The birds (1963)

fig1.

The Birds starring  Rod Taylor, Tippi Hedren and Suzanne Pleshette directed by Alfred Hitchcock (1963). One could say that this was another experimental movie with an interesting lack of music and one of the most influential scenes in history.

"The Birds" is Hitchcock at his best in this thriller horror that pits nature against man in a tour-de-force of apocalyptic magnitude." (Gugie.2007)

fig2.

"The Birds employs experimental music--namely, musique concrete, which is perhaps best known via Stockhausen and John Cage. Here, Remi Gassmann and Oskar Sala have composed a musique concrete piece that consists primarily of manipulated bird sounds, which provides an unearthly, surrealistic backdrop to the frightening bird attack scenes." (Sponseller.2001) 

I also noticed that there was really any music and whenever the birds hit it was just the sounds of the people scurrying and the birds attacking, it gave the scenes such realism. It also made the audience become one with the movie because we know in real life there is no music when anything happens.

fig3.

I noticed what I thought was possibly a coincidental link to Hitchcock's earlier film psycho, when Melanie talks about her mother' running away with some hotel man in the east'. It also appeared that whenever Mitch's mother was unhappy with Melanie the birds attacked; at the very end when they all retreated to the car in attempt to escape the mother seemed content with having a now innocent defenceless girl to look after, and all the birds seemed calm too. 

"Given the limitations of the special effects, it's impressive that the scenes of attack are as scary as they are.  You can easily tell when the birds are fake, which is most of the time.  They are much scarier in your mind."(Scott.2010)

Illustration list:

-Fig1.http://www.deviantart.com/download/193794300/the_birds_by_urban_barbarian-d37don0.jpg

-Fig.2http://t1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQa0HC10SAN37p4xV_KkT7wTZpBblaoQdfA_oodN0rENgDXoyCN&t=1

.Fig.3 http://voxhortus.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/bodega-bay-tippi-hendren-the-birds-400x303-27kb.jpg

Bibliography:

1.John M Gugie (2007) http://www.suite101.com/content/movie-review-the-birds-1963-a24045 (accessed on 14.2.11)

2. Brandt Sponseller (2001) http://classic-horror.com/reviews/birds_1963 (accessed on 14.2.11)

3.Scott (2010) http://www.threemoviebuffs.com/review/birds(accessed on 14.2.11)