The Birds Clip Analysis

The Birds (1963)

Director: Alfred Hitchcock

Plot: A wealthy San Francisco socialite pursues a potential boyfriend to a small Northern California town that slowly takes a turn for the bizarre when birds of all kinds suddenly begin to attack people there in increasing numbers and with increasing viciousness.

Clip: Crows On the Playground

The clip begins with an establishing, long shot of the main charact

er, Melanie sitting on a bench outside the park. In the back ground we can hear diagetic sound of children singing, this already creates an enigma, why is she waiting there? Hitchcock creates suspense easily here.

As Melanie begins to reach into her bag to light a cigarette, a black crow flies down and lands on the playground's climbing frame, she is not aware. There are myths that black crows are a bringer of 'bad luck', also, it is lead to believe that they are a sign of things to come, a bad omen. The shot then changes to a medium close up of Melanie trying to find a lighter in her handbag, we can no longer see the climbing frame in the background.

The shot changes, again, to a close up of the climbing frame, there are now four black crows instead of one. The shot changes three times from Melanie smoking and back to more and more birds landing on the climbing frame in the playground. Finally, Melanie takes notice to the sky and sees a crow flying towards the playground towards her, the long shot of the black crow in the sky makes the bird stand out from the blue sky, which seems pleasant, the two contrast greatly.

Again the shot changes to shot-reverse-shot of Melanie tracking the bird to where it is going to land, to the other shot of the bird soaring down towards the playground. Hitchcock uses a natural threat hear to give the impression something is going to happen, but the audience do not know what.

As the shot tracks the bird, it finally lands on the climbing frame, where there are dozens of birds now swarming the playground. The image is very threatening and suspense builds up.

Hitchcock changes the shot to a reaction shot of Melanie, we can see she is threatened by the birds and slowly jogs off to avoid attention. The shot changes from point-of-view shot to a tracking shot of Melanie.

Hitchcock manipulates the point of view shot as we watch Melanie be oblivious to what is happening behind her. As a few birds begin to gather the tension heightens, and Hitchcock only brings in the character's (Melanie) point-of-view shot to impact on how menacing the birds look.