The Book and Film of The Birds Essay

The Birds Emilee Guerra

The short story The Birds by Daphne DuMaurier and the movie that was directed by Alfred Hitchcock, also called The Birds, are both very good and suspenseful. Both, story and film, kept me on the edge of my seat. The methods of creating suspense in the movie and the short story are varied yet effective.

The silence parts in this film were really suspenseful. When Lydia goes to the Fawcett farm, you expect noise but there isnt any. As she walks down the hallway, no music is playing, nor is Lydia talking. When she finally gets into Dans room, there is no screaming. All you can hear is Lydia gasping and choking. Then as she runs to her car, you can only hear her footsteps. The audience expects music, or at least noise, but since there isnt any, viewers get very intrigued. There was also an awkward silence while the family was in the living room. Nobody is talking, not even the lovebirds are chirping. The lack of speech makes the film more suspenseful because the viewer doesnt know what is going on with the characters since they arent speaking. Most of the scenes without music are very suspenseful. This technique builds suspense because there is no tune, there isnt any happy or sad music, there is nothing that will lead us to think what is going to happen next.

The weather symbolism in this story builds up suspense too. Nat noticed that the birds act strangely when he notes that always in autumn {the birds} followed the plow, but not in great flocks like these, nor with such clamour (pg.47). He even notices that the winter came from autumn just overnight. As Nat was watching the birds, he thinks to h imself on December the third the wind changed and it was winter (pg.47). This sudden change, since the season turns to winter, represents death. Nat and his family also go without sun for a while. However, the sun symbolizes warmth and positive things, but in the story there had been no sun all day (pg. 50 ). This means that only negative things have happened. The readers want to know more about these negative things that keep happening. While readers wait for a positive thing to happen, they are kept on their toes pondering what may happen next and if it will be a good or bad thing.

Another role of suspense, in the film is the camera angles that Hitchcock uses. When Lydia is going down the hallway of Dan Fawcetts house, the camera does not move with Lydia. The camera stays at the end of the hall while Lydia walks on down the hallway. Since this makes the passage look longer, the viewer expects something to jump out or something to happen while she walks. When Lydia reaches the end of the hall, and turns into Dans room, the camera doesnt film Dans body first. This adds suspense because all the audience can see is the damage that the birds have done, so the viewers just wonder what damage has happened to Dan if all that damage happened to his house. When Dan is shown, his face is zoomed in on three times. The viewer finds themselves wondering what happened to all the other people? The audience wants to know if everybody else like Mitch, Melanie or Cathy were injured like Mr. Fawcett. When Lydia is back at her house, there are camera shots of each individual. The camera is looking up at them, and they all look scared. The watcher wants to know if these characters are going to be okay since they all look scared and confused.

Daphne DuMaurier and Alfred Hitchcock include very suspenseful scenes in the short story and the film. Even though the plot stayed the same, birds attacking humans, their suspense techniques are very different.