The shadows of birds and the singing of birds that appeared with the subtitles at the opening immediately made people feel unclear, that is, they explained the theme of the film and brought us into the suspenseful world of Hitchcock at the same time. Then with a playful whistle, Melanie, the heroine played by Hedley, walked towards us in an elegant skirt and walked across the street. Faced with the whistle and teasing of the "pervert", Melanie did not feel displeased, so she was frivolous. And the nature of narcissism is at a glance. This is a wise transition. Just using a Hollywood-style cute whistle makes the audience temporarily forget the dense and dark impression of birds at the beginning of the film, making people mistakenly think that this is a light-hearted story. It also explained the character's characteristics, which paved the way for the follow-up development of Melanie's counterfeit clerk. Wonderful!
Then, Melanie stared at the flock of birds in the sky, passing Hitchcock with two pet dogs in the next scene. We know that Hitchcock loves to show up in his own films, even if it is like the back figure in "Mentally Ill". We also know that every appearance of him has a profound meaning. The back figure in "Mentally Ill" symbolizes the unknown side of Norman Bates's split personality. In "The Flock of Birds", the director appears after the flock of birds, showing his control and authority over the film. The two pet dogs in his hand echo the lovebirds, which is also the relationship that our hero and heroine will develop soon.
Then came the aforementioned little prank between Melanie and Rod Taylor, the actor Mitch. The mischief ended with Melanie accidentally releasing a canary, which also heralded the disaster of the flock of birds. Then Melanie's character prompted her to call her father's newspaper to find out who Mitch was, and booked the lovebirds he wanted, and drove to Bodega Bay in person. It also walked into the place where the story happened. A careful interpretation of the opening construction can find a basis for the subsequent development of the plot. This is also the characteristic of Hitchcock. He likes to use symbolic and suggestive methods to show the characters' hearts and make up for the lack of language. Every shot seems to be exhausted, with rich meaning. Therefore, his films are suitable for close interpretation, which has also supported many critics who praised or criticized them.
Hitchcock has a preference for cages. Most of the characters in his films are in a cramped space, and the viewfinder of the camera is mostly panoramic, forcing the people on the screen to struggle and the people outside the screen to feel the share. Fear, suffocation and powerlessness like paralysis. A cute director with a sadistic tendency.
Imprisonment, emptiness, and the paleness of language are all things that old Hitchcock likes. Imprisonment is well interpreted in this movie. Attacks by birds on humans forced people to flee to telephone booths, cars, rooms and other human cages, but the two lovebirds in the cage did not join the riot of the birds; the farmer who was attacked by the birds to death The empty eye sockets echo the "O"-shaped eye sockets of Mrs. Ribbetts in "The Mentally Ill." Mother Mitch’s open mouth, the flashlight light in Melanie’s hand at the end, and the overly frightened mouth are all extremely empty. It's easy to explain; each of Hitchcock's movies is not as eloquent as Quentin or Woody Allen, he believes in the charm of the image itself. It is the same in this "Flock of Birds". In the end, the phone can't get through at all, which directly shows the director's distrust of language.
There are a lot of details in this movie that are worth thinking about. The broken family of the heroine and the fragmentation of each family in the film is definitely the director’s intention; the camera angle and the way of framing showing the relationship between the characters; the only two parrots that did not participate in the bird riot; Melanie and The contrast and connection between Annie; the Oedipus complex that reappeared on the topic of mother; and whether the world map that appeared in the school warned of the spread of disasters around the world... etc., etc.
Many people criticized the last mystery of "The Birds" still not solved. But as Hitchcock's last classic, setting such an ending can't help but sigh from the bottom of my heart that it is indeed the technique of the master of suspense!
Article reference: "Hitchcock's Movies" [US] David Street
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