Birds

Birds 1963

 119 min  -  Horror | Thriller

 Director:

 Alfred Hitchcock

Writers:

 Daphne Du Maurier (story), 

 Evan Hunter (screenplay)

 Stars:

 Rod Taylor, 

 Tippi Hedren 

 Suzanne Pleshette

         Birds is about a woman called Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) who travels to San Francisco to find a man called Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor). They start to develop a relationship. However, as time goes on, they start to notice a lot of weird things that are going on particularly to do with birds. It starts off with a seagull killing itself by crashing itself against a front door of which Melanie notices, and then at a childrens party the next day, a flock of seagulls attack the children. After that, the birds start to attack just about everyone and anyone. The seagulls begin to turn incredibly violent and start killing people in more numbers. 

         Birds is an archetypal thriller as it contains many aspects of what a thriller film should be. For example, in the film, there is a lot of suspense, excitement and tension through the film. The birds create the tension and suspense during the film as you never know who or when they are gonna attack and if they are going to kill anyone or not. Also, a common feature of Alfred Hitchcock's films, there is nowhere to hide, and this is apparent in Birds which also creates more suspense. Thrillers also keep the viewers on the edge of the seat about what it is about to happen next and Birds achieves this. The threat of this film is from nature (birds) and not human.  It is also a fast paced film as the birds attack really fast and fly down really fast as seen in this scene. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D15HPy4x73g&list=PL46FB178E8BEABAB8

         Also, in most films, the story ends with resourceful heroes who  thwart the plans of more powerful and better equipped villains. This is not true in this case because there isn't really a hero as such and the villains (the birds) never go away. The "heroes"never thwart the plans of the birds. 

         Also, in Birds, Alfred Hitchcock uses the use of dramatic irony to build up the suspense and tension. In this scene, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydLJtKlVVZw&list=PL46FB178E8BEABAB8  Hitchcock uses dramatic irony. Dramatic Irony is when the audience knows something that the character does not know. In this scene, Melanie is having a cigarette while sitting down, and behind her, birds are flying and grouping together on a railing and Melanie is unaware of this. The viewers see that the birds are gaining in numbers while Melanie is unaware. This creates suspense as the audience know that something bad is going to happen while the character has no idea what is going on. Hitchcock also doesn't use the traditional "The End" slide to signify the end of the movie as he wants to give off the idea that there is no end to the terrifying terror that the birds provide.

         A Macguffin is a plot element is a storyline which is not the main storyline and often doesn't get finished and doesn't get a definite answer. Sometimes, the first storyline in a film is the Macguffin. For example, in Birds the Macguffin in the film is the first storyline. The storyline starts off with the audience wondering if Melanie and Mitch are going to get into a romantic relationship together, but that obviously isn't the main storyline of this film. By the time of the end of the film, the Macguffin storyline between Melanie and Mitch is left unanswered and just left alone.

          At the film's premiere date, as people made their way out of the theaters  Hitchcock had speakers which were put in trees, and he played birds noises out of them to give the audience quite a scare.

         Hitchcock says thrillers allow the audience, "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it's like." He achieves this in this movie as nothing like this was ever seen before and the people who watched the film were genuinely terrified of it, so they was almost going through the same emotions as what the characters in the film were feeling.