The Birds

The Birds (1963) is Hitchcock's strangest film, and part of the strangeness is in what you hear. There is no music in it. Not one note. The bird sounds were produced on an early electronic instrument called the Mixtur Trautonium, played by Oskar Sala. Bernard Herrmann, who scored every other Hitchcock film of the period, is credited here not as composer but as sound consultant. So the tension is built not from music but from bird noises that were never birds, and from silences placed between them. The story comes from a Daphne du Maurier story. Melanie travels from San Francisco to Bodega Bay, and once she arrives the birds begin attacking people. First a few, then in flocks. The boldest decision is refusing to give a reason. Why they attack is never explained. One character offers a guess and that is all. There is no closing title either; the film does not end so much as stop. The production has a dark side. In the attic sequence live birds were thrown at Tippi Hedren for five days. She had been told mechanical birds would be used. She was injured, and described what happened years later. It runs 119 minutes. Good for: classic horror, Hitchcock, and sound design. Less good for: the bird attacks and injuries are harsh, and how the animals were used in filming would not be acceptable now.