The Birds (1963) pt 1 - What Do Birds Mean to Hitchcock?

The Birds: An Interpretive Essay 

It’s no secret that the whole of England recognizes the term “birds” as a euphemism for “women”.

It’s also no secret that the celebrated director Alfred Hitchcock was English, himself born on the East side of London. Even less of a secret was Hitchcock’s wit, intelligence, wry humor & macabre sensibilities.

He possessed a keen mind & deft observational powers both of which are reflected in his timeless features. To what degree, though, did Hitchcock invest those qualities into his work?

1960 saw the arrival of yet another of his masterpieces: Psycho. A tale of a boy & the boy’s Mother. His next motion picture, in 1963 was The Birds. A tale which, with deference to Rod Taylor, is entirely about women.

Given this article’s opening sentence, it would be natural to conclude The Birds is a simple allegory for women.

Is that, though, really the end of Hitchcock’s abilities? A straightforward metaphor with nothing else to it?

I recently began an email correspondence with Joel G Robertson, a movie podcaster to whom much inspiration in this essay belongs. The tennis-like back-and-forthing went from Silence of the Lambs to Texas Chainsaw Massacre to Psycho to The Birds to Hitchcock and finally to the topic at hand:

What did birds mean to Hitchcock?

In short, there seems to be a connection between Psycho & The Birds that may warrant attention. Yes, in the technical sense, Hitchcock is using birds as a metaphor for women. With scrutiny, however, it seems evident his focus was fixated on but one type of woman: Mother.

Psycho & The Birds both seem to be entries from the mind of one man fleshing out the depths of the mindset, feelings & role of Mother and using birds in his film to represent those issues.

To begin, let’s start at the end of my cinema-trail where Hitchcock’s use of birds can most easily be identified. This will make a retroactive interpretation into earlier works far easier to recognize.

Let us start with Hitchcock's 1963 masterpiece...

Film Discussion: The Birds (1963)