The Birds (1963)

Revenge of the Birds! With mostly subtle clues, Hitchcock reveals reasons for a massive assault on a coastal town by thousands of birds - could it be messing with their habitat and feeding sources or the centuries of caging them or the harvesting of their meat? We'll never know.

A rich hottie from San Francisco follows a flirting lawyer to a coastal town. While she's there, the seagulls, crows, swallows, etc. . . begin attacking people for no apparent reason. Some fatalities occur and a gas station blows up. It really is quite a natural disaster.

The mastery revealed in this film is all the background action that takes place as the foreground conversation takes place. This is especially apparent in the diner scene. We are fed some relevant information to get us on the right track and irrelevant information to throw us off. Though I wasn't terrified by the beaks and talons, I was fascinated by the undercurrent tensions and the character sketches.

Nearly everything in the film is left untied in the end. If there is anything that Hitchcock can do, it's get a rise out of his viewers. Certainly a classic.

Truth: We should never assume that nature can be tamed or fully understood. (and wear goggles)

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