Tuote Kuvaus:

• Vacationing in northern California, Alfred Hitchcock was struck by a story in a Santa Cruz newspaper: Seabird Invasion Hits Coastal Homes. From this peculiar incident, and his memory of a short story by Daphne du Maurier, the master of suspense created one of his strangest and most terrifying films. The Birds follows a chic blonde, Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), as she travels to the coastal town of Bodega Bay to hook up with a rugged fellow (Rod Taylor) she s only just met. Before long the town is attacked by marauding birds, and Hitchcock s skill at staging action is brought to the fore. Beyond the superb effects, however, The Birds is also one of Hitchcock s most psychologically complicated scenarios, a tense study of violence, loneliness, and complacency. What really gets under your skin are not the bird skirmishes but the anxiety and the eerie quiet between attacks. The director elevated an unknown model, Tippi Hedren (mother of Melanie Griffith), to being his latest cool, blond leading lady, an experience that was not always easy on the much-pecked Ms. Hedren. Still, she returned for the next Hitchcock picture, the underrated Marnie. Treated with scant attention by serious critics in 1963, The Birds has grown into a classic and--despite the sci-fi trappings--one of Hitchcock s most serious films. --Robert Horton

Asiakaspalvelu Ratings:

• AVIANS RUN AMOK IN AN ARTY ACHIEVEMENT. avians run amok in an artistic achievement .
  
  
  The father of modern cinema Hitchcock celebrates his most innovative and chilling avian caprice in an innocuous romance that buds in a pet shop in SAN FRANCISCO where mitch [ROD TAYLOR]and melanie[Tippi Hedren ]meet and flirt on a shopping spree to acquire a myna and a pair of lovebirds .
  Their chance encounter on a bird acquiring campaign is rather playful and in utter disregard for mother planet and satirises our contempt for lower species abused in captivity until they CAN break free in a chilling revolution where the benign avians claim their natural habitat back from the selfish clutches of human race.
  
  We next proceed to Bodega Bay where a seagull attacks melanie while a swarm of gulls terrorise children at a local school picnic ,but this is just the great director lulling you into a sense of false security as the avians soon run amok and culminate in a natural catastrophe of apocalyptic proportions .
  
  Tippi-Taylor are perfectly cast as the stylish duo ,an all american couple presenting a wealthy manicured beauty and a stolid handsome lawyer ,up against the marauding birds who are on a ruthless and peculiar predator hunt against the human consumers .
  Jessica tandy is taylor s rather lugubrious and skeptical mother who dis approves of melanie .
  The aerial shots of the birds ravaging a gas station is a cinematic landmark,no less than the swarm of sparrows swooping down a chimney as the town comes under assault by cooing and screeching millions who descend with a sweeping camera onto humanity swooning in terror .
  
  The terror is dually physical and psychological as it works on our subconscious and its Hitchcock s genius which makes the birds steal the show as they attempt to retrieve their lost abodes and this culminates in a sheer audio-visual assault on human senses in an avalanche of artistic achievement .
  
  The selfish human contempt for despoiling environment are the great themes coming back to haunt us but with great camera work and panoramic locales on the californian coast,while the screen dazzles with sequences of a rippling ocean replete with flocks of avian species blocking the horizon .
  
  This is way ahead of today s gory horror slashers both artistically,technically and celebrates both human spirit and the majestic creatures who share our environment in an aesthetic manner, changing our attitudes as we will never look at birds with indifference ever again and that is the triumph of true art.
  
  Derived from a short story by Daphne du Maurier and ingeniously shot by Humboldt with an innovative musical score this is the mother of all disaster movies .
  
  Any explanation of the bizarre phenomena is redundant as it is an observation of a mysterious natural event where natural aviators meet human paranoia and the movie succeeds in establishing the best model of avian behaviour in cinema .
  
  
• Horryfying and vibrant thriller. When Melanie Daniels (Hedren) visits a mysterious man in Bodega Bay, she and the townsfolk are struck by the vicious nature of the local birds.
  
  3 years had passed since Alfred Hitchcock had sat in the director s chair for a horror film and in that time there was outstanding reviews for Psycho, the horror of a lifetime. That 1960 release was widely publicised and so there was a lot to live up to in 1963 when The Birds was released, and as usual for the British director, he knocked us over once more.
  
  Psycho was a shocking wake up to the realisation of human madness and Hitchcock again gains access to a concept of realization in this horror by depicting what many would assume as normal well mannered and beautiful creatures, and adds a horrifying viciousness to the birds to give a sharp and tantalizing story that will grip and shock you right till the claustrophobic and nerve jangling finale.
  
  The film begins, as usual for the legendary director, with a wonderful montage title sequence. We see a flock of birds acting unusually as the credits roll. It is a complete beautiful blur of wings and fighting with the screeches unmistakable and the juxtaposition of sound and motion gears viewers up for the horrific adventure to come.
  
  After another wonderfully cheeky cameo by Hitchcock we are introduced to central character Melanie who, after a flirtatious debate with a strange good looking man, uses her influences to track him down. As the stunning Tippi Hedren makes her way to Bodega Bay with a surprise install for Taylor s Mitch Brenner, Hitchcock delivers a wonderful car driving montage again. If not as springy as those in Vertigo but the feeling of anticipation is nailed down. If you haven t seen the Birds yet and have read reviews, you will feel the same wonderful excitement I felt to, and it is definitely worth it.
  
  Hitchcock after all is known as the master of suspense and one of the main reasons why this film works so gloriously is the fact the tension and surprise is built up in such a constructed free and significantly realistic way. What starts out as a minor attack on a boat turns into a town spread panic that generates tension and horror of the upmost brilliance, the suspense and anticipation is brilliantly priceless.
  
  Of all of Hitchcock s films, The Birds is surely one of the best filmed. To create the shots of the animals sitting on the climbing frames at the school, to have them all swooping down the chimney, it is simply breathtaking filmmaking and as a viewer, you feel rewarded and treated to this suspense and appreciation of horror and the unnatural.
  
  Once the birds attack there is never any let up in suspense as the characters try to find solutions and look for any way to survive and as in true Hitchcock fashion, he delivers a smart horror that generates realism with a swooping and smart depiction of the nature of the winged creatures that will shock and scare right till the end. Excellence.
  
  9/10
• Classic Hitchcock. Given that Alfred Hitchcock is probably one of the most discussed and analysed directors of modern cinema, its difficult to find a new slant on his work. Suffice to say The Birds in my opinion is up there with Psycho and North By North West as the very best examples of his work. The casting of Tippi Hedren is inspired and on the Region 2 DVD we see her actual screen tests. The film looks marvellous with crisp colours and crystal clear sound. I am sometimes wary of buying older titles as I have seen some poor transfers onto DVD.
  The Birds has the usual mix of small continuity errors often associated with Hitchcock but these are minor grumbles. Its an excellent film with great performances, so four stars .
• WARNING: Pan-and-scan version of widescreen film. For resons best known to themselves, Universal UK have issued most of Alfred Hitchcock s 1960s/1970s films (The Birds, Marnie, Torn Curtain, Topaz, Frenzy) in pan-and-scan 1.33:1 ratio, although these films were originally shown in widescreen (1.85:1).
  
  This is available via Region 1 imported discs - if your DVD player is multi-region - but surely the UK deserves a better service than this!
  
  Come on, Universal UK - give us the same remastered widescreen versions that are available for the US market!!!
• Another classic Hitch. Hitchcock was always an innovator. Having created the first slasher movie with Psycho two years earlier, The Birds features yet another blonde (following on from Grace Kelly, Kim Novak and Janet Leigh), in the graceful and fur-swathed shape of Tippi Hedren as the film s central character, the heiress Melanie Daniels. So, in the wake of Paris Hilton s arrival in our lives, what better time to reappraise one of Alfred Hitchcock s best and most enigmatic films? Melanie s father owns a San Francisco newspaper and she is clearly a woman used to getting what she wants, as well as being somewhat renowned in the scandal sheets as a socialite and prankster. For those who think Hedren s peformance was rather vague and wooden, perhaps the comparison with Ms Hilton shows her to have, in fact, captured the aloof poise and intense self-belief that the priveleged wealthy seem to possess. A chance encounter in a pet store with principled lawyer Mitch Brenner(Rod Taylor), who knows all about Miss Daniels pranks and disapproves of them, cleverly sets the film up for the events that unravel in the sleepy costal town of Bodega Bay, where Mitch s widowed mother (Jessica Tandy) and young sister Cathy (Veronica Cartwright) live. Mitch is trying to buy a pair of lovebirds for his sister s birthday that weekend, but there are none in stock. Melanie, piqued at finding herself outmanouevered by Mitch when he pretends to mistake her for a shop assistant, uses her contacts at daddy s paper to track him down, orders a pair of lovebirds for delivery to her next day and sets off for Bodega Bay to surprise Mitch and Cathy. She arrives at BB in her expensive little sports car, all fur, gloves and high heels, with hair piled high on her head, but proves adept at commanding a boat as she crosses the bay to secretly drop off the birds at the Brenner house. She waits long enough to be spotted by her intended quarry, Mitch Brenner. Then she heads back across the bay as Mitch drives round to meet her, the seduction unfolding nicely, only to be violently struck on the head by a seagull as she is about to dock. And so the horror begins to unfold.
  
  What follows is pretty well known - the birthday party, the devastating birdstrike on the gas station, Melanie sitting outside the school, unaware of the number of crows landing in groups on the playground climbing frame as she smokes a cigarette and the children sing inside the school house. Still be shocked by Mrs Brenner s discover of the poultry farmer s body slumped in his bedroom and Hitch s innovative, silent series of short, sharp cuts from long-shot to mid- to close-up. The final claustrophobic attacks, while all the while the lovebirds sit peaceful and serene in their cage. Perhaps too much has been made of Hitchcock s fascination with blondes, and the suffering Hedren endured at times in this film - she had five days on set having birds thrown at her at one point. Apart from throwing birds at people, the oustanding special effects were achieved with multiple images, matte and an electronic soundtrack of bird squarks. Some may find the pace of the film s first half too slow for modern tastes. I say savour the quiet, still unfolding of the film (there is no music to the fim, a landmark decision which which lends the film a very eerie feeling). The whole film is set up beautifully - surely a young Steven Spielberg learnt some valuable lessons here which he used to good effect in Jaws to conjure up the detailed and believable depiction of a quiet holiday seaside town where nothing much happens. Watch for the initial frosty confrontation with Mitch s mother: herself elegant, hair piled up high and immaculately dressed for Bodega Bay, the symbolism is clear and she is clearly threatened of being usurped by a young woman for her son s affections, someting confirmed later by schoolteacher Annie. (In fact, sexual tension runs through the film - mother versus son s girlfriend, Melanie s attraction to a man who initially infuriated and repulsed her, the current and the cast-off female objects of Mitch s affection).
  
  The film is often described as enigmatic. It is so from the very start - listen for the sound of seagulls over downtown San Francisco in the film s first few moments. Is the unresolved ending a cop-out? Well, in this respect it apes the original Daphne du Maurier short story. We never know why the birds attack, or where it will all lead, but the radio is reporting birdstrikes at other coastal towns as the film ends. Are the lovebirds the focus for the attacks or is this merely a red herring? What about Melanie herself? Mitch s mother goes to see the poultry farmer because her hens havent been laying for weeks - are the roots of the attacks in fact set earlier than the events portrayed, and therefore nothing to do with Melanie or the lovebirds? To have had a successful resolution to the crisis (and the Mitch-Melanie relationship) would have made for an inferior film, demoting The Birds to the status of a fifties SF B-movie at once. Hitchcock once again made some bold and unconventional moves with his film-making, which led to unfavourable reviews from the critics at the time (think also of the furore surrounding having killed off his heroine halfway through Psycho, and the charges of voyeurism that damaged Rear Window s reputation for so many years until its rediscovery in the eighties). The Birds is another Hitch classic - watch it before the reported remake comes out. Close the curtains, shut the door and if you hear some noises from the chimney, well, it s probably only the wind.
  
  

• Rear Window [DVD] [1954]
• Vertigo [DVD] [1958]
• North By Northwest [1959] [DVD]
• Marnie [DVD] [1964]
• Psycho (2 Disc Special Edition) [DVD] [1960]