Alfred Hitchcock The Birds Essay

1481 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Alfred Hitchcock's psycho suspense tactics

The film The Birds (1963), by Alfred Hitchcock, is a brilliant illustration of a horror film. The strategy of a horror film is to ensure that the audience will experience some type of suspense or terror. The use of the horror genre would be an appropriate method to present The Birds. True to the horror genre, the use of cinematography and sound were put to effective use for design of fear. Hitchcock uses a varied selection of camerawork to capture the fear and suspense which unfolds the subsequent horror provoked by the sight of a mere bird. The birds' behavior is used to create suspense and visual thrills (Soles, 528). The expansive shots used to demonstrate the sheer number of birds involved in the attacks on people most definitely insight fear. Additionally, close-up shots of people as they are attacked by birds includes rather graphic elements of blood and gore. …show more content…

Melanie is introduced in the film as she flirts with a lawyer, Mitch, in a pet store. Melanie is shown as a well-dressed socialite who is of upper social standing, however she is also a bit of a trouble maker who likes to play pranks on people. She garners enough information from this contact with Mitch to entice her to purchase two Love Birds and travel, uninvited, to Mitch’s home in Bodega Bay to drop these birds for his young sister Cathy’s birthday. This is a rather impulsive move showing yet another trait of Melanie’s character. Her task is completed when she breaks into Mitch home, which further shares Melanie’s brazen and daring character, and leaves the birds and a note. Melanie is convinced by Mitch to visit with him on the bay and at this critical point Melanie is attacked by a seagull. This attack on Melanie appears to be the commencement of the bird attacks on the people of Bodega Bay. Melanie is involved in many of these attack scenes, to the point where people start to question her role in the

Show More
Related

  • Analysis Of Anne Lamott's Bird By Bird

    1397 Words  | 3 Pages

    The novel Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott is a book that was written in order to provide “Some instructions on writing and life.” Lamott published the book in 1994 in hopes to share the secrets of what it is truly like to be a writer, as both a warning and as encouragement. Bird by Bird shares with the reader the ironic truth of being a struggling writer through personal experience and humorous stories. Lamott uses memories from her past to help illustrate her points and to help the reader get to know who she is, not only as a writer, but as a person. The author focuses on the true struggles and benefits of being a writer while using metaphors and analogies to express her points, she also wraps her life stories around almost every writing tip.

    Read More

  • Comparing the Use of Symbols in Steinbeck's The Chrysanthemums and Glaspell's Trifles

    542 Words  | 2 Pages

    Mrs. Wright, however, justified killing her husband due to Mr. Wright trapping her inside the house and how Mrs. Wright job is only to be domestic wife. When Mrs. Hale (farmer’s wife) and Mrs. Peters (sheriff’s wife) discovered a dead bird with her neck bruised all over, they start to put the pieces to the puzzle together and ...

    Read More

  • question 1

    657 Words  | 2 Pages

    The films “The Birds” and “Psycho” do not portray your typical family and clearly have some dysfunctionalism going on. Throughout the film In “The Birds” Mitch continually refers to his own mother as “darling” and “dear” – clearly this is a sign of an enmeshed dysfunctional relationship between mother and son. Mitch and his mother Lydia’s relationship has more of a husband and wife's role; for example, when Mitch and Lydia wash dishes, their conversation is like husband and wife. There are three relationships with Mitch that are disrupted by Melanie’s arrival in Bodega Bay; Lydia, Annie, and Cathy. The first attack comes to Cathy’s birthday party, which Melanie attends. While Cathy welcomes Melanie she seems to subconsciously harboring the fear that her brother’s affections will be replaced by Melanie. The other attack comes after Melanie leaves the lovebirds for Cathy; the seagull’s attack is a warning shot that Melanie ignores. When the birds attack the schoolchildren, it's after Melanie has arrived at the school to pick up Mitch's sister. Another warning shot arrives as another gull slams itself into Annie’s front door when Melanie invades Annie’s territory by choosing to board with her for the night. During another attack, Annie is killed, leaving Melanie to take her place. Mitch's mother Lydia, a woman portrayed as cold to anyone not in her immediate family, and especially cold to other women who might have an interest in her son. The bird attacks are just a metaphor for Melanie's "invasion" of the peaceful world of Mitch & his family, a world that seems peaceful on the surface but in fact has all these repressed feelings and anxieties bubbling underneath. Every scene in the film is about Melanie's "invasion" of M...

    Read More

  • The Birds Film Techniques

    515 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Birds is a thriller/horror movie that took place in 1963. Melanie Daniels is a semi rich and always gets what she wants. Mitch and to not get attacked by the birds. These birds become so vicious and wild that they begin to take over people’s everyday life. One day when Melanie and Mitch are in a restaurant the birds begin to attack people outside the restaurant. Melanie steps out to the phone booth to take an important call and causes unhappy birds to surround her waiting for her to exit.

    Read More

  • Differences between The Birds the Movie and The Birds short story

    596 Words  | 2 Pages

    The birds attack in the same way also. They come through the house, peck at the windows, and try to come through the doors. They succeed in coming through upstairs in both the film and the short story.

    Read More

  • Rear Window And Psycho Theme Analysis

    1143 Words  | 3 Pages

    Alfred Hitchcock’s films not only permanently scar the brains of his viewers but also addict them to his suspense. Hitchcock’s films lure you in like a trap, he tells the audience what the characters don’t know and tortures them with the anticipation of what’s going to happen.

    Read More

  • The Alfred Hitchcock Signature in his Films, Shadow of a Doubt and Vertigo

    382 Words  | 1 Pages

    All directors of major motion pictures have specific styles or signatures that they add in their work. Alfred Hitchcock, one of the greatest directors of all time, has a particularly unique style in the way he creates his films. Film analyzers classify his distinctive style as the “Alfred Hitchcock signature”. Hitchcock’s signatures vary from his cameo appearances to his portrayal of a specific character. Two perfect examples of how Hitchcock implements his infamous “signatures” are in the movies, A Shadow of a Doubt and Vertigo. In these movies, numerous examples show how Hitchcock exclusively develops his imagination in his films.

    Read More

  • Common Themes and Elements in Psycho and The Birds

    656 Words  | 2 Pages

    The two films Psycho and The Birds, both directed by Alfred Hitchcock, share similar themes and elements. These recurring themes and elements are often prevalent in many of Hitchcock’s works. In Psycho and The Birds, Hitchcock uses thematic elements like the ideal blonde woman, “the motherly figure”, birds, and unusual factors that often leave the viewer thinking. Hitchcock’s works consist of melodramatic films, while also using pure cinema to help convey messages throughout the film.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Mothers In Notorious, Pyscho, And 'The Birds'

    1964 Words  | 4 Pages

    Once Lydia no longer felt threatened by Melanie the attacks subsided. Lydia was also one of the few characters to remain unscathed by the birds. Annie was killed and Melanie was debilitated during the attacks, but after that the birds became tame. The motherly jealousy was lost when the two suitors that her son might leave for were no longer seen as a threat. Like a bird, Lydia was very protective of her children and it took until Melanie was helpless as a child for the attacks to end. Once again it can be seen that the mother, this time more indirectly, was responsible for the violence that occurred to the women around her

    Read More

  • Symbolism in Kate Chopin's The Awakening

    1886 Words  | 4 Pages

    After these episodes, the images related to birds are absent form the narrative until the chapter 29. Following the summer on Grand Isle, where she had awakening experiences, she starts to express her desire for independence in New Orleans through her move to her own house, the pigeon house "because it's so small and looks like a pigeon house" (pp 84). The nickname of the pigeon house is very significant because a pigeon house is a place where pigeons, birds that have adapted to and benefited from the human society, are kept cooped up.

    Read More

  • Vertigo

    1945 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Alfred Hitchcock film; Vertigo is a narrative film that is a perfect example of a Hollywood Classical Film. I will be examining the following characteristics of the film Vertigo: 1)individual characters who act as casual agents, the main characters in Vertigo, 2)desire to reach to goals, 3)conflicts, 4)appointments, 5)deadlines, 6)James Stewart’s focus shifts and 7)Kim Novak’s characters drives the action in the film. Most of the film is viewed in the 3rd person, except for the reaction shots (point of view shot) which are seen through the eyes of the main character.(1st person) The film has a strong closure and uses continuity editing(180 degree rule). The stylistic (technical) film form of Vertigo makes the film much more enjoyable. The stylistic film form includes camera movements, editing, sound, mise-en-scene and props.

    Read More

  • Scream Film Analysis

    690 Words  | 2 Pages

    People flock to horror movies each year. Usually to be scared. Another is to solve the question of Who done it? Unfortunately, a lot of these horror movies fail to scare people or make the killer so obvious the audience gets bored. Occasionally, there are a few horror movies that stick out. Scream, directed by Wes Craven, is one of them. Wes Craven is always toying with the viewer's fears. Always finding ways to scare the audience at every turn. He also plays with the viewer's head, and has them second guessing themselves. How does he do it? Well, as one of the characters in the movie exclaims, "There's a formula to it. A very simple formula. Everybody's a suspect!" This paper will discuss how Craven uses sound, camera shots, and mise en scene

    Read More

  • On The Waterfront Power Analysis

    870 Words  | 2 Pages

    “They got it made. Eat all they want— fly around like crazy—sleep side by side— and raise gobs of squabs” (On the Waterfront). Terry Malloy is a pure symbolism of the definition of a pigeon. Terry Malloy, is willing to care for the pigeons in Joey’s coop. Though he lures Joey to his death with pigeon, afterwards letting it fly free. Yet, from that point on Terry is seen next to the pigeon’s cage. Terry eventually, but slowly, realizes his relationship with mob makes him feel cage and controll. In many ways, Terry is a pigeon because he partly lives on the rooftops. In the whole film Terry is never seen in his apartment only on the roof. The imagery of Terry inside the cage, when he tends the birds, suggest this man is delicate and sensitive. The mob is symbolize as the hawks, which they disturb the coexistent of everyday life. They brought violence, terror and sorrow. “I go for this stuff. You know this city's full of hawks? There must be twenty thousand of 'em” (On the Waterfront). They perch on top of the big hotels and swoop down on the pigeons in the park. Sometimes the pigeons can be use for horrible jobs like to inform on the tasks of other pigeons. “But going in that church, I'd be stooling for you, Charley. You make a pigeon out of me.” (On the Waterfront). Every time one of the characters in the

    Read More

  • Theme Of Entrapment In A Bird In The House

    976 Words  | 2 Pages

    Bird usually portrays an image of bad luck that follows afterwards and in this novel, that is. the beginning of all the bad events that occur in the rest of the novel. It all started when Margaret Laurence introduced the life of Vanessa MacLeod. protagonist of the story, also known as the granddaughter of a calm and intelligent woman. I am a woman.

    Read More

  • Framton Nuttel's One Flew Overw: A Review

    1801 Words  | 4 Pages

    She explains they have been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they will make a fine mess over her poor carpets like all the menfolk do. She rattles on cheerfully about the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it is all purely horrible (Aldrich, & Marjorie, 1954). Framton makes a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic, he is conscious that his hostess is giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes are constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It is certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.

    Read More

More about Alfred Hitchcock The Birds Essay

Open Document