#2 - The Birds

Tim and I watched The Birds on New Years day. We just recently watched Psycho and North By Northwest for the first time so we're on a bit of a Hitchcock kick. That there Alfred Hitchcock was a pretty darn good film maker. Did you know that? I think I saw it when I was little but the only thing I remember is the phone booth scene and that's most likely just because it has been parodied so many times.
 

Watch the trailer  

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Written By: Daphne Du Maurier
                  (story)

                  Evan Hunter
                  (screenplay)

Starring: Rod Taylor
             Tippi Hedren
             Jessica Tandy
             Suzanne Pleshette
             Veronica Cartwright


Plot Synopsis
Melanie Daniels is a spoiled bitch with an undeserved sense of entitlement. She is the daughter of a wealthy newspaper tycoon in San Francisco and is often the subject of scandal. So she's essentially Paris Hilton, she even kinda looks like her. So bitch-face is in a pet store being horrible when she runs into Mitch Brenner who is looking for love birds for his younger sister's birthday. He calls her out on her shit which intrigues her for some reason. So Melanie stalks Mitch all the way to Bodega Bay, which is unbelievably beautiful, where he is visiting his mother and sister. She brings the love birds to his house and he invites her to dinner. She meets his much younger sister Cathy and his creepy mother Lydia. Cathy wants Melanie to come to her birthday party so she needs a place to stay for the night. She shacks up with Cathy's teacher Annie, who was an old girlfriend of Mitch's and Oh yeah birds are attacking and killing everyone!

Review
The Birds is set in Bodega Bay which is absolutely breathtaking. Tim and I were saying we'd love to visit. But I was feeling disheartened about it because I was worried that the lush green hills had been ruined with commercial and domestic development. Tim looked it up to see if it was still as beautiful today and it is thankfully intact. I've only watched 3 Hitchcock films so far so I'm not claiming to be an expert on his work but that's not going to stop me from pretending that I am. He gets the best performances out of his actors. The characters are charming and you empathize with them even if you think they're spoiled bitches. God fucking dammit writing movie reviews is hard! It's The Birds, of course it's amazing! Okay how about this? Even if there were no killer birds it would still be an amazing movie. I love the way the looming terror of the birds slowing builds. The first hour of the movie barely has any mention of them. The subtlety of Melanie looking up at some rather normal birds and feeling like there's something slightly odd about them for no overt reason is genius. No reason is ever given for the murderous behavior of the birds. Can you imagine how potentially awful a reason could have been? I very much appreciate that level of mystery and the room for speculation. The "why?" makes it all the more terrifying. The threat of the birds can be summed up in one brilliant scene. Melanie is waiting outside the schoolhouse for Cathy. She's sitting on a bench with her back to an empty jungle gym. We see one crow fly up and land on it. Then another. Then one more.....until we go to a shocking establishing shot of the jungle gym completely covered with crows. It seriously made me make an audible terrified noise. The fact that the birds are often puppets or animated doesn't take anything away. I guess it's kind of needless to say that there are countless beautiful shots seeing as how it's Hitchcock. The last shot being possibly the most stunning shot I've ever seen. I'm going to end it here because I'm beating myself up over this for no real reason.