University of Zadar

English Department

Classical Hollywood Film

Rajko Petković, PhD, Assistant Professor

Leona Tomić

Case Study: Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds

Seminar paper

Zadar, December 2017

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Case Study: Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds

This seminar paper will focus on the analysis of one of Alfred Hitchcock's most well-known
and technically difficult films, The Birds. It will try to provide a detailed analysis of the film's
aesthetic and thematic elements and situate it in the context of classical Hollywood style.

The Birds is a 1963 horror-thriller directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock. The
film’s screenplay was written by Evan Hunter and is loosely based on Daphne Du Maurier’s
1952 novelette of the same name. Du Maurier’s story takes place in a small Cornish seaside
town at the beginning of winter. Nat Hocken, a war veteran and a current farm worker, his
family, their neighbours and, finally, an entire Britain are attacked by a mysterious flock of
hostile birds. Additionally inspired by newspaper reports of unusual bird attacks that plagued
citizens of California, Hitchcock decided to turn Daphne du Maurier story into a film and
transfer it into an urban setting, while keeping the central mystery intact. The film largely
takes place in the small town of Bodega Bay, located on the Sonoma coast north of San
Francisco, over the course of five days. It stars Tippi Hedren in her first acting role as a main
character Melanie Daniels, a beautiful and classy woman from a rich family, Rod Taylor as
Mitch Brenner, a lawyer; Jessica Tandy as his possessive mother Lydia; Veronica Cartwright
as Mitch’s eleven-year-old sister Cathy; and Suzanne Pleshette as Annie Hayworth, an
elementary school teacher at Bodega Bay. The central themes found in the film are relations
between female sexuality and power, along with the unpredictability and violence of nature.

From the opening credits, the mood of the film is established. The title sequence,
designed by James S. Pollak, shows black crows fluttering, clawing, squawking and chirping
across the white background. The paranoid, eerie atmosphere is further achieved by the
appearance of the pastel blue titles, which then disintegrate, as if they are being bitten by
invisible beaks. According to Camille Paglia, the title sequence is arranged in such a way to
introduce the viewers to the theme that follows – a war between nature and culture, in which
the primitive forces of nature can so easily destroy human illusion of control and dominance
(Paglia, 20). It is also important to note that The Birds does not have a conventional score.
The only sounds during the title sequence and the following plot are various bird calls, cries
and flaps of wings against the experimental electronic soundtrack, composed by Remi
Gassmann and Oskar Skala, with the assisting help of Hitchcock’s constant collaborator
Bernard Herrmann.
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After the vivid title sequence, the story opens with an establishing shot of a beautiful
woman walking down the busy San Francisco street. Passing a newsstand travel poster of San
Francisco (which shows the Golden Gate Bridge, most famously used in Hitchcock’s Vertigo)
(Paglia, 21), Melanie anxiously turns around after hearing a whistle. Realizing it is only a
courageous young boy, she smiles. Her smile fades after she notices a flock of birds circling
the sky above San Francisco – an eerie foreshadowing of things to come. In the first few
seconds of the film, we can already conclude what kind of a woman Melanie is. Young and
blonde, dressed in a sophisticated black blazer, tight skirt and stiletto high heels (that resemble
the claws of crows which will soon begin to terrorize her), Melanie is a rich woman that lives
by her own rules and enjoys having power over men in her life. While entering Davidson’s
Pet Shop, where she intends to buy lovebirds for her aunt, Melanie passes a man walking two
West Highland White Terriers (Hitchcock in his obligatory cameo). In the shop, she meets
Mitch Brenner, a lawyer who recognizes Melanie from one of her public excesses. Melanie
poses as a shop girl to strike up a conversation, and Mitch pretends he does not know her. By
pretending to talk about the different kinds of birds, free and caged, Melanie and Mitch flirt
and display the ways in which men and women understand and display their sexuality. The
flirting scene is an excellent showcase of Melanie’s personality – she is portrayed as a
modern, open-minded expert at flirting, used to getting what she wants from all the men in her
life. Still, after Mitch reveals himself and leaves in anger, Melanie, for the first time in the
film, loses control of the situation. In order to regain control and not lose the sight of
attractive and charming Mitch, Melanie finds out where he lives and decides to follow him,
under the excuse that she has to bring the lovebirds, a birthday present for Mitch’s little sister
Cathy.

As it is the case with the films of Classical Hollywood period, the upcoming scenes
are announced through the interactions between characters. After she finds out where Mitch
lives, the next scene sees Melanie driving towards the small town of Bodega Bay, where her
main goal is situated. Once in Bodega Bay, Melanie, driven by her desire to surprise Mitch,
sets out to learn the name of his little sister and their address. After the men in town fail to
recall the little girl’s name (another indicator of how men of that time perceived women –
obedient, quiet housewives, too insignificant to even remember their names), Melanie visits
Annie Hayworth, a school teacher who has a complicated romantic history with Mitch. Annie
tells her where Mitch and Cathy live, and in the next scene Melanie decidedly sails a boat
across the bay, enters Mitch’s house, and delivers the lovebirds. Mitch notices her, but
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Melanie’s confidence is soon ruined by the appearance of a seagull, that slams her in the head.
Mitch has to help her get out of the boat and enter the restaurant. That particular scene marks
the shifting of their roles – Melanie is no longer the one in a control, but a wounded damsel in
distress, that depends on the help and support of a man she barely knows. In the restaurant,
Mitch applies peroxide to the wound on Melanie’s head, and she seems to gain strength from
it. The motif of a dyed hair appears in a few other Hitchcock’s films, but here it is used to
emphasize his opinion of Melanie – her blonde hair is beautiful, but fake, the same as her
promiscuous, unreliable personality (40). Furthermore, upon meeting Mitch’s grieving,
possessive mother Lydia, who comes to pick him up at a restaurant, the viewers can notice
certain similarities between two women. Noticing the attraction between Mitch and Melanie,
Lydia is jealous– she fears losing her son to a rich, spoiled woman; i.e. we can draw another
analogy between women and birds – Lydia sees Melanie as a bird of prey, who has shown up
uninvited to usurp her place in the nest. At the same time, her jealousy can also be interpreted
as a longing for things she cannot have – Melanie is young, free and still has not experienced
loss and hardships of life. Although worn-out and dressed in simpler clothes, Lydia also bears
certain physical similarities to Melanie. It is interesting to note that, contrary to popular belief,
the original poster for The Birds does not show Melanie being attacked by the birds, but
Lydia. The similarity makes sense in the context of the female rivalry in the film, but it can
also be applied in the broader context of Hitchcock’s films and Hollywood’s portrayal of
women. Knowing Hitchcock’s complicated and often troubled relationships with women in
his life, it is no surprise he portrays two women in The Birds as being the same, i.e. even
though one lives socially acceptable, conventional and quiet married life, and the other one is
a carefree, determined and brave socialite, they are essentially the same – possessive,
deceiving and unpredictable, good only when men succeed in taming them.

Furthermore, Mitch invites Melanie to join them for a dinner and, judging by the look
on her face, it is obvious Lydia is not pleased. The scene then fades, with camera lingering on
her disapproving face, which dissolves, in a similar way to the opening titles, into the next
scene of Melanie driving back to Annie with an intention to rent one of her rooms. The dinner
scene at Brenner’s is once again filled with a sense of foreboding; firstly, when Lydia,
concerned because her chickens refuse to eat, calls a neighbor and finds out his chickens
behave in the same way. Secondly, after Melanie returns to Annie’s house, they hear a noise at
the door and find a dead seagull lying at the threshold. Feeling a pity for the poor bird, Annie
proclaims that he must have lost his way in the dark, to which Melanie responds: ‘But it isn’t
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dark, Annie. There’s a full moon’ (48). Their exchange serves as an eerie warning of the
events that will soon occur, and shows birds as portents of the upcoming disaster. The fact that
something strange is happening to all kinds of birds, not only to the domestic birds, but also to
the seagulls, crows and others, indicates the unpredictability and cruelty of natural forces
portrayed in the film.

The following day, Melanie returns to the Brenner house for the celebration of Cathy’s
birthday, but the celebration on the lawn is interrupted by the mass attack of the angry
seagulls. After the wounded guests manage to escape the birds and leave the party, Melanie
stays alone with the Brenners. Cathy and Mitch want her to stay the night, but their chat is
once again disrupted by the hundreds of sparrows that descend through the chimney and break
into the living room from the fireplace, breaking dishes and scaring everyone, especially
Lydia. Disturbed by the attack, she wanders around the living room, straightens pictures and
collects broken teacups. Broken teacups can be seen as one of the leitmotifs that are used in
the film, i.e. they can be understood as a representation of Lydia’s fragile state of mind, and
also as a symbol of the fragility of a human life against fate or nature. That particular scene is
also important for the psychological characterization of Lydia, and is used to emphasize the
change of power balance between two women. For the first time in the film, Lydia is not
portrayed as an overbearing, controlling mother, jealous of the other woman in her son’s life,
but as the woman who has still not recovered from the loss of her husband, and is just trying
to put the pieces of her family life back together, not yet ready to let another woman in.
Melanie’s newly found compassion for broken Lydia intensifies after Lydia visits the Fawcett
farm and, after passing through the kitchen and making a stop by a row of shattered teacups
still hanging on the hooks, finds Dan Fawcett dead in the bedroom, with his eyes pecked out
by savage birds. To make the situation even worse, the dead farmer reminds Lydia of her own
fallen husband, and she is not able to do anything else but spend the rest of the day in the bed,
with Melanie taking care of her and offering to pick up Cathy from the school. The following
scene represents one of the most sinister moments in the film, which ultimately culminates in
the tragedy for the entire Bodega Bay. As mentioned before, The Birds has no conventional
usage of music, and sound mostly consists of the flaps and cries of birds. Still, when Melanie
parks in front of the school, she hears children singing inside. Their monotonous a cappella
singing creates a sense of dread which reaches its climax after Melanie, who is sitting on the
bench and waiting for the children, notices hundreds upon hundreds of crows gathered on the
jungle gym. Melanie runs back to the school to warn Annie and children of danger. Annie
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announces a fire drill (another omen in the film) in order to escape quietly, but children and
two women do not stand the slightest chance against the vengeful birds. As they run down the
street, the crows attack them, pecking at children’s heads, necks and legs, and one child falls
down, shattering her glasses. Melanie and Cathy rush to help her, and the three of them find
shelter in a car parked on the street. Angry crows slam against the windows, determined to get
in, but surprisingly, the glass holds. Melanie is next seen calling her father on the restaurant’s
phone. The restaurant episode, divided into three acts; the first one being a nine-minute scene
of a dialogue between people in the restaurant, the second one being the destruction and fire
in the town square, and the third one being women’s betrayal of Melanie; functions as a play
within a play, and is regarded as the most challenging, in both technical and emotional terms,
part of the film (69). The scene at the restaurant is arranged in the form of an overlapping
dialogue between the locals. Melanie calls her father to tell him about the bird attack she
witnessed, and her paranoid tone alarms other guests. A local drunk yells about the end of the
world, a fisherman says the birds have almost destroyed his fishing boats, and a worried
mother wants to take her children to the safety of San Francisco. Still, some of the patrons are
not convinced. An old ornithologist, Mrs Bundy, dismisses Melanie’s claims and argues over
the morality of birds. Despite defending birds, she (adding to the ominous atmosphere of the
scene and the growing sense of doom that awaits characters) proclaims the depressing
statistics: ‘There are ‘8,650 species of birds’ and ‘100 billion birds’ in the world today; should
all these species band together, we wouldn’t have a chance!’ (71) Her sentiments are echoed
in the following scene on the parking lot. Birds have returned and caused fire, which results in
the destruction of the entire town square, some deaths and injuries. Running from the fire,
Melanie ends up trapped in the phone booth and watches in horror as buildings, cars and
people collapse around her. Mitch rescues her, but all the women in the restaurant turn against
her, holding her responsible for the appearance of birds in Bodega Bay. The scene once again
portrays Melanie, a modern woman from the big town, as an intruder and threat to the proper,
conventional lifestyle of Bodega Bay citizens. Worried for Cathy’s safety, Melanie and Mitch
return to Annie’s house. The crows have gotten to Annie too - she is lying dead on the porch
of the house. Realizing that the situation is much more serious than they have originally
thought, Melanie, Mitch and Cathy retreat to the Brenner house and barricade it against the
attacks. Soon, the night falls, power goes out, the phone dies, and birds once again begin their
attacks, trying to break through the windows, doors and chimney. It seems that the Brenners
and Melanie will survive the night, but Melanie, disturbed by the sound of a continuous
flapping, decides to climb upstairs and see if the birds have broken through the roof. She
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enters the room hoping it is empty. Unfortunately, the room is full of seagulls and crows, and
they attack her. The scene once again highlights the unusual sound choices of The Birds.
There is no dramatic music, and Melanie does not let out a single scream. Instead, all the
sounds come from the flapping of wings and pecking. They trap her in the room, with the
intention to finally kill her. In the last moment, injured and catatonic Melanie is saved by
Mitch. At the dawn, family manages to pass thousands of perching birds and get in Melanie’s
car. Mitch and Cathy sit in the front, and Lydia is hugging frightened and disoriented Melanie
in the back. Power dynamics have once again shifted between two women. Lydia’s protective
gestures indicate that her opinion of Melanie has changed. One of the possible interpretations
of Lydia’s behaviour is that she finally accepts Melanie as a member of a family and wants to
protect her from the chaos that surrounds them. The other, more likely resolution, is that
Melanie, badly traumatized and dependent on the help of others, no longer poses a threat to
Lydia. This new Melanie is a vulnerable victim, and Lydia can now manipulate her more
easily than she could have hoped for at the beginning of the film.

The ending of The Birds is left ambiguous. One can interpret the ending as being
hopeful. The family has managed to flee the house and is now driving away from Bodega
Bay, slowly making the way through the landscape of thousands of resting birds. Still, the
danger has not passed. Bodega Bay is not the only place that has been attacked. The car radio
informs that, due to the frequency and severity of the attacks, even the military may have to
get involved. Melanie and the Brenners survived the night in Bodega Bay, but if the birds
decide to repeat their routine, does the injured family in a small convertible stand any chance?
Even if they manage to reach safety, the problem will not be resolved. The birds will stay or
migrate to other places, terrorizing and killing families along the way. Melanie, Mitch, Cathy
and Lydia may be safe from the birds, but they are not safe from each other. They may have
left Bodega Bay behind, but tensions and disagreements between them are not resolved. To
further emphasize the possibilities of an open ending, Hitchcock wanted the film to fade out
abruptly, without ‘THE END’ titles, so as to leave the audience wondering (86).
Unfortunately, Universal Pictures disagreed and added a title card, although some later
versions of the film stayed true to Hitchcock’s wish and eliminated the ending title. Moreover,
he also envisioned longer ending scene, with the characters passing through destroyed and
chaotic Bodega Bay – victims in open shop doors, an overturned school bus, corpses covered
with birds. The car would once again be attacked by birds, they would tear the convertible
roof, and the car would barely manage to escape. Studio considered the original ending to be
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too brutal and pessimistic for the Hollywood film, so Hitchcock had to rewrite the script.
Despite more optimistic ending, the message of the film still shines through. Nature can be
cruel and unpredictable, and it does not choose its victims. Human beings may believe
themselves to be the developed, intellectually superior species. As a result, they too often take
nature for granted. At a certain point nature may decide to no longer tolerate the abuse, and
turn on the humans. Those moments of weakness provoke human beings to think about the
fragility of their existence – e.g. if they can be wiped out by a flock of non-threatening birds,
then maybe they are not as advanced and powerful as they thought they were. At the same
time, The Birds belongs to the horror genre and Daphne du Maurier, the author of the story
which served as an inspiration for the film, is well-known for writing mysteries with gothic
and supernatural elements. Having that in mind, the hostile behaviour of birds can also be
interpreted as having supernatural connotations. However, the film does not give any reason
or provide any explanation for the bird attacks. Although Hitchcock leans towards the first
possible meaning, the final explanation is left to the viewers’ imagination.

In conclusion, it can be said that The Birds was made during the dying period of
classical Hollywood style. Alfred Hitchcock belonged to the group of Hollywood directors
willing to fight big film studios in order to pursue their artistic vision and avoid compromises.
As a result, The Birds employs narrative techniques characteristic for the films of classical
Hollywood period, but also introduces some new ones, which will be more prominently used
in the later, modern Hollywood films. For example, the film follows the rules of cinematic
space, cinematic time and narrative causality. In the opening scene, the viewers can see that
the plot takes place in San Francisco. The conversation between characters also announces
that Melanie is going to follow Mitch to Bodega Bay, where the rest of the plot takes place,
and that is it Friday – Mitch spends the weekends with his mother and sister. In other words,
the beginning establishes cinematic time, and the rest of the film is spent on following
characters from one scene to another, whose significances they usually introduce through the
dialogues – the film fulfills its narrative causality. Moreover, it can be said that the film has a
goal-oriented protagonist. Melanie Daniels feels the attraction to Mitch Brenner and decides
to do whatever she is in her power to make him fall in love with her. At first, it may seem that
she represents a female character different from all the two-dimensional girls next door that
populated films of that era. She seems modern, independent and driven. Still, as the film
progresses, it becomes obvious that Melanie is not as dependent as she may seem – she
spends a few scenes in the film talking on the phone with her father and asking him for help
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and money. Furthermore, her goal is fulfilled after Mitch falls in love with her. From that
point on, Melanie gradually loses her personality and agency; and constantly has to be saved
from dangerous, life-threatening situations. At the end of the film, she is so traumatized and
catatonic from the bird attack that she can barely speak, let alone make her own decisions;
Mitch and Lydia (typical Hollywood female character) can do whatever they want with her. In
addition, the plot shows only the most important events of the story, the audience has to
conclude the rest. What distinguishes The Birds from other films made in the style of classical
Hollywood is its ending. The final version of the script, due to the pressure from the
Universal, provides a certain hope for its characters, but nothing is truly resolved. The ending
is left open and ambiguous. Melanie is driving with the Brenners, but will she be accepted as
a new member of the family? The audience does not know, they cannot even be sure whether
the car will manage to escape. Maybe the birds will suddenly decide the resting period is over
and attack again. The studio decided that this version of the ending is extreme enough and
added a title car saying ‘The End’, so as not to confuse their usual moviegoers. Despite the
censorship, The Birds can be seen as a good example of a famous Hollywood filmmaker
chasing his creative dream and trying to achieve something different within the constraints of
the classical Hollywood.
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References:

Paglia, Camille. The Birds (BFI Film Classics). British Film Institute, 1998.