Search This Blog

Movies You Should Watch: THE BIRDS

THE BIRDS is a difficult movie to study because it's not about the birds. Let me repeat that:

IT'S NOT ABOUT THE BIRDS.

It's about the development and maturation of Melanie Daniels.

When we first see Melanie, she is a girl-about-town. And the word is deliberately chosen. She is a girl. She skitters across the street in San Francisco, walking to a pet store, stopping to smilingly acknowledge a wolf whistle. She enters the pet shop with mischief on her mind: She wants to buy a mynah bird and give it to a prim aunt after teaching it dirty words. But the mynah bird is delayed, and when the pet shop clerk goes to check on it, a man walks in and mistakes Melanie for the clerk. He asks Melanie for lovebirds, for his young sister, as a birthday present.

Melanie plays along, eventually letting a bird loose in the store, and the man traps the bird he puts it back in its cage with a snarky "Back in your gilded cage, Melanie Daniels"

Melanie snaps "What was that?"

MORE TO COME

No comments:

Post a Comment