"The Birds"

Paper Summary:

In the movie "The Birds" (1963), director Alfred Hitchcock suggests themes of horror related to primal fears of nature. While the story is based on the story "The Birds" by Daphne Du Maurier, the film version made many changes in the process of adaptation. The paper shows that the changes Hitchcock made utilized the same tensions as the original story while adapting the tale to something that could better take advantage of the visual element so important on the screen. It shows that these changes create a film that is more visual, but also develop the human element to a greater degree, shape the narrative for a different time and setting and create a different sense of the vagaries of nature and the way human beings fit into the natural world.

From the Paper:

"The first change noted is that the story no longer takes place at a farm surrounded by the sea, for now the setting is the coastal village of Bodega Bay in California and not a distant region of England. The original story is about a disabled man and his family, while the Hitchcock film begins the story with the meeting of a woman and man in San Francisco. Melanie Daniels meets Mitch in a pet store where Mitch is looking for a pair of lovebirds for his younger sister. The movie version therefore has the trappings of a traditional romance from the first, and the element of fear will be something that tests the romance and creates contrasts between the way the world was before the meeting and the way it becomes after. The suspense develops slowly as the couple travels to Bodega Bay, as Melanie meets some of the people there, and as the nature she is now exposed to begins to change into something deadly. The suspense increases as birds begin to attack, first singly, then in groups of hundreds and thousands of birds, all behaving contrary to their normal placid nature."

More papers on "The Birds":

• Essay # 31668 : "The Birds"
• Analytical Essay # 25708 : "The Birds"
• Film Review # 89071 : "Alfred Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent" and "The Birds"

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