The Birds Film Analysis

Upon reading Daphne du Maurier’s story, The Birds, I was quite intrigued by what Hitchcock’s movie interpretation would look like, and I was surprised. I was not happy that the story of Nat Hocken had not even been mentioned in the film, but I did enjoy the new story of Melanie and Mitch. Overall, both were equally worthy of praise, but very different. du Maurier’s The Birds focuses on a man named Nat Hocken who lives in a small town near the seaside in England. He is a wounded war veteran on a pension, and works doing small jobs around the town. He is always working outside and notices that not many of the birds have gone away for the winter, as they usually do, and have become quite restless, too. One day, a bird hits him and as he tells others about what happened, no one believes him. One night, the birds come and attack their house, and once Nat fights them off, he decides that he will protect his wife and two children. He boards up the windows and gathers supplies from the farm (he finds …show more content…
In the film, a young woman named Melanie meets a man named Mitch in a bird shop in San Francisco. They quickly fall in love, and the story moves to Bodega Bay, where Melanie follows Mitch. The birds start attacking the town. A few people in the town die because of the chaos, others because of the bird attacks, and many leave the town. Melanie, Mitch, Mitch’s mom, Lydia, and Mitch’s sister, Cathy, however cannot leave the bay as the birds are all around them. They, likewise, board up the windows, but when Melanie becomes a little bit too curious (curiousity killed the cat, as they say) and opens a door upstairs, she is attacked by the birds who have broken into the room by the ceiling, Mitch finds her, and does the best he can to try to save her, but insists that they bring her to a hospital. The movie ends with them driving away, leaving the audience, once again, curious in what happens