When the birds start attacking the house, Mitch is running around with a bleeding hand fighting off birds, hammering more barriers on the doors. But the women don’t lift a finger to help. They just pose around, clutching walls and look up. Then Cathy starts vomiting all over the place but her mother just sits there, lets Melanie take her to the toilet and doesn’t show one iota of concern. What is wrong with them?
shareIt was 1963.
And at the movies, it was still sometimes 1953.
..but perhaps, within the context of the story, here Mitch Brenner is at once "paying" for his disregard for the romantic women in his life(Melanie, Annie) and continuing to take on the terrible burden of being "the man of the house" with his mother and sister. His mother even yells at him: "If your father were alive, he'd know what to do!!"
In a movie filled with women (literally, a "chick flick" called The Birds), Mitch is the only man of consequence and he pays a price for gender models of the time. He's the only hero in the piece, and as one critic wrote, "The Birds makes the concept of the hero..untenable."
Yeah, it was 1963, and Lydia at least was doing what was considered right for a mom in 1963, looking after her minor child and leaving the fighting and carpentry to the men. Man.
However, l still wonder if 1963 audiences were disappointed in Melanie the way we are, she just sits there like a lump when she could be getting up and swatting at birds with her man, thereby forming a partnership-in-crisis with the guy she's been chasing, proving her worth to him, and worming her way into his heart *and* his family. It's what we'd expect a film heroine to do, but it's what Melanie can't do, and in fact, she goes upstairs and makes matters worse. To modern viewers it's a deliberate defiance of movie cliches and makes us wonder about Hitchcock's tense relationship with Hedren,
Yeah, it was 1963, and Lydia at least was doing what was considered right for a mom in 1963, looking after her minor child and leaving the fighting and carpentry to the men. Man.
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Well, that's true. There was back then a real "John Wayne" model to follow for male heroes in movies. Though Hitchcock often undercut that in his films - so often the heroes were fairly weak and the villains ran the show.
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However, l still wonder if 1963 audiences were disappointed in Melanie the way we are,
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Certainly...its my theory that audiences were a lot more hip than the movies they were seeing out of Hollywood a lot of the time.
Though I suppose the movie shows a real "breakdown" among all the women as the birds become such an overwhelming threat -- Tippi backing into the couch and running all over the place is a "study in feminine panic."
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she just sits there like a lump when she could be getting up and swatting at birds with her man, thereby forming a partnership-in-crisis with the guy she's been chasing, proving her worth to him, and worming her way into his heart *and* his family.
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Yes, but again, part of the power of this scene is Hitchcock's insistency on not showing hardly any birds -- we just get those massive sound effects suggesting there's not much that CAN be done to fight them. Mitch rightfully pursues "securing the battlements" -- the window, the door. I'm not sure what how Tippi could help him -- though as I recall she runs over and tries to bandage him or something?
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It's what we'd expect a film heroine to do, but it's what Melanie can't do, and in fact, she goes upstairs and makes matters worse.
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Well, I think when she goes upstairs she has decided not to awaken the bloodied and exhausted Mitch. She goes up to "check things out," and maybe report back. Contrary to some reports, Melanie doesn't enter the room and stupidly close the door behind her. She enters the room and the BIRDS knock her against the door (she had no reason to think there would be birds INSIDE the house.)
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To modern viewers it's a deliberate defiance of movie cliches
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Hitchcock always used to like to brag about "eschewing cliches" but the truth is, he DID. He gave us weaknesses and venalties in his heroes, and sympathetic villians.
Hell, James Stewart alone played rather ornery yet weak men in Rope, Rear Window and Vertigo. He's a bit more of a traditional hero in Man Who Knew Too Much.
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and makes us wonder about Hitchcock's tense relationship with Hedren,
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Well, I think as Tippi Hedren herself pointed out, perhaps the REAL reason he hired her as a young unknown from a TV commercial is that he knew "Melanie Daniels' was going to get pecked at by birds. A LOT in her climactic scene. It had been hard enough for Janet Leigh to lie on the floor playing dead in Psycho; this was going to be a lot worse.
So I'm not sure if Hitchcock was all that emotionally involved with Hedren on The Birds(Marnie, moreso) ...just aware that this young woman was going to be put in a cage with birds EVENTUALLY.
" Mitch rightfully pursues "securing the battlements" -- the window, the door. I'm not sure what how Tippi could help him -- though as I recall she runs over and tries to bandage him or something?"
Well the "battlements" would have been a lot more secure if there had been two adults swatting at the birds or holding end tables over the loose boards on the windows, if Melanie had gotten up and grabbed a broom or an end table then Mitch wouldn't have had to run back and forth trying to cover two or more defensible points.
If Melanie had gotten up and womanned a vulnerable point there would have been this great "You at the tiller and me at the engine, Rosie" moment a la the earlier "The African Queen", and that's what a lot of screen heroines or real people would have done. But well, that's not what Hitchcock was after, he was after panic and despair, so he let the moment devolve into until even Mitch was on the verge of useless panic, trying to cover all the doors and windows himself,/
If Melanie had gotten up and womanned a vulnerable point there would have been this great "You at the tiller and me at the engine, Rosie" moment a la the earlier "The African Queen", and that's what a lot of screen heroines or real people would have done.
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Yes, a story like "The Birds" could have well served for more "heroic action" and even "group activity" against the birds but -- as you point out below -- Hitchcock wasn't into that much. His protagonists are generally "on their own" alone(the victims in Psycho) or in romantic pairings -- and heroism isn't the order of the day.
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But well, that's not what Hitchcock was after, he was after panic and despair, so he let the moment devolve into until even Mitch was on the verge of useless panic, trying to cover all the doors and windows himself
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Given how much of a jerk Mitch is in the early stretch of the movie -- I think Hitchcock is serving some just desserts, here.
OP, you apparently weren’t alive in the 60s.
shareIt is called shock and panic. Try putting yourself in their place.
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