Fairytales, even those for kids, are seldom serene and innocent. Think of Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, full of mysterious and haunting characters imbued with evil.
The Birds, released three years after Psycho, a gap relatively long for Hitchcock but explained also by the technical challenges of the production, contains all the trademarks typical of both his cinema style and the fairytales. The blond and beautiful leading lady, much stronger and determined than the appearances suggest, the light initial tone, almost a comedy with the witty bickering of the main characters, the unmissable Hitch's cameo, the long and winding coastal road, the ingenious quotes of his previous movies, here The 39 steps and To Catch a Thief amongst others, are intertwined with the inexplicable evil and the helplessness of the darkest fairytales' personas.
But The Birds, loosely based on a short story published in 1952 by Daphne du Maurier, an author that the English master had already used as a source for Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, is also deeply experimental and has a philosophical sophistication unrivalled by any of Hitchcock's movies. Since the opening credits, evoking the optical expressionist illusions of Escher's birds, the film is imbued with a haunting introspection that is ultimately only enhanced by the lively beginning of the movie, when Mitch, an anonymous Rod Taylor, meets and squabbles with Melanie, Tippi Hedren on her cinema debut. The director's choice of giving up a musical soundtrack, with the only music briefly played by Melanie on the piano and the nursery rhyme sang by the school children, skipping the end credits and a real, defined ending, the sophisticated special effects engineered for the birds' attacks, that all in all have well survived time and digitalisation, the dilution of time and pace challenging and almost mocking the viewer, like in the emblematic scene of the crows perched on the jungle gym, the unpredictable and random behaviour of the birds, the roles' reverse, with the humans forced by attacks and fear to look for protection into the cages, either houses, cars, bars, phone boots, coinciding with the mental cages built by the terror generated by the distortion of the natural order that everybody is used to and expects, make The Birds an overwhelming complex movie to watch and understand, difficult to define, in between horrors and thrillers and that in fact was not very much appreciated by both the critics and the public when released. Only recently the first Hitchcock movie produced and distributed by Universal has been heralded as one of his bests and most likely his last masterpiece, as well as a trailblazer on the analyses of the sickness and inner demons of the human psyche.
The Birds is a movie that leaves a long-lasting impression in the discerning viewer, notwithstanding the mediocrity of the actors, with the exceptions on an intense Jessica Tandy as Mitch's mother and a convincing Suzanne Pleshette as Annie, the sacrificial lamb of both Mitch and the birds. Regrettably, the few films Alfred Hitchcock directed after The Birds, however well-crafted and a pleasure to watch, will not add anything to the film body of one of the most important filmmakers of the XX Century.
The Birds, released three years after Psycho, a gap relatively long for Hitchcock but explained also by the technical challenges of the production, contains all the trademarks typical of both his cinema style and the fairytales. The blond and beautiful leading lady, much stronger and determined than the appearances suggest, the light initial tone, almost a comedy with the witty bickering of the main characters, the unmissable Hitch's cameo, the long and winding coastal road, the ingenious quotes of his previous movies, here The 39 steps and To Catch a Thief amongst others, are intertwined with the inexplicable evil and the helplessness of the darkest fairytales' personas.
But The Birds, loosely based on a short story published in 1952 by Daphne du Maurier, an author that the English master had already used as a source for Rebecca and Jamaica Inn, is also deeply experimental and has a philosophical sophistication unrivalled by any of Hitchcock's movies. Since the opening credits, evoking the optical expressionist illusions of Escher's birds, the film is imbued with a haunting introspection that is ultimately only enhanced by the lively beginning of the movie, when Mitch, an anonymous Rod Taylor, meets and squabbles with Melanie, Tippi Hedren on her cinema debut. The director's choice of giving up a musical soundtrack, with the only music briefly played by Melanie on the piano and the nursery rhyme sang by the school children, skipping the end credits and a real, defined ending, the sophisticated special effects engineered for the birds' attacks, that all in all have well survived time and digitalisation, the dilution of time and pace challenging and almost mocking the viewer, like in the emblematic scene of the crows perched on the jungle gym, the unpredictable and random behaviour of the birds, the roles' reverse, with the humans forced by attacks and fear to look for protection into the cages, either houses, cars, bars, phone boots, coinciding with the mental cages built by the terror generated by the distortion of the natural order that everybody is used to and expects, make The Birds an overwhelming complex movie to watch and understand, difficult to define, in between horrors and thrillers and that in fact was not very much appreciated by both the critics and the public when released. Only recently the first Hitchcock movie produced and distributed by Universal has been heralded as one of his bests and most likely his last masterpiece, as well as a trailblazer on the analyses of the sickness and inner demons of the human psyche.
The Birds is a movie that leaves a long-lasting impression in the discerning viewer, notwithstanding the mediocrity of the actors, with the exceptions on an intense Jessica Tandy as Mitch's mother and a convincing Suzanne Pleshette as Annie, the sacrificial lamb of both Mitch and the birds. Regrettably, the few films Alfred Hitchcock directed after The Birds, however well-crafted and a pleasure to watch, will not add anything to the film body of one of the most important filmmakers of the XX Century.