him on a type of bird to buy for his sister for her birthday. Mitch, who is “all-man”, from his jaw line to his “serious profession”, in turn, tries to pinpoint her weaknesses in knowledge. The “battle of wits” between the characters of Hedren and Taylor is fascinating to watch because we sense that, even though both try to outsmart each other, they also feel strong mutual attraction. Even before any birds come into play, the film already shines with wonderfully-constructed scenes and interesting dialogues.

To describe the film as pure fiction will also not be entirely correct since Hitchcock was aware of news circulating at the time that told of people being attacked by birds without any explanation, and the film progresses forward paying only slight attention to the birds’ growing threat. When Melanie visits the pet shop, there are many birds flying in the sky, but nothing at all hints at the disaster that awaits everyone. That is the genius of Hitchcock – to drop small hints and messages to the audience here and there, which then accumulate to produce an effective overall result. One of the first incidents of the birds’ invasion is when Melanie gets struck by a gull in her small boat as she visits Mitch’s home. She is on the mission to give a secret present of love-birds to Mitch’s young sister, Cathy. As is typical of Hitchcock, it is not words, but actions that speak the loudest in the film. Rebuffed by Mitch in their first meeting, Melanie takes matters into her own hands and goes to some lengths to buy love-birds for Cathy, find out Mitch’s real name and then go all the way to Bodega Bay and to Mitch’s house to “secretly” leave the birds there. All the theatricality and that obsession with an observer’s point of view so prevalent in Hitchcock’s Rope (1948) and Rear Window (1954) are also on display in The Birds, especially in the scene where Mitch takes binoculars to look for Melanie, as the latter attempts to make her getaway by boat after leaving behind the recently purchased love-birds.

We then uncover deeper layers to Melanie’s character as her relationship with Mitch grows, and the interesting personalities of Mitch’s mother and the local school teacher emerge. Annie Hayworth (Suzanne Pleshette) who works at the Bodega Bay School invites Melanie into her house to stay the night, and we learn that Hayworth has her own story to tell about Mitch and his family. The classical “blond vs. brunette” psychological battle for the man (Mitch) ensues, only to be overshadowed by the equally compelling presentation of the character of Jessica Tandy, who plays Lydia Brenner, Mitch’s mother. The Psycho (1960)’s influence is felt when Lydia’s overprotective manner towards her son and the fear of loneliness attempt to derail Melanie’s schemes towards Mitch. Despite the slow, unhurried scenes, the tension between the characters is fascinating to behold, especially as Lydia feels more and more threatened and intimidated by the courageous and determined blond who seems to be after her son. 

Hitchcock’s ability to present the most innocent things as potentially dangerous was next to none. The scene where children sing at school turns unnerving when birds start to gather around the premises. Birds then clearly start to attack people in the story, such as during Cathy’s birthday party or on the school premises, and it is impossible not to comment here on the technical feat of the film. Hitchcock achieved something nearly impossible in The Birds by the standards of that time, experimenting non-stop. There is an effective fast-editing of key scenes, and paintings were often used to make complicated long shots. However, Hitchcock also had recourse to a new invention called “yellow screen” (the odium vapour process) under the guidance of Disney employees for some birds scenes, as well as to the precursor of today’s modern electronic music – the electronic sound composition pioneered in Germany.

There are no explanations given why birds attack people in the film, and that had caused many theories to be put forward over the years. Something strange is happening in the story and it seems that nature may be “taking back control”. In the film, Melanie is dressed in green, and Mitch sports dark green trousers, which may hint at this couple’s “nature”/”birds” implications, with green being the colour of both “the unusual” and nature. Even the story’s pet shop may stand for the image of humans “enslaving” the birds, and now these birds have decided to “take revenge”, seeing that humans take delight and amusement in having birds as their pets. The love-birds bought by Melanie are seen in a cage, subdued and are under control of the humans, and these provide a nice contrast to the wild “bird-beasts” (black ravens) attacking children in the film.

There is also the so-called “Freudian” explanation for the behaviour of birds in the film. According to this explanation, birds are linked to women in the film and, in particular, to women around Mitch: Lydia, Annie and Kathy. Another female arrives at the scene – Melanie, who is neither too old (Lydia) nor too young (Cathy), nor even the past (Annie), but all the future possibilities, and the birds try “to regain back” the control by attacking either Melanie or those around her. The birds are the innate anger and tension directed at the newcomer. In the film, one woman points her finger at Melanie as being the cause of the recent disturbance, and, in fact, the majority of the birds’ attacks in the story happen when Melanie is in the vicinity. 

Alfred Hitchcock successfully crafted an unusual romance, an unusual intrigue and an unusual horror story, and the film works wonderfully on all these levels. The film awes even today with its atmosphere, attention to detail, directing and acting. The Birds was a film which was extremely challenging to film technically and, on that basis alone, is a great accomplishment. The weakest part of the film is still its ending, which simply leaves one hoping for a continuation and does not come to any meaningful conflict resolution. Even so, whether one looks at the film as an effective and original horror mystery, as a strange romance story with horror background or as a thought-provoking piece of art, whose Freudian or other meanings must be distilled, – all versions are equally compelling. 

**SPOILER ALERT**

The ending of The Birds is as much talked about feature as its main premise. The ending of the final film shows Melanie’s car, with Mitch, Melanie, Lydia and Cathy in it, moving away from the house, with thousands of birds sitting quietly on all the roads, electric wires and fences. Arguably, this is a rather unfortunate, clearly underdeveloped ending as it provides neither a satisfactory conclusion to the story nor hints at deeper insight or explanations.

Hitchcock toyed with a number of different endings, and the original ending included in the script was never shot, largely for technical reasons and to the surprise of the screenwriter. Had the original ending been filmed, it would have provided for a more satisfactory resolution. The original ending showed the true devastation of the town (including corpses laying around) and the birds even sitting on the Golden Gate Bridge, cementing the point that the birds might have won in this battle. More importantly, the original ending was written in such a way that it becomes clear that Melanie and Lydia finally truly reconcile. In the ending, Melanie and Lydia console/hug each other in the car, with the clear meaning being that Melanie has finally found her “true mother” in Lydia, and Lydia accepted the fact that her son has finally found his “true match”. Taking into account the Freudian explanation of the story, that clear reconciliation between Melanie and Lydia would have signalled the fact that birds will not attack anyone anymore as Melanie is no longer viewed as an outsider, being a part of the family and the community.