Saturday, July 20, 2019

The Birds (1963) pt 4 - Intro & Mitch Brenner

As the film opens, Lydia Brenner has a strange relationship with her son whom we’ll meet shortly. Not incestuous, but not wholly normal either. Lydia relies on her son’s strength precisely as she did her husband’s: in a jealous & leech-like fashion.

Likewise, at the beginning of the film, Melanie Daniels is an impish, insecure brat - fragile & longing for meaning in some form. She is rethinking the course of her life: 

You see, Rome... That entire summer, I did nothing but... Well, it was very easy to get lost there. So when I came back, I thought it was time I began... I don't know... finding something again. 

It is these two dogged women that Hitchcock will lead through a journey as we watch. Hitchcock himself shows us this fact in his obligatory cameo.


There we are, just past the 2 minute mark. Two white dogs for two cagey Caucasian women which Hitchcock has together. Indirectly tied to each other as both are tied to Hitchcock going along for the same walk.

Now how is it that these two birds meet?  Lydia’s son.


Mitch Brenner. Charming, restrained, educated, compassionate, selfless, well-humored, protective and concerned with right. Husband by proxy to Lydia, he is soon to be desirous of being husband actual to Melanie. 

Just before Mitch & Melanie meet, we see Mitch going up some stairs and passing a portrait of two white dogs not unlike the ones Hitchcock led out of the store. 

What is Mitch heading into?


For reinforcement: Melanie leads Mitch into this tale.


And again Hitchcock shows Melanie doggedly pursuing it.


Well now that we’ve seen canine as metaphor for the unpleasant side of women in their public persona, what - then - are the birds about?  

Symbolic manifestations - entirely unconscious - of Lydia Brenner and only of Lydia Brenner. Darkly disturbed, repressed feelings that prim Lydia has yet to consciously admit.

Though these manifestations emerge entirely from Lydia's desires, all the bird attacks have an interesting commonality which will be shortly examined in depth.

Lydia's reactions to the doings of the birds vary subtly: bewilderment, shock, embarrassment, fear, etc. She does however always seems thrown at each attack as much as one of us are when confronted with Freudian outbursts in our own behavior.   

Before examining what these birds do in the film, a small preface:

Eleven plays a quietly prominent role in The Birds. Perhaps eleven is as simple as two individuals (i.e. two “one’s”). It is the age at which Melanie Daniels was abandoned by her mother. It is the age Cathy Brenner turns at her birthday party the very weekend over which the movie transpires and - oddly - it is also the number of incursions by birds upon humans. 

Let’s examine these attacks and see how they might be connected to Lydia’s mental state, psychic influence & disposition...








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