Slideshow
THE BIRDS
U.S., 1963
Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Screenplay by Evan Hunter
Based on the story of the same name by Daphne du Maurier
Starring Tippi Hedren, Rod Taylor, Jessica Tandy
Music by Bernard Herrmann
Approx. 119 min.
After exchanging barbs with lawyer Rod Taylor in a San Francisco pet shop, bratty playgirl Tippi Hedren follows him to Bodega Bay with a gift of—gulp!—lovebirds... and then nature turns. Hitchcock’s tour de force of terror from the mundane.
Presented with support from The Ada Katz Fund for Literature in Film
Reviews
“An audacious use of science fiction apocalypse to dramatize intimate emotional insecurity.”
– David Thompson
“Hitchcock’s most abstract film and perhaps his subtlest, still yielding new meanings and inflections after a dozen or more viewings. As emblems of sexual tension, divine retribution, meaningless chaos, metaphysical inversion, and aching human guilt, his attacking birds acquire a metaphorical complexity and slipperiness worthy of Melville.”
– Dave Kehr