Figure 1.

The Birds, 1963

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock, 'The Birds' is perhaps the first ever nature vs man horror. The plot begins in San Francisco, where socialite Melanie Daniels meets lawyer Mitch Brenner in a pet shop. Sparks immediately fly and on a whim Melanie decides to track Mitch down, taking with her a pair of love-birds. She follows him to Bodega Bay, a small town where Mitch spends his weekends with his mother, Lydia and young sister, Cathy. However, soon after her arrival, a series of mysterious, violent bird attacks occur. As the number of birds and deaths rise, the family barricade themselves inside Lydia's house. After an extreme attack on the house and Melanie falling victim to an onslaught, the family flee to San Francisco.

In the tradition of small-town works, one-parent families prevail in The Birds. The Brenner family is headed by Lydia, a widow; her husband died four years ago. And Melanie recalls how her mother ditched us at the age of eleven. Mitch believes that Melanie needs a mother care, and, at the end, she does get such care from Lydia, who helps to band-aid her. The very last image shows Melanie in the arms of Lydia. (Levy, 2011)

Figure 2.

Unlike in 'Rope' and 'Psycho', there is no real closure. The audience never finds out the source of the bird attacks and the character's don't conquer them but rather flee from the town. In classic narrative structure there are three parts; beginning with an equilibrium that is ruined by a rupture of some kind, this leads to a dis-equilibrium. Once the obstacle is over-come, resolution, there is a sense of new equilibrium that is different from the original. In the case of 'The Birds' when Melanie arrives at Bodega Bay, the town is content with only a hint of trouble in the unusual behaviour of the birds. Soon after her arrival the birds start attacking, acting as a rupture to the set up. However, the third act doesn't seem satisfying as no new balance is created in the bay. Although, Lydia, Mitch's mother, does present an uncomfortable closure when Melanie and her children are all under her protection, and therefore influence.

Certainly, one of the major forces Mitch and Melanie must contend with is Lydia, Mitchs skittish, deeply skeptical mother. Primed by Psycho, we might interpret Lydias raised eyebrow and emotional distance as the double of Mrs. Bates, the kind of spectral presence that could summon Normans stuffed raptors to flight. Hitchcock toys with this idea knowingly, and even lets us revel in Lydias timid attempts at catty gossip about Roman fountains and Melanies profligate high-society hi-jinks. (Goldsmith, 2012)

Made in the early days of technicolour film, Hitchcock used this to an advantage. Throughout the film Melanie wears a bright green suit, having the double effect of making her stand out as an outsider and clashing with the stark red used in the bird attacks, other character's costumes and props.

What he made was essentially the worlds first conservationist horror picturewith the natural world apparently striking back at the mess humanity was making of things. Its also typical that he structured the film as a series of set pieces, building the frenzy and the terror of the characters as they deal with the onslaught of our former feathered friends. (Hanke, 2007)

Figure 3.

Throughout the film there is no non-diegetic soundtrack. Instead the sound of screeching birds, which due to the place in the world of the film are diegetic but acts as the closest thing to a soundtrack, preempt the attacks and accompany them, building tension. The lack of music and stretches of silence causes the audience to subconsciously really focus on the sound. During the moments of silence, you strain to hear any little sound that might indicate what's coming. When the man lights the gasoline on fire and causes the car to explode at the gas station outside of the restaurant. Then we see the fire and carnage from the air. Suddenly several birds enter the shot and we realize Hitchcock is giving us, literally, the proverbial birds eye view. (Nash, 2010) As well as the sound of the birds, Hitchcock uses strange camera angles, and point of

view shots to introduce the attacks. For example, during and after the attack on Lydia's house the camera is placed low, looking up at the characters. This leads to Melanie's attack upstairs which acts as the last straw before they evacuate, taking her to a hospital.

The ideological message of The Birds, As Donald Spoto points out, is similar to Shadow of a Doubt: the fragility of our supposedly ordered world. The film views the universe as a place that must always be guarded against imminent disaster; chaos is around the corner, ready to burst in. In Shadow of a Doubt, Things go crazy from time to time. The world has to be watched very carefully. The birds represent the unpredictable and arbitrary element of life, the unacknowledged invisible forces of destruction, that cannot be explained or controlled with rational reasoning or common-sense. (Levy, 2011)

Figure 4.

Illustration List
Figure 1. The Birds film poster 1963 At: http://hitchcock.tv/mov/birds/images/birds.jpg Figure 2. Still from The Birds 1963 At: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/Lb2iGy2ML2k/TVQia5aArlI/AAAAAAAAAfs/Li3NhmrWpHk/s1600/birds_shot1l.jpg Figure 3. Still from The Birds 1963 At: http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FgRHYj3DoE/TwfjGWzRnzI/AAAAAAAAD3k/yM1RgaL1gVA/s1600/The+Birds+3.jpg Figure 4. Still from The Birds 1963 At: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/Lb2iGy2ML2k/TVQia5aArlI/AAAAAAAAAfs/Li3NhmrWpHk/s1600/birds_shot1l.jpg

Bibliography
Levy, E Hitchcock's Last Masterpiece: Part Two of Two 2011 At: http://www.emanuellevy.com/review/birds-thehitchcocks-last-masterpiece-part-two-of-two-7/ Goldsmith, L The Birds 2012 At: http://www.notcoming.com/reviews/the-birds/ Hanke, K The Birds 2007 At: http://www.mountainx.com/movies/review/birds#.URPuzWA1ff8 Nash, P Movie Review The Birds 2010 At: http://www.threemoviebuffs.com/review/birds