Hitchcocktober Episode 4: The Birds

By Philip Tallon

 

The Birds is easily my favorite Hitchcock film after Rear Window, even though it is not top shelf* Hitchcock and has a number of aesthetic/formal flaws.**

*NOTE 1: First string Hitchcock is, for me: Rear Window, Vertigo, Psycho, The Lady Vanishes, The 39 Steps, Rebecca, North by Northwest.

Second string includes, but is not limited to: Sabateur, Notorious, Shadow of a Doubt, The Birds, Sabotage, The Man Who Knew Too Much, etc.

Third string: Anything equal to or worse than Torn Curtain to anything better than Frenzy.

Fourth string: Frenzy, or anything worse than Frenzy.

**NOTE 2: The Birds' aesthetic flaws include the occasional hokeyness of the bird-effects, the lapses in Tippi Hedren's performance, and at least one bad sight gag (the love birds on the perch in the car). The major flaw is simply that Hitchcock explores the horror genre through such an oddly disparate threat. Birds just aren't scary to most viewers. So the film requires a generous heaping of suspension of disbelief in order to engage with its plot.

Anyway, the point is that The Birds is my second favorite Hitchcock film even though there are at least six films I know are better.

So why do I like The Birds so much?

It certainly isn't the complexity of the story. The story of The Birds is straightforward. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) and Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) meet in a bird shop. Melanie is established as a dilettante prankster, a society girl who's in the shop buying a Minah bird, which she will train to curse and then gift to her aunt.  Mitch enters the shop, soliciting Melanie's advice as if she works there, and Melanie (reinforcing this impish characteristic) pretends to be the shopkeeper - though her ruse is quickly seen through, as she accidentally releases a canary from its cage. Mitch reveals that he was in on the joke the whole time, tossing his hat on the bird, and then returning it, saying, "Back in your guilded cage, Melanie Daniels." Annoyed by Mitch's presumptuousness and arrogance, Melanie buys a pair of lovebirds to give to Mitch, which she tries to drop off at his apartment, but, discovering he has left to go home for the weekend, she decides to travel to Bodega Bay, a small town up the coast from San Francisco.

Once in Bodega Bay, Melanie delivers the love birds, leaving them at Mitch's mother's bayside house and escaping by boat. Because of the transparency of her prank, she is quickly discovered by Mitch. Although there is already an obvious flirtation between the two, the relationship is quickly taken to the next level of intimacy when Melanie is attacked by a seagull as she brings her boat up to dock. Mitch hustles her into a local diner where she is treated for her cut and decides to stay the night in town. 

The next day, during Mitch's young sister's birthday party, the children are violently attacked by more seagulls - the first of a series of bird attacks that occur over the next two days, killing many town residents and one main character. The film ends with the main characters escaping from the town, which has been overtaken by birds.

This set-up is pretty simple and effective. The story is basic. What's so compelling about the filmmaking is how effectively Hitchcock orchestrates the film's fairly simple elements - the relationships, the cinematography, and sound - to create a little world.

1. Relationships in Hitchcock films are rarely complex or well-developed. The director often relies on his A-list talent to make unbelievable situations more emotionally compelling and real than they actually are. This is why Hitchcock films without Jimmy Stewart, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, or other top stars are far less classic. The Birds suffers slightly from this problem. Tippi Hedren fits the part well, and while she is believable in her role, she fumbles in the film's more emotional moments. Jessica Tandy and Suzanne Pleshette both outclass Hedren in their performances, but not to any great degree. 

Despite Hitchcock's relative lack of interest in creating naturalistic situations, he uses the prevalence of women to explore (not deeply, but still effectively) the inter-relationships of the women that surround Mitch (the "birds" in his life). The emotional tension of the film is between newcomer Melanie, Mitch's mother, and Mitch's former lover, Annie. Both Mitch's mother and Annie are suspicious of Melanie. Annie is skeptical that Melanie will have a successful relationship with Mitch, insinuating that he is forever unattached. She even plants a seed in Melanie's mind that Mitch's mother is rabidly jealous of any women in his life, fearful that they will give Mitch the love she cannot. 

Though these are by no means deep or wildly original themes, Hitchcock (and screenwriter Evan Hunter) carry them to completion, suggesting that Annie's suspicions are not completely correct to begin with, but also showing that these tendencies exist in Mitch's mother. This subtle retuning of our perceptions shows, to my mind, a streak of mature understanding tempering what is in many other ways a pure exercise in genre. Spielberg's Jaws has much the same effect (though by using a more realistic style, showing the influence of verite filmmaking after Hitchcock's heyday), picturing fairly simple characters with just enough grain to suggest a more detailed portrait.  

2. The cinematography and sound design are both exactly right. The rich colors and muted, analog sound are byproducts of bygone filmmaking, but they also perfectly support the sensuous feel of the film. There are also intentional choices that Hitchcock makes that add to the effect. Notably, Hitchcock employs no music in The Birds. Though composer Bernard Herrmann is recruited for the project, he primarily helps Hitchcock generate the sounds of the birds (TRIVIA: one of the first uses of computers in the history of film). The entire movie is blanketed by a sort of peaceful, seaside hush. 

As with Rear Window, Hitchcock's elimination of all but diagetic sound creates a stronger sense of place than is found in most of his other films. In one scene, Melanie and Annie (Suzanne Pleshette) discuss Mitch, the object of both their interests. This discussion is cut short by a thump on the door (something that could not be heard if music were playing). Looking outside, Annie and Melanie see a bird lying on the porch, his neck broken. "Maybe he got lost in the dark," Annie says. "But Annie, it's not dark outside. There's a full moon," Melanie responds, as they both look out at the aforementioned full moon. This scene ends in silence and fades quietly to black.

In the theater, contemporary audiences invariably laugh at this moment - as they do for most of the film's lead up to the bird attacks. But there's nothing particularly funny about this moment. Nor is there anything particularly scary about this moment. I suspect that the audiences laugh because they don't have anything else to do, and want to feel something about the film. This, however, is one of my favorite moments in the movie. It isn't scary or funny, but it is enchanting. It feels as common as any moment from real life, but somehow elevated into a different plane. It's quiet, and a little banal, but also meaningful. It feels like the way I want my life to feel all the time.

Sometimes this is how my life feels, but not enough. Being an overstimulated consumer (willingly or otherwise), my life is filled with noise, and I feel uncomfortable with too much silence. In The Birds, on the other hand, the quiet moments feel pregnant with meaning normally missing from everyday life. The later destruction and chaos of the movie work backwards and make the earlier scenes more peaceful and beautiful. 

3. This brings me to the third, and main thing, I love about The Birds. As I mentioned in my last post, Hitchcock's movies strike me as noir fairy tales. The Birds, in some ways, is the least noir and the most fairy tale (though North by Northwest may be a close second). With its quietness and exploration of place, The Birds has a highly literary tone. It looks the way that books feel. Or, perhaps more accurately, it feels the way maps at the front of fantasy books look. From the spontaneous journey from San Francisco to Bodega Bay, to Melanie's attempt to find Mitch's house, her boat rental, and failed prank, to the simple but believable inter-relationships of the townspeople, The Birds doesn't exactly feel realistic, but it does feel real. I know I can go to the real Bodega Bay. It exists. But I also feel that I could go to Hitchcock's Bodega Bay. And I want to go there, birds and all. 

Not enough movies give me this feeling. This sense of place is one of my favorite aesthetic experiences. This is why The Birds is my second favorite Hitchcock movie, and why I think it is a great film, even if - at times - it isn't even a particularly good film.

By Philip Tallon