An Enduring Story

Rating: Null/10 (27 June 2015)

Although most people have seen this Hitchcock favorite from 1963 whether at the theater, on television, on videotape, on DVD, or online many of them should see it again.
It's far more than some trivial fright movie. The obvious fact that real birds usually do not, nor are they much likely to, act that way, at least not on that scale, should be a clue to a deeper symbolic exercise.
Although Bodega Bay, home and weekend retreat of Mitch Brenner, is a mere quaint hamlet, it can be rife with the same social, economic and political intricacies likely faced by the people in San Francisco, where he works.
The list of interesting characters at Bodega Bay includes a sort of postman, a schoolteacher and a policeman. There is probably a church and a hospital of sorts as well, but those and the people who work there are not obvious in the movie. There is however first aid and a community discussion at a diner.
At that diner as well as for the real world audience the bird attacks, real or not, serve as the topic of the community discussion.
The social, economic and political intricacies of today across this country are much the same as in the Bodega Bay of the movie. The birds in the movie might not be following real bird nature, but the humans in the movie are following real human nature.