Themes
Among the central themes explored in The Birds are those of love and violence. The representation of the birds in the film constantly changes to reflect the development of these themes, and the story itself. At first, the lovebirds in the pet store signify the blossoming love between Melanie and Mitch, and the sexual tension between the two.[37] However, the birds' symbolism changes once they begin to attack Bodega Bay. Hitchcock stated in an interview that the birds in the film rise up against the humans to punish them for taking nature for granted.[38]
Humanities scholar Camille Paglia wrote a monograph about the film for the BFI Film Classics series. She interprets it as an ode to the many facets of female sexuality and, by extension, nature itself. She notes that women play pivotal roles in it. Mitch is defined by his relationships with his mother, sister, and ex-lover—a careful balance that is disrupted by his attraction to the beautiful Melanie.[39]
The theme [of the film], after all, is complacency, as the director has stated on innumerable occasions. When we first meet each of the major characters, their infinite capacity of self-absorption is emphasized. Tippi Hedren's bored socialite is addicted to elaborately time-consuming practical jokes. Rod Taylor's self-righteous lawyer flaunts his arrogant sensuality, Suzanne Pleshette, his ex-fiancée, wallows in self-pity, and Jessica Tandy, his possessive mother, cringes from her fear of loneliness.With such complex, unsympathetic characters to contend with, the audience begins to identify with the point of view of the birds, actually the inhuman point of view ...
– Film historian Andrew Sarris (1998)[40]
Style
Montage editing and slow pacing are used within the film to build suspense and elicit a greater emotional response from the audience during the attack scenes: "The pattern of The Birds was deliberately to go slow".[41] This is exemplified in the scene where the birds gradually gather outside of the school, while an unobservant Melanie sits and waits on the bench. The camera then cuts between her and the increasing number of birds that swoop down onto the jungle gym behind her until they finally attack.
Eyeline matches and point-of-view (POV) shots within the film encourage audience identification with particular characters and their subjective experiences. This is achieved by cutting between the character and the object of their gaze. For example, when Melanie crosses the bay near the beginning of the film, the camera cuts between close-ups of her face and shots of the Brenner house from her perspective, as she watches Mitch fall for her prank.[42]
The focus on editing and visuals rather than dialogue is also an element of pure cinema that Hitchcock largely uses throughout his work.[43]
Hitchcock's behavior towards Hedren
More than fifty years after the film was released, it emerged in a series of interviews that Alfred Hitchcock may have behaved inappropiately towards Tippi Hedren during the filming of The Birds. Hedren said there were several incidents where she was subjected to sexual harassment from the famed director. Cast and crew described his behaviour on occasion as "obsessive" and Hedren claimed that "he suddenly grabbed me and put his hands on me. It was sexual".[44][45][46] She stated that she rejected Hitchcock's advances on numerous occasions.[44][45][46] Following the rejection, Hedren was injured during the filming of the phone booth attack scene consequently suffering cuts to her face from a pane of glass shattering on her.[46] She said she was misled about the logistics of the final attack sequence because mechanical birds were replaced with real ones at the last minute.[46][45]
There has been speculation that "Hitchcock's deliberate inflicting of injury was revenge for Hedren's spurning of his advances".[47][46] Hitchcock also signed Hedren to a seven-year contract, which she stated restricted her ability to work.[48][46][45] These allegations were not brought to light until after Hitchcock's death.[49] Although they have never been confirmed, they have widely been reported, including by Hedren's co-star, Rod Taylor.
Hedren would later claim during a 2016 interview with Larry King that the sexual advances "didn't happen until we were almost finished with Marnie", that they had not started during The Birds, and that up until the end of Marnie Hitchcock had been "easy to work with",[50] but in her memoir released around the same time, she repeated the earlier allegations, though clarified that the sexual assaults didn't begin until Marnie.[46]
The controversy of this relationship is explored in the 2012 HBO/BBC film The Girl. Hedren's daughter Melanie Griffith claims that Hitchcock's abuse extended to her when he played a "prank" by gifting six-year-old Melanie with a wax figure of her mother in a miniature coffin.[51]
