![]() ![]() This theme ties in somewhat with the Cold War theme, as most other films of the era that portrayed nature rising to wreak havoc against humans tended to provide explanations related to nuclear testing or other atomic weaponry. What is especially unique and innovative about The Birds, as compared to other Hitchcock films, is that not even a hint of an explanation for their violence is ever given. The attacks themselves, from an anonymous crowd of assailants above, seem to reflect Cold War fears, and the doom with which some of the townspeople discuss a war with birds reflects the way that people talked about nuclear warfare. and the Soviet at the time may even point out the way in which The Birds can be interpreted as commentary on the pervasive fears of the atomic age. The film's lack of any reference to the state of global tensions between the U.S. There are no communists or anti-communists in the story, and the story never once directly refers to the Cold War, yet The Birds is very much a product of Cold War sensibility. The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world closer to the brink of nuclear devastation than it had ever been before or since during the making the film. The devastating effects of McCarthyism (in which individuals suspected of communist sympathies were blacklisted and even prosecuted) on Hollywood were still being felt, as many actors, writers, and directors had been forced out of the industry or into the shadows. The Birds was produced at the height of the Cold War. Mitch’s and Melanie’s facing of the attack together may serve to suggest at an ‘evolutionary’ future of marriage or procreation between the two of them. The lovebirds can be seen as a symbol of the part that romantic attraction plays in the human struggle for our continuing evolution. ![]() A second implied purpose of their union, however, might tie into the idea of extinction, and what is necessary to prevent it-neither are involved with anyone, and without procreation, extinction will arrive quicker. Mitch and Melanie must work together to save themselves and Mitch’s family from the attacking birds. Mitch and Melanie must be brought together because the birds are threatening the human species with extinction in a battle for supremacy over the planet (in a reading in which the bird attacks are not particularly associated with either of them, of course). The lovebirds are a kind of “Macguffin” (a word Hitchcock used for details that, while insignificant in themselves, draw the events of the film together) to bring Melanie and Mitch together. A theme such as this, which questions the fragility of our power, is the type of psychological fear common to Hitchcock films. This synecdochic role of the town is also pointed out earlier in the film, when the ornithologist escalates the conflict to a global scale by commenting on the number of birds in the USA and the world, and how we, as humans, would not stand a chance against them if they united to fight us. Though the bird attacks initially seem relegated to this small town, we find out toward the end of the film that the attacks are spreading to nearby towns, which turns the battle in the town into a representation of a battle for the whole planet. It doesn’t take terribly long for the birds to establish primacy over the humans: the final terrifying image is of the symbolic family unit pathetically trying to make an escape as an army of birds, dominating the landscape, watches. Who has primacy over the planet? Humans or animals? The film pits humans, for all their intelligence and technological developments, against birds, often seen as unintelligent animals.
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