The follow
film is an addition to my ‘Cinema of the Abstract’ project on the film website
MUBI, collecting together films of all areas of cinema that personify an
‘abstract’ and unconventional mentality and mood to them. This is not for
academic reasons or as work, but a hobby that will also benefit in improving
myself ability to write for a public and centralise my personal tastes and
views on this obsession of mine, avoiding the pretentions and lackadaisical
attitudes that I feel have plague film writing, and in the case of how this
project was started, make a lot of para-cinema and cult film writing incredibly
conservative in mind and taste. All
films that have this piece at the top with have an ‘Abstract’ Rating and a
personal score at the end. For more information on this peculiar scoring
system, and what the ‘Cinema of the Abstract’ list is, follow this link – http://mubi.com/lists/cinema-of-the-abstract
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| From http://vintage45.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/hitchthebirds.jpg |
Intending to
spark a relationship with bachelor Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), Melanie Daniels
(‘Tippi’ Hedren) goes to Bodega Bay only for a bizarre natural phenomenon to
start to take place. In one of Alfred Hitchcock’s many acclaimed films, the
entire Bay becomes swarmed by the avian wildlife when it starts to act aggressively.
The story
could easily have been made into a B-movie, not an insult to its original
source story, the creators of the film, or B-movies themselves, but a
recognition that this is very much a story part of the ‘nature attacks’ sub
genre that has existed over the years and was usually made into lower budget
genre films. Sadly it’s also the kind of premise that is usually made into a
cheap and boring quickie. In this case however it was the project of a talented
A-list director, going from his 1960 success Psycho, backed by a talented
production team who treated the material seriously. What makes the results
stand up, even outside Hitchcock’s filmography, is that for a viewer like me fifty
or so years later it is such a psychologically twisting and unnerving work. It
is a film that has had so many psychological interpretations to it, and the
material itself is openly full of them itself to make the interpretations
justifiable. Long before the birds make their impact, the uncomfortable
triangle between Melanie, Mitch and his mother is established and has an
immense effect on how the story is interpreted. Openly said not to be an
Oedipal relationship, his relationship with his mother and her fear of being
alone, causing her to distrust Melanie, creates an effect where the violent
bird attacks are transformed into a manifestation of unnerving hostility. At
one point a direct link between Hedren’s character and the avian attacks is
made by a minor character, showing that the film, which is more of a mood piece
than a narrative, is fully engaged in the deeper interpretations of the story
as well as the shocks.
The
characters are allowed to time to be established and fill out, helping the film
immensely, but the birds attacks themselves, while dated in terms of effects,
still carry a level abstractness and visceral effect which makes them disturbing.
The very well known moments – the first seagull attack, the crows on the
children’s jungle gym – and the use of hundreds of birds onscreen allows the
film to be far superior to most animal attack films, but the technique of
layering images on top of each other that allowed the filmmakers to make the
film is used to create almost abstract images. The first major attack on
Mitch’s house exemplifies this; most of the birds are clearly added into the
scene in post production, but they cover the screen to the point it becomes a
collage of talons and wings violently fluttering over the screen. This frenzied
interpretation of the attacks, with aftermath results that are still shockingly
bloody despite the era it was made in, gives the film a rawness that puts it
above so many asinine takes on these ideas. I cannot help but evoke memories of
Birds of Prey (1987),
a Mexican-Spanish take on The Birds (or rip-off if one was to be callous or
blunt about it) which had more carnage and violence, not to mention canaries
and pigeons joining the ranks of the homicidal wildlife, but was far more
comically hilarious and incompetent than frightening.
Also in favour of The Birds is its use of sound. What immediately caught
my attention was how unnervingly quiet film was, an incidental score completely
absent. Hitchcock’s long time collaborator Bernard Herrman took a credit as
‘sound consultant’, the closest to a sound score instead being the electronic
bird noises created by Oskarr Sala and Remi Gassmann. Freakish in their pitch,
the long absences of sound in the film causes the bird sounds to raise the
hairs on your neck as you realise another attack is about to take place. The
film is brilliantly directed, the acting performances are perfect for the
narrative, but it’s the use of sound which creates the power of the film. Contrasted
by the innocent and sweet songs of the two lovebirds introduced early in the
narrative, the only avian life that does not become hostile, the electronic
noises of everything else is almost demonic in tone, adding to the fantastical
nature of the proceedings. And what makes this more significant is that,
thinking about it, most of the other films I have seen dealing with killer
animals had scores. Some worked, but many were incredibly tacky. This almost
avant garde attitude to the creation of the film is for more effective.
The Birds is
my tentative tip-toes into viewing more of Hitchcock’s films, but with this I
have started with a potent and luridly brilliant start. It is, if you strip
away the artistry, a solid B-movie in how the plot would be viewed in other
circumstances. It is however a solid B-movie whose drama is fully formed and is
allowed to push its central concepts to their fullest. The ending scene,
without spoiling, has been in my thoughts since viewing it, such a quiet and
yet disturbing final image, the creators taking could have been hooky material
and turning it into a legitimately great film and almost a masterpiece of
unconventional filmmaking hidden in mainstream cinema’s clothing. That Hitchcock
also made seagulls frightening rather than something to laugh at goes to show
how good this film is.
Abstract
Rating (High/Medium/Low) – Low
Personal
Rating – 10 out of 10
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