The Birds

The Birds was released in 1963 and was a horror-thriller directed by Alfred Hitchcock and written by Daphne Du Maurier and Evan Hunter. It stared Rod Taylor, Tippi Hendren and Suzanna Pleshette.

Imagine Hitchcock trying to sell this idea to the film studios: the lives of a mundane country family are shattered when vicious rooks attack. Why? No particular reason. And what then? They fly away. and then? They come back again and attack. And then go and then . .. It seems like an impossible plot to pull off, but Hitchcock does it, slowly building up the tension which spasmodically swells and subsides. Younger viewers may get irritated with the slow stealth of the opening scenes and may want to thrash the T.V. when the film comes to its beautifully droll conclusion, but form once those birds start attacking, every viewer is riveted. It was fine Hitchcockian innovation that took this very slim, cock-a-many story and turned in to a tense thriller. But the greatest innovation is the film score - there isn't any. No director is more closely identified with the music of their films, but in Birds, Hitchcock created a horror that is uniquely quiet. The great man appreciated something that so few others do - the atmospheric potency of silence, and how, in different settings, silences can differ in character. Yet so many who watch the film seem to forget that the music isn't there. That's the film's greatest attribute.

The Birds fits into an archetypal thriller by having fast paced and frequent action this occurs most often with the attacks of the birds. The attacks come at irregular intervals but because of this they hold us in suspense for when the next attack will come. The attacks keep driving the film on and get more serious and violent and become much larger scale. Hitchcock builds up the attacks one after the other to reach a climax for the final assault from the birds. 

The hero in The Birds is resourceful and is handy with tools and can take control against the vastly larger and stronger threat of the birds. The birds are much better equipped with numbers on their side but also natural weapons such as beaks and claws which the humans have to overcome. 

The Birds is full of suspense because of the imminent strikes of the birds its keeps us on edge as to when the birds will strike for example the crows in the playground, we can see them lining up the attack but the woman cannot see. This builds the suspense as more and more crows join the flock we are waiting for the attack. 

Thrillers usually have a villain driven plot where the hero must overcome obstacles but in The Birds the plot is driven by the delivery on the love-birds. The love-birds are a MacGuffin because they are just there to bring the two characters together at Bodega Bay. 

  
In the scene where Tipppi Hendren is attacked by the birds, the birds were attached to her by nylon threads so the birds could not get away from her, this scene took a week to film. During this attack of Hendren claims to ave not been told what was going to happen she was only told to go up the stairs and open the door. Hitchcock then had live birds thrown at her to create a natural effect. Hendren also claims she was wounded in the face by one of the birds. 

The film is interesting because of the way it is made. It features 370 effects and the final scene is made up of 32 separately filmed composites. 

The Ending of the film had a few different variations. One that was considered was to have a shot of the Golden Gate bridge covered with birds. However Hitchcock does not finish it with the usual "The End" because he wanted to give the impression of unending terror, and as the birds take over the screen this shot is synonymous with the birds taking over the world. Another ending that was being considered follows the car through the town with the chaos and destruction. This ending made it up to almost being filmed with the crew setting up the town for the final scene but the co- writer Evan Hunter explains how time consuming the original ending was. 



For the UK premier of The Birds in London, Leicester Square, Hitchcock greeted the viewers with bird screeches from loudspeakers hidden in the trees after the film to further scare them.