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"The Birds" -- and the 2020 COVID-19 Coronavirus Crisis

posted 5 years ago by ecarle (14979)
9 replies | jump to latest

I post this in April of 2020. The COVID-19 coronavirus crisis has led to people by the multi-millions, worldwide , in lockdown in their homes and neighborhoods. I hope years from now, I might come back to this post and "remember when, and its all over now."

Living through this, as a Hitchcock buff, I find myself intrigued by how the bit-by-bit build-up to a full blown crisis resembles..yes...Hitchcock's The Birds.

In The Birds, Hitchcock famously waits a long time before the birds show up by the hundreds and pretty much take over Bodega Bay. Characters only slowly notice something wrong -- too many birds massed on the phone lines; a bird that flies into a door and dies; the sole bird that pecks Tippi Hedren on the forehead.

Eventually, things accelerate: a swarm of sparrows down the Brenner home chimney and into the living room; an attack on a birthday party outdoors, and then the big attacks on the schoolkids and the town itself.

By the third act, everybody who "barely noticed" the birds acting up in the first act of the birds KNOW that the world has changed. And the Brenner family(and Melanie Daniels)..are confined to their home. Lockdown. Sound familiar?

So it was with us "real people" and the COVID-19 crisis. Word of "something out of China." Then quaratines in Europe. Then quaratines in America. Deaths occurring(like the birds who kill). EVERYBODY fully aware of COVID-19. Everybody under lockdown.

At the end of The Birds, the people make their escape from the home to the "outside world," but the future if very uncertain.

In April of 2020, that feels familiar.

[–] MichaelJPollock (731) 5 years ago

Hey all, great occasion to demonstrate to your in-laws you're worthy of their spoiled child!

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Ha.

[–] Ed (525) 5 years ago

i never really liked The Birds. The last Hitchcock film I really loved was North by Northwest.

But where Psycho was a prelude to the slasher films, so The Birds is a prelude to the post apocalyptic films of today.

[–] MichaelJPollock (731) 5 years ago

"The Birds is a prelude to the post apocalyptic films of today."
Check out Ranald McDougall's 'The World, The Flesh and The Devil' with Harry Belafonte, a good four years before 'The Birds' for that.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

Looking at my OP, I realize that I rather "buried the lede" -- it wasn't quite so much about the massive attacks on and takeover of Bodega Bay that I am "feeling for real" right now , but rather the way I slowly, bit by bit and then overwhelmingly understood what was happening:

I wrote:

BEGIN:

In The Birds, Hitchcock famously waits a long time before the birds show up by the hundreds and pretty much take over Bodega Bay. Characters only slowly notice something wrong -- too many birds massed on the phone lines; a bird that flies into a door and dies; the sole bird that pecks Tippi Hedren on the forehead.

END

with this COVID-19 crisis, I read a few things and heard a few things but then one day I went to the grocery store and - huge lines suddenly, people with carts overflowing with provisions.

And then a few days later back to the store and -- no toilet paper. The entire long ROW was empty. At one local store. Then a second, then a third.

I guess you could say this was like the one bird pecking Tippi on the head, or the bird flying into the door, or the birds massing on the wire seen by Rod Taylor.

and then...it accelerated. Going to a restaurant and they had signs marking "every third table only" to eat. And one night before the restaurant had to go "take out only," I went out for dinner and our waiter informed us he was losing his job in an hour. He and the whole staff, less take-out people.

Next: a conference I was scheduled to attend...cancelled. A hundred thousand-plus dollar loss to the organization.

Its all pretty dramatic but...ala The Birds...it sort of "crept up on my consciousness" before(also like The Birds) exploding into crisis.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

I think The Birds is relevant here where a movie like The Poseidon Adventure or Airpor 1975 or Earthquake are not. In those movies, everything's normal and then BOOM...the tidal wave hits...BOOM..a light plane hits a jetliner...BOOM.the earthquake hits(and there are more.)

No...this crisis "slowly built up and exploded."

A movie with "similar build-up"( and in the 70's disaster movie tradition like those above) is...The Towering Inferno.

In that one, everybody's getting ready for, and then attending, a big party at the top of the world's tallest building. But architect Paul Newman and various building engineers start noticing "little things" -- overheating wires, non-responsive sensors -- and then small fires low in the building.

Finally a man is badly burned and Newman calls up to Big Boss William Holden about the fire below. Holden's response: "C'mon how bad is it, really? This building has all the right safety features." A lack of belief on Holden's part -- that is remedied about ten minutes later when guests charge into an elevator and are burned to a crisp when it opens on a fire floor.

I guess I'm speaking to "living a feeling out" here -- a feeling done on a certain scale by The Birds, and a different scale by The Towering Inferno -- people living their "regular" lives slowly coming to realize that the world has changed and they are now fighting for their lives. But The Towering Inferno is one fire in one building, put out. The Birds -- like other post-Apocalyptic movies - suggests the new world will NEVER go back to normal.

I hope we do...

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

"The Birds is a prelude to the post apocalyptic films of today."
Check out Ranald McDougall's 'The World, The Flesh and The Devil' with Harry Belafonte, a good four years before 'The Birds' for tha

---

True...but I think The Birds was a bigger hit on release, and became more famous over the years.

Hitchcock himself in the 60's said The Birds was HIS analogy to the terror of nuclear war "ending the world" and creating a vast wasteland where once society had thrived.

And yet, came the 70's, when the disaster movie craze hit(Airport(s), Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake Towering Inferno) Hitchcock said "I made one of those ten years ago. the Birds."

Of course, "everything old is new again": disaster movies go back to "San Francisco"(earthquake), The Rains Came, and Hurricane -- old movies from the 30's. And in 1963, Newsweek called The Birds...."Hitchcock's Godzilla movie." (Speaking of Godzilla, that's another example of the slow build-up movie: a fishing boat is destroyed, a lighthouse is destroyed -- no wait, that's The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms -- and the true menace isn've revealed til the third act.

But I still feel that The Birds is eerily on point here because...it doesn't provide "an ending." Just an uncertain future.

[–] MichaelJPollock (731) 5 years ago

No, your OP is spot-on I think: I was more replying to Ed about his comment on post-apocalyptic films, which I don't think 'The Birds' really qualifies as, since, as you remarked, it's more interested in the "pre" than "post" apocalypse. In the transformation and gradual realisation, more than the aftermath.

The only other film I can think of that does what you described (almost) as well as 'The Birds', is Siegel's 1956 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'. But even this one doesn't feature images as visually powerful and evocative as those found in 'The Birds'. And of course, those silly tacked on book-ending scenes really take away from it as well.

[–] ecarle (14979) 5 years ago

In the transformation and gradual realisation, more than the aftermath.

--

That's true. I haven't seen "The World, The Flesh, and the Devil," but I've read of it and..like a few Twilight Zone episodes and one other movie ("On the Beach") ...its about the aftermath of nuclear war, right?

Now, Hitchcock said that The Birds was influenced by this -- in fact, I think he cited "On the Beach" somewhere - -but it is indeed about "other things"(nature rebelling, a certain almost Biblical retribution) and indeed, the whole thing is predicated on Tippi, Rod and Jessica all slowly figuring out that their personal problems don't amount to a hill of beans now that "the birds is coming!"(to quote the ads.)

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The only other film I can think of that does what you described (almost) as well as 'The Birds', is Siegel's 1956 'Invasion Of The Body Snatchers'.

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Yes, in that one we have Kevin McCarthy "not believing" people who are trying to warn him...but...come the end...nobody's believing HIM. (Til the tacked on ending.) We also have the gradual changes in personalities that concern McCarthy and other around him.

I am sure if I put my mind to it, I could think of other movies where it takes awhile for the main characters to realize "a menace has come among them" but -- The Birds sure came into my mind , first. Plus, being locked down in my home. In that regard, The Birds is also a "siege movie"(see: Night of the Living Dead, Assault on Precinct 13) but...on point to this calamity we are in now.

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But even this one doesn't feature images as visually powerful and evocative as those found in 'The Birds'.

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Yes, Hitchcock, coming off the huge hit of Psycho and TV series success,had the time and budget to "really do things right" with The Birds. The effects, the trained birds, the puppets...all in service of great, great images and indeed, a feeling of doom and "non-closure" .