Movie: The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
You watch this with a smile on your face and a knot in your stomach. It's completely glorious from the opening scenes, and Melanie's (Tippi Hedren) arrival at the school signals the beginning of one of the most successfuly sustained stretches of sublimely inspired filmmaking I've ever seen. From there onward the film consists of one elaborate suspense sequence after another (the absolute highlight is the diner scene, which hilariously and steadily keeps increasing the people taking part in a conversation, derailing it from its main point and purpose, until there is a sudden disturbance at the gas station across the street), with the conclusion of each setpiece serving as the setup fot the next one.
If this isn't enough, The Birds also has great dialogue, fantastically realised characters, an eerily effective sound design that makes the flapping of bird wings sound like war in an industrial zone, and an unbelievable commitment to craft. Creating mechanical birds that look completely realistic in close up is impressive in and of itself; training actual birds to attack actors in a way that fits the overarching vision and story is an act of gloriously irrational confidence. Hitchcock then goes even one step further by seamlessly combining the two approaches, allowing him to create some deeply uncomfortable shots, isolating frightened humans vis-à-vis large amounts of agressive looking birds on the verge of attack. Praising all this, one would almost forget that the performances are as accomplished as everything else. Even the smallest of roles is imbued with genuine, authentic character touches; for evidence, look at the waitress screaming to warn the gas pumping man about to be blown up. This directly leads to a brilliant shot of the city on fire, seen from the point of view of birds descending on it, which is shortly afterwards followed by a series of almost abstract closeups of Hedren shielding from the threat in a phone booth.
Hitchcock's firing on all cilinders here, but he also somehow feels more disciplined than usual. The Birds follows what may well be the most influential three film stretch in cinema history, but it is to me far superior to North By Northwest, Psycho, or Vertigo. All three films are interesting, but I've always found them a bit frustrating as they feel hermetically sealed off from the real world, tying themselves up in knots to force their 'Hitchcockian' obsessions. The key to what makes The Birds special is the recognisable ordinariness surrounding the angry brids, most notably the budding romance between Melanie and Mitch (Rod Taylor). They are irresponsible playful lovebirds when they can be and mature adults when they need be.
In my piece on Portrait of A Lady on Fire, I wrote that the film understands that love is not something that encompasses and defines the entirety of our lifes, but rather that it is special, because it is something that you have to make time for next to the ordinary responsibilities of daily life. The Birds is another film that gets this. We get to know Taylor and Hedren as goofballs who fall in love with each other while playfully exploring their crush. They also understand that their love might be challenging for Mitch's mom Lydia (Jessica Tandy), who has lost her husband four years ago and is now terrified of being left to live alone, as well as to Annie (Suzanne Pleshette), a former flame of Mitch, currently a good friend of the family and the schoolteacher of Mitch's much younger sister.
The film takes its time in portraying this challenging situation, making clear that Annie and Lydia don't feel too easy about what's happening, while also being mature and loving enough to understand that they should adapt to the situation. At the same time, Melanie and Mitch, aware of the feelings of these people they care about, are careful and delicate in their behavior towards them. As a result, the potential challenges to the film's central relationship are solved relatively painlessly, because all key characters are reasonably well-adjusted human beings who respond plausibly to kindness, pleasantness and love. This applies to Bodega Bay as a whole. It's an ordinarily pleasant place to be. There are no hidden disturbances beneeth the surface, but it's not an utopia either. Similarly, as a place that is one hour away from San Franciscio, it's not a great metropolis, but it's also not a town that finds the need to define itself in opposition to the big city.
Hitchcock establishes the city and the characters' relationships long before the birds attack, which allows the attacks to be a fully separate phenomenon. They are no metaphor for anything, they don't serve a lesson to Bodega Bay or to its people, they are no punishment or premonition, and they don't give us any insights into Bodega Bay, Mitch or Melanie. They are just a thing that can't be explained and that has no rhyme or reason to exist, and not just from the fictional perspective of Bodega Bay. The film itself could easily exist without the birds. It would just be a comfortable romantic comedy about two likable mature people with a shared sense of humor, a shared love for each other and the people around them and a shared commitment to this love. This set up just makes the bird attacks, and the characters' response to them, more visceral, more uncomfortable and more tense.
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