The Birds

A re-watching of the 1963 Hitchcock classic. Not just as good as ever, but even better on this watch.
Our memories of childish viewings obviously had this pinned down as a horror involving birds. On this watch, it became clear that the film is really about the attack of alien, outside forces, the Lacanian 'part-of-no-part', perhaps, or the return of the everyday. This is a film about revolution in general, largely the feminist one but also with nods to the class struggle.
We do indeed have the usual Hitchcockian family/oedipal issues played out (a wonderful scene raises the Oedipus content explicitly), but unlike other Hitchcock films this really takes a back seat to the more political reverberations.
Throughout the film, especially at the start, we follow Tippi Hendren. Hitchcock can't help himself but to a few shots that suggest voyeurism, but largely we have the woman in control of the camera (one could say that it is in a way 'wrenched away' as her sanity disintegrates). Hitchcock has less control than in a number of his other films; he is perhaps almost attempting to erase himself, his male gaze. This applies also to the character of Mitch, an odd creation who is at once a hero but devoid of content (the non-concrete signifier?). This character surely stands in for Hitchcock himself; he is at once the hero, supporting the cause, but to do so he must erase himself, make himself merely the conduit for the power of the women.
And this film is all about the power from and between women. We have the three generations, the lower two representing the struggle for freedom and emancipation. The inter-generational struggles are a wonderful dialectic of the problems and the casualties of the struggle. We also have moments of tenderness, suggesting of tension and at once comradeship. The wonderful scene of Annie in nightgown chatting to Tippi Hendren is full of erotic charge, suggesting so much more than seen....
So what are the birds? Maybe they are the return of the symbolic order, to revenge and punish incursions by the womens attempts at emancipation. They attack the next generation, they 'punich' Tippi Hendren whenever she strikes forward alone. Myabe they are the unstoppable wave, of adolescent sexuality and of the uncontollable power that will ravage all (making Hitchcock a conservative director). Perhaps these two aspects go hand in hand. It becomes near apocalyptic at times.
There is an odd scene, cut from the final version, where Marx is quoted. Are the birds the proletariat, mistreated and now to return on vengance? Where do Hitchcock's sympathies lie? With the birds?
We have not even mentioned the colour, Hendren precise and sure performance, or some of the master's classic, eerie, quiet but heavy suspense. The use of the sound of the birds is breathtaking.
Perhaps Hitchcock's least 'subjective' great film, unlike a 'Vertigo' or 'Psycho' it contends with wider issues (while not forgetting the interior). A film of many layers, that at once is hugely entertaining. He IS the master.