SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.
Cages. Humans are the
only beings that put other living creatures in them. Alfred Hitchcock in his
youth was truant from school once, and was placed in a jail cell for a period
of time by a policeman who wanted to teach him a lesson. It certainly did. Hitchcock has used the theme of the threat of
incarceration in several films. Confinement symbolizes how we selfishly wish to
control the world, sometimes at the world’s expense.
Hitchcock's The Birds
starts in a pet store, where all types of animals are in cages. Mitch (Rod
Taylor) is looking for love birds for his young sister (Veronica Cartwright). Melanie (Tippi Hedrin) wants a mynah bird. Melanie
is supposedly mistaken by Mitch for the sales lady, but he realizes she is the
daughter of a big time newspaper publisher. She has led a rather reckless life,
consorting with people who like to party. He mentions how she lives in a
"gilded cage." It is difficult even for her to escape confinement,
although hers is an affluent cell. He is a lawyer and admits to wanting to put
people in jail. The theme of the human desire for confinement has been
immediately established.
Melanie wears a fur coat (animal cruelty?) and invades
Mitch's privacy by using sources to find out where he lives (Bodega Bay ).
When she gets there, the man who helps her rent a boat to surprise the sister
with love birds looks like he works behind a cage-like structure. Melanie is a
predator, a bird of prey perhaps, hunting Mitch down, possibly wanting to cage
him for herself. She invades his "nest" – his hometown and his
family, which includes Mitch's mother played by Jessica Tandy. Melanie drives
recklessly, too. She does not care about the harm she may inflict, but only wants
self-gratification. When Mitch's ex-girlfriend, Annie (Suzanne Pleshette), asks
who is knocking at her door, Melanie’s self-centered answer is "Me." She
is sexually aggressive even in front of the ex-girlfriend, lies to Mitch about
previously knowing Annie, and pushes Annie into letting her stay at her house. A
bird slams into the door, as if to punctuate Melanie's self-involved audacity. At
least in the beginning of the film she is representative of the selfish aspect
of humanity that doesn't consider the disastrous repercussions of that
self-centeredness.
Melanie's actions seem to set off the subsequent bird
attacks. The ones involving children are especially chilling. First, there is one at the sister's birthday
party. Then, there is an assault at the school, a place of innocence, where the
students are singing a sweet, sing-song tune as the crows gather on the monkey
bars where the children would normally play at recess. The placement of this
attack is, thus, ironic. The school is a place where we should learn, but it
emphasizes that we have not learned how to respect the world around us, and nature
in particular, as we satisfy our wants.
As the birds continue their attacks, it is the people
who are now confined, hiding to protect themselves. Melanie and the children
are cornered in a car. She is trapped in a claustrophobic phone booth as the
birds ram into it. Townspeople and visitors huddle in the diner. When a woman
confronts Melanie as the prime mover of these events, she stares right into the camera, basically accusing the
audience of causing this horror, and calling us evil. In this scene, Hitchcock
is indicting us all.
In the shot where the camera pulls back and looks down at
the burning gas station, and the birds come into view as they fly down for an
attack, it looks as if God is sending angels of death down as a punishment. The
story is a bleak one. It is "the end of the world" as the scripture
quoting character in the diner says. The only hope given us at the end as Mitch
drives his family away from the house, is that Melanie, in her fragile state,
is now part of the family, and the mother appears to be ready to resume her
role as a nurturer, taking the young woman under her wing. But, they take the
lovebirds with them, as pets still in a cage, implying that the humans have
learned nothing.
Next week’s movie is The
Road to Perdition.
Thanks for your comment. Hitchcock always has so much going on in his films. Besides the ones I already have analyzed, I'll be doing posts on "Psycho" and "Rear Window" in the future.
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