Birds of ill omen — then and now

Arte is currently broadcasting The Birds by Alfred Hitchcock (1963). It’s striking how this great cinema classic resonates with our present day. A master of suspense, Hitchcock takes his time setting up the plot, almost to the point of boredom. Nothing truly dramatic happens during the first hour of the film. Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren), a beautiful, wealthy, and independent young woman—very much of her time, the sixties—with her almost metallic platinum-blonde hair, is intrigued by a man, Mitch Brenner (Rod Taylor), who teases her in a San Francisco bird shop. She pursues him in her convertible Aston Martin along the Californian coast all the way to Bodega Bay.

It is there that the film slowly begins to echo our present: when peaceful everyday life darkens under an uncontrollable threat. When birds, usually harmless, start attacking humans for no apparent reason.

The “scientific” voice, embodied by a disbelieving elderly lady, Mrs. Bundy (Ethel Griffies), protests:

— Birds are not aggressive, miss; they bring beauty into this world. It is rather the human species that strives and even takes pleasure in making life difficult on this planet…

Mitch Brenner tries to secure the house before the birds attack, but there are breaches in the defenses… Seagulls and crows turned belligerent break through like (re)programmed drones… Today: the surprise attacks of a neighboring country that no one believed possible, still ongoing and multiplying; former allies suddenly turning against those who thought them friendly; barbaric tyrants.