The Birds

Rating:
Summary: Birds of many feathers may flock together
Review: Strangely enough, or maybe not strangely at all, the film has aged. The building of the suspense, the progression from one strange behaviour of one bird to a mass attack from flocks, schools and shoals of birds is still perfect. We are also observing the building up of the hysterical attitudes of human beings in front of this situation, in all the shades and hues we can imagine. The bird-lover who does not want to believe it and turns against the stranger as the one who caused the disturbance. The drunkie who finds in the Bible the perfect explanation of the end of the world brought by birds. The rational policeman who refuses to believe it and tries to find some more criminal explanation. And then ordinary people who lose all sanity and become agressive, paranoiac and even psychotic under the shock when they realize that they cannor do anything against thousands of birds who are the perfect uncatchable army. Then Hitchcock goes a little bit further by showing how one or two people can remain sensible and resist the attack and run away without causing a new attack. But there is no hope, except to run away and hide. Against such a mass of assailants there is no real protection or defense. They can break windows, peck through roofs and doors. They are all-powerful. Hitchcock of course mixes a dose of humour in this drama, particularly in the first half with the meeting of his « Jane » and « his « Tarzan » in a bird shop where Tarzan, sorry Mitch, is looking for two lovebirds. Love indeed will come out of it, but on how many corpses and victims. Humour turns sour and bitter. But the ending is kind of flat : running away on tiptoe in a car after the battle lacks luster and shine, the flight of powerless people who cannot stand tall in front of danger. This is a new way of looking at the world. No fight is proper when you deal with a nearly invisible, innumerable and massive attacker. This is maybe a lesson about our modern world : we are very helpless in front of terrorism when it moves masses of warriors who do not fight according to standard war rules, methods and laws. How can you catch such enemies who are always on the move and are a multitude of unpredictable kamikazes ?

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU


Rating:
Summary: A classic although not my favorite.
Review: I loved The Birds. Tippi Hedron does a very convincing job playing the spoiled socialite. Very understated and not something one would expect from a girl who loves practical jokes and swimming nude in fountains. In fact she appears to be quite the opposite, which makes it so convincing. No stereotype here (although I wondered how she was able to walk around in those stilletos all the time without her feet getting sore).
Rod Taylor is handsome and caring as Mitch and together they make a good looking couple.
Hitchcock takes his time with this movie. There's no rushing it as Melanie smokes a cigarette while the birds gather behind her. And yet it's still interesting to watch.
There's backstory here with interesting family dynamics.
Now the problems I had with the movie.
The romance seems sudden. Melanie and Mitch don't know each other and yet they are suddenly in the kitchen touching and acting as if they had been a couple for awhile. Wouldn't Mitch find it strange that a woman would suddenly show up on his doorstep with lovebirds? Kind of eerie. Yet he invites her to stay the weekend.
When they birds are attacking them in the house, no one says a word, there are no screams, is that realistic? Spooky yes, but realistic?
The scene with the children running from the school may have been convincing in it's day (good job Hitch) but now it does look fake although it's easy enough to put the fakeness aside for the fear of seeing those birds attack the children.
Mitch took the time boarding up the windows. This bothered me most about the movie. Wouldn't it have made more sense to grab his family and take them to his apartment in San Francisco? Why spend time boarding windows?
That house wasn't very well built since the birds were able to peck their way through outside walls and roofs.
Why did Melanie go upstairs. Why not call Mitch to come with her? And why did she shut herself in the room. You don't actually walk in. You would shine the light, see the birds and quickly shut the door.
When they did decide to finally leave, they chose to drive Melanie's convertable with the cloth roof instead of the sturdier truck. If the birds are going to attack, wouldn't they peck their way through the roof?
Still in spite of this I did enjoy the movie and the end was perfect. It left you with questions which is what the director probably meant to do.
I still prefer the much quieter Hitchcock movie "Rope" where two young men kill their friend and then hide him in the trunk where they serve a buffet at a dinner party.