When I finally got a chance to meet Tippi Hedren during her book signing of her 2016 memoir Tippi, I told her that I teach a film course for high school students and that my students always chose The Birds to do their Hitchcock analysis. In response, she said, “That film took a life of its own.” It certainly did. I have seen The Birds over twenty times. It is a loose adaptation of Du Marnier’s short story The Birds. It has always been listed as one of the top ten of Hitchcock films from critics. Because of this, it deserves a closer examination on why the film is one of Hitchcock’s most iconic films in his canon.
From Shakespeare to Hitchcock
The Birds is a film that explores nature, the environment, and how the benign such as birds can suddenly attack humans. According to Hitchcock, “’What you have is a kind of an overall sketchy theme of everyone taking nature for granted. Everyone took the birds for granted until the birds one day turned on them’” (qtd. in Paglia 88). Hitchcock transcends this simplistic theme. The birds’ sudden attack becomes an unnatural revolt on humanity. It also coincides with the disorder of humanity as humanity goes out of its natural order. Hitchcock reverts to his English roots and borrows from Shakespeare and the Elizabethan mindset. During the Elizabethan period, the disorder in the cosmos is also reflected upon on earth, especially in humanity’s social and political mores. For instance, in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth anticipates the arrival of King Duncan to her murderous lair. Before she conspires with her husband to murder the king, she asks the spirits to unsex her. She also mentions “The raven himself is hoarse/That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan/Under my battlements” (38-40). Ravens are known for being ill omens and heralds of death. Their croaking signals the upcoming tragedy resulting in King Duncan’s death. For instance, Lennox, Duncan’s nobleman, describes the unnatural events that are happening on the night Duncan is assassinated. He notably mentions the unusual behavior of the birds:
The night has been unruly; where we lay
Our chimneys were blown down and, as they say,
Lamenting heard I’th’air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying, with accents terrible,
Of dire combustion, and confused events
New hatched to th’woeful time. The obscure bird
Clamoured the livelong night. Some say the earth
Was feverous and did shake (2.3.54-60).
Birds emphasize the cosmic disorder as their odd behavior signals the death of the king who is supposed to be God represented on earth. Nature’s disorder also underscores the unnaturalness of man through his deprave actions. It is unnatural for man to kill the divine king. Without the influence of the divine to rule the earth, humanity is in a state of peril, as the rule of law, especially moral law, is eradicated. In Macbeth, distrust is rampant in Scotland, political corruption prevails, murders continue, and selfish ambition propels humans to engage in sinister actions.
The Natural Versus Unnatural Environment
However, Hitchcock’s The Birds examines a more domesticated (as opposed to political) disruption within the natural human laws. In this case, they concern gender roles and social mores and conventions. There are no definitive answers to why the birds attack. However, as part of Hitchcock’s signature, the birds may look benign but in actuality, they are considered malignant creatures or an oppressive force. Hitchcock juxtaposes two locales to illustrate the natural and unnatural environment in The Birds, which illustrate the differing duality of the birds’ interactions with humanity. In San Francisco, they are caged and oppressed creatures but also watchful and ubiquitous. They also foreshadow what is to come. In a Hitchcock world, the cosmos is also in disarray: Birds are everywhere watching, planning and marking their next move. The narrative begins in a metropolitan area. The hustle and bustle of the city life makes it a not so serene and tranquil place for the birds. Before Melanie Daniels walks into the upscale pet store, she immediately takes notice of the birds hovering over the busy streets of San Francisco. When she walks into the pet store where birds are in brass cages, we see their oppression in their controlled environment. Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor) who pretends to mistake Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) for an employee at the pet shop asks her whether or not she feels sorry for the birds being caged.
On the other hand, the Bodega Bay countryside is a more natural environment for the birds. Birds are uncaged and are free to fly in a natural setting without the constraints of the city life. And such a freedom becomes the ultimate threat to the people. Hitchcock wanted a natural setting in Bodega Bay. There is no film score, keeping our focus only on the sounds of life and nature. Bernard Herrmann, the composer of all of Hitchcock’s films since 1955, was the sound designer, and, therefore, responsible for supervising the entire soundtrack. Hitchcock recalls Hermann’s creative realism in his interview with French filmmaker, Francois Truffaut in the 1983 renowned publication Hitchcock Truffaut. “When musicians compose a score . . . they are sounds rather than music” (Truffaut 294). More specifically, “the bird sounds are worked out like a real musical score” (295). Everything appears to be shot in a natural context (as underscored in Bodega Bay’s breathtaking landscape shots) and suddenly the order in the human world, day-to-day life is disrupted. The people are at the mercy of the birds. They “are a concrete embodiment of the arbitrary and unpredictable, of whatever makes human life and human relationships precarious, a reminder of fragility and instability that cannot be ignored or evaded and, beyond that, of the possible that life is meaningless and absurd” (Woods 154). Bodega Bay becomes the perfect locale to present an objective reality of what is happening, especially when the birds attack. For the birds, the natural world gives them more of the incentive to attack—perhaps a revolt against humanity in their desire to keep them caged. After all, it was Melanie who brings the caged birds from the San Francisco pet shop to Bodega Bay. Thus, she poses as a threat.
The Birds is an unconventional horror film with very few jump scares. But what makes the film effectively frightening is the ordinariness of the situation that feels powerfully unsettling. This disorder in humanity prompted by the birds’ attack is carried through some of the most notable signatures Hitchcock employs in the film. For instance, the benign (i.e., the birds) becomes an unexpected malevolent force. Although they are symbols of impending doom, they are unlikely predators. Consequently, the people who live there are unaware of any type of precariousness—at least when it comes to something that appears harmless. Mitch Brenner’s youngest sister’s (Cathy) birthday party is suddenly interrupted with a sudden bird attack. The guests and hosts must take refuge in the Brenner home. A school day is disrupted when a mass of black birds perch on a nearby jungle gym while Melanie waits for Cathy. When the birds’ dominating presence near the schoolhouse signals an attack, students evacuate the schoolhouse. They are left to frantically run from a swarm of birds that relentlessly chase after the frightened children.
Unnaturalness also coincides with character displacement. For instance, Melanie clashes with the social mores in Bodega Bay. She is a socialite from metropolitan San Francisco—a city woman. Away from the liberal San Francisco world, she cannot easily make that transition—as underscored in the sudden bird attack that occurs when her small boat is about to reach ashore in Bodega Bay. This is the first bird attack in the film, which symbolically represents the uninvited guest clashing with the dominant culture. Melanie does not belong to the conservative, quiet country life of Bodega Bay. When the birds attack at a local diner, a hysterical mother interrogates her and marks her as a pariah and an unwelcome outsider who is to blame for the perils that are happening in the quiet countryside: “Why are you doing this?” She exclaims. “Why are they doing this? They said when you got here the whole thing started. Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I think you’re the cause of all this. I think you’re evil. Evil!” Melanie is already perceived as an “unnatural woman”—an outsider compared to the peaceful, conventional Bodega Bay. Even Mrs. Brenner (Mitch’s mother played by Jessica Tandy) immediately notices her as a threat as well when she first sees her at the diner. She shoots her a cold stare as Mitch introduces his mother to the beautiful upper-class blonde draped in a fur coat. She is a contrast to the casual country attire. Mrs. Brenner—a lonely widow who needs the comfort of her son—sees her as a threatening competitor when it comes to her son’s attention. She is reluctant to agree to her son’s spontaneous invitation of having Melanie join them for an evening dinner at the Brenner household. If she is not welcome in Bodega Bay, she is definitely not welcome in the old fashioned household of Mrs. Brenner.
The Unnatural “Caging” of Characters
The unnatural caging of characters is definitely illustrated in the relationship between Mitch and his mom. Since the death of Mrs. Brenner’s husband, Mrs. Brenner is unable to carry on with the same security. Thus, Mitch becomes a substitute for a husband and companion.
The unnatural caging of a son is also reiterated in Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho—but in the most extreme case. Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Psycho feels threatened by his feelings of sexual attraction towards his motel guest, Marion Crane (Janet Leigh). Norman Bates who is a taxidermist surrounds himself with stuffed birds in his motel lobby. Symbolically, the stuffed birds carry the spirit of his possessive late mother who watches Norman’s every move. (Hitchcock’s camera mimics a surveillance shot of Norman having a conversation with Marion.) The birds-eye view of the late Mrs. Bates carries an oppressive atmosphere—as she hawks him. Bates’ unnatural stuffing of birds coincides with the unnatural stuffing of mother. In spite of his mother’s “docility” as a stuffed corpse, she still has power to perpetually “cage” her son in her own image of what a son should be, that is, asexual, docile, and obedient. Norman ascertains such imprisonment when he confides with Marion by telling her “You know what I think? I think that we’re all in our private traps, clamped in them, and none of us can ever get out. We scratch and we claw, but only at the air, only at each other, and for all of it, we never budge an inch.” He also admits to his abnormal maternal attachment by saying “A boy’s best friend is his mother.” Later in the film, we hear Norman Bates arguing with his “mother.” But in actuality, Norman Bates quarrels with himself about having a late dinner with a woman in the Bates’ motel lobby—it is considered a perverse act his mother forbids. Although dead for decades, Norman Bates’ mother continues to control him even well beyond the grave.
Mrs. Brenner’s caging is different compared to Mrs. Bates’ more destructive caging inflicted upon her son. Mitch is in a state of limbo when it comes to the women in his life. Mitch is expected to leave his bachelor pad in San Francisco to spend the weekend with his mother and younger sister, Cathy. He has a hard time carrying on with romantic relationships because she expects him to provide her the comfort of companionship. His previous relationship with Annie Hayward—Bodega Bay’s elementary school teacher—was truncated as a result of Mrs. Brenner’s meddling. She does this by imposing guilt upon her son. And since the arrival of Melanie, especially in her home, Mrs. Brenner is faced with the same apprehension again. This prompts Mrs. Brenner to have a private moment with her son in the kitchen to express her concerns over her son’s pretty female dinner guest with whom he has become abruptly acquainted. Because Melanie is a daughter of a renowned newspaper owner, she is considered fodder for tabloid gossip, especially from her father’s rival newspapers. For instance, she is portrayed as a careless free spirit who likes jumping into fountains naked in foreign countries—a story Melanie vehemently denies. As a result, Mrs. Brenner is aware of her tawdry past. She immediately assumes that Melanie has notoriously involved herself in acts that are unbecoming of a woman. This prompts her to become apprehensive about Melanie’s quick pursuit of her son. She hopes to keep Melanie at bay by exposing her past to Mitch. Therefore, Mitch will not pursue her, and he will continue to be within her reach. He, too, must remain asexual, tame, and obedient to his mother’s wishes—but not to the extent where he completely dismisses Melanie.
While the despondent, timid, and socially awkward Norman Bates is trapped within his mother’s possessive clutches, the more confident Mitch Brenner attempts to undo his mother’s clutches by shutting down her series of questions about his immediate acquaintance with Melanie Daniels, who, in her eyes, is an eager courtesan or temptress. He does this by asking her “Where did you go to law school?” His comeback to his mother’s interrogation is his way of putting his mom in place after henpecking him. In the same conversation, he later assures her “I think I can handle Ms. Daniels” after she tries to forewarn him about Melanie’s lack of modesty and questionable reputation.
Mitch attempts to balance his life as a bachelor and a son—but his place (literally and figuratively) is often muddled—as he travels between two worlds—San Francisco to practice law and meet women and Bodega Bay to tend this needy mother who is afraid of being abandoned. With Melanie disrupting the order in the Brenner household, he must try to appease both women. Figuratively, Mitch lives in a caged world because he is trapped between two extremes. Because of this, can he truly be free from his cage and remain in one place?
Hitchcock also discusses the unnatural caging of humans as they shield themselves from the birds’ deadly attacks. Annie Hayworth dies in her own garden, which she compulsively tends to. The birds attack the Brenner home by making their way through the chimney and pecking through windows and doors. Mrs. Brenner finds his neighbor, a farmer as well, dead in his bedroom after birds attack his home. Therefore, home is not the most reliable place to protect oneself. The Tides diner is not a place of refuge as well—as the birds besiege the building—and, thereby, caging its patrons. The telephone booth in which Melanie cages herself in is shattered when a bird crashes into the booth. In essence, there is no place of refuge in Bodega Bay—even in a protective cage.
The Refusal to be Pigeonholed through Gender Norms
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In the pet store, Mitch attempts to pigeonhole Melanie based on her elite social status. Because of Mitch’s disdain for the privileged Melanie, especially being the daughter of a well-known newspaper owner, she becomes a target of his attack. Mitch is too arrogant to be part of her gag when she pretends to be a shopkeeper at the San Francisco pet store. She foolishly tries to help Mitch when he comes into the store looking for lovebirds. When the pretend game is over, he tells her to go back to her gilded cage. Hitchcock adds this line during the shooting to emphasize Melanie’s shameless flirting with the dapper lawyer (Truffaut 288). However, his offensive label for Melanie is a misnomer. It is not Melanie who is “caged” rather it is Mitch himself.
Melanie typifies the liberated and unconventional woman—in spite of the fact she lives a banal life. “It is the thinness of her life that one feels most—the sense that the “jobs” of which she speaks with pathetic complacency are feeble substitutes for any real sense of purpose or fulfillment; distractions more constructive than getting thrown into fountains in Rome, but distractions nonetheless” (Wood 161). Hitchcock also calls her a “wealthy, shallow playgirl” (Truffaut 288). When it comes to romantic prospects, she is impulsive and precocious. She spontaneously takes a pair of lovebirds to Mitch’s San Francisco apartment—only to find out he is spending a weekend with his mom and preteen sister, Cathy, at Bodega Bay. Melanie’s action to pursue a man she is attracted to can be perceived as inappropriate and unnatural for a woman—at least when it comes to courtships. Feminist film critic Camille Paglia makes note of this unusual pursuit between the sexes in the most unflattering interpretation of Mitch and Melanie characterization: “What a reversal of sex roles . . . she is the hunkered-down hunter . . . while the male is her prey” (35).
Furthermore, Annie also refuses to be pigeonholed when it comes to gender norms. She is a foil to Melanie—at least when it comes to intellectual substance and cultural refinement. Annie adorns the walls of her home with modern cubist paintings. She comes from cultural distinction (her family is from New York), making her literate in the humanities. Like Melanie, she does not mesh well in Bodega Bay but not for the same reasons as Melanie. Annie is not the typical Bodega Bay country girl. She is an independent cosmopolite. Because she is nobly employed as the small town schoolteacher, her presence is marginally “accepted.” She lives alone. She passes time by working in her garden. Her reason for being in Bodega Bay is to be closer to Mitch who was her former lover. Moreover, she would be the more complementary love interest for Mitch as opposed to Melanie. Annie is less compulsive. She is educated, thoughtful, and intuitive. However, she has acquiesced to Mrs. Brenner’s possessive claws over her son. Therefore, nothing substantial has come of her relationship with Mitch. When she meets Melanie, a potential lover for Mitch, she knows that her chances with Mitch will certainly be long gone. And, therefore, she will be the forever spinster, a typical Hitchcock archetype, that is, the attractive brunette with a brain—but one who does not win the man.
“Unnatural” women like Annie and Melanie do not bode well in Hitchcock’s world. Both Annie and Melanie are very much aware of what they want—although one is more aggressive than the other, especially when it comes chasing after the man they want. These women must properly be put in their “place”—either by death, injury, or both. For instance, Annie succumbs to the docile female—martyrdom. Annie is left outside to fatally fend off the birds while Cathy takes refuge in her home. According to Hitchcock during his interview with French filmmaker Francoise Truffaut, Hitchcock states: “I felt that in the light of what the birds were doing to the town, she [Annie] was doomed. Besides, she sacrificed herself to protect the sister of the man she loves” (Truffaut 295). Mitch and Melanie find her injured body splayed out in her garden. This tragedy comes as no surprise. Annie’s death was foreshadowed when a bird hits her door and falls to its death. Therefore, death comes knocking at her door. The odd incident happens on an evening with a full moon, making the night sky bright enough for a bird to find its way around Bodega Bay. But why Annie? Because she is archetypally Hitchcock’s most threatening woman—bright, independent, and unafraid—and not the shallow playgirl.
Melanie is the first victim of a bird’s attack and the last victim towards the end of the film. It is hard not to see this as punishment from Hitchcock. Deviating from her socially prescribed gender role, Hitchcock adds a little bit of misogyny by victimizing her. This is also illustrated in the thief and the promiscuous played by Janet Leigh in the 1960 Psycho, the guilt-ridden imposter played by Kim Novak in the 1958 Vertigo, and the shameless adulterer played by Kasey Rogers in the 1951 Strangers on the Train. The bird attacks on Melanie befittingly bookend the film—the first, is during the seagull attack en route to the other end of the Bodega Bay shore and the last is when she is ambushed in the attic by a slew of birds. She is the prototypal Hitchcock blonde, being both a prankster and sexual aggressor. She is also icy and bitchy when Mitch alludes to the fact that she is a careless socialite, who is notorious for having “a background of wild living and scandal” (Wood 161). These types of blondes are considered threats in a Hitchcock film and, therefore, something must be done to keep them in their social cages. In From Reverence to Rape by Molly Haskell, “The blonde is reprehensible not because of what she does but because of what she withholds: love, sex, trust” (349). Melanie is the Hitchcock blonde who turns down Mitch’s invitation to have “fun” with him, especially after he confronts her about her scandalous past depicted in the tabloid. Consequently, the blonde such as Melanie “must be punished; her complacency shattered; and so he submits his heroines to excruciating ordeals, long trips through terror in which they may be raped, violated by birds, killed. The plot itself becomes a mechanism for destroying their icy self-possession, their emotional detachment” (Haskell 349). This is also exemplified in the cold and sexually repressed Marnie in Hitchcock’s 1964 Marnie. Tippi Hedren plays Marnie—a woman who is blackmailed into marrying the man she has stolen money from in order to avoid being reported and jailed. Her husband Mark Rutland, played by Sean Connery, rapes her during their honeymoon out of frustration. As for Melanie, she may have expressed an eagerness to pursue Mitch, but she is not quick to submit to his request to have a “good time” with him. Not only is Hitchcock contemptuous of playgirls, but he is also contemptuous of playgirls who exert control over their sexuality by simply withholding sex, thereby purposely making their men feel sexually self-conscious and unwanted.
Furthermore, Hitchcock’s victimization keeps them in check when it comes to their socially prescribed roles. When a woman is out of her cage, she is mostly likely to be in peril. In The Birds, Hitchcock’s sexism reaches full force when he puts Melanie in a telephone booth to protect herself from the birds’ attack. He calls it a “cage of misery” and the “beginning of her ordeal by fire” (Truffaut 288). Figuratively, the ordeal is her sexual prowess Hitchcock resents. The phone booth eventually becomes shattered. Melanie breaks from her cage and ultimately “shatters” the expectations Hitchcock has on his women. Melanie survives but the other prototypal blondes in his other films do not.
Lasting Image
The Birds is a reminder of human folly, especially when it comes to the carelessness of our actions and how we take the world for granted. The final shot ends with an unsettling vulnerability. Melanie is now under the care of Mitch and Mrs. Brenner; she is put in her proper place. They all leave the house, get into the car, and make their way down the long Bodega Bay road without disturbing the now tranquil birds. Mitch has both women—mother and romantic interest—under his responsibility. His attention is divvied up between two women, perpetually putting him in a state of flux. It also is never ascertained whether or not they leave unscathed. This ultimately becomes a reminder and forewarning that the birds are constantly engaged in a birds-eye view of humanity—perhaps in the same manner as the late Mrs. Bates, watching, judging, controlling, and admonishing. Because of this, humanity is forever anxious while at the mercy of the birds’ cruel whims. With this lasting impression, the birds will continue to take a life of their own—as Tippi Hedren coincidentally echoes on the evening we met.
Works Cited
Haskell, Molly. From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies. Penguin, 1974.
Paglia, Camille. The Birds. London: BFI Publishing, 1988.Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock
Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. The Arden Shakespeare. Sandra Clark and Pamela Mason editors. London: Bloomsbury, 2015.
Truffaut, Francois. Hitchcock Truffaut. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983.
Wood, Robin. Hitchcock’s Films Revisited. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
Written specifically for the Film Studies course amid their studies of Hitchcock’s signatures.
January 21, 2019