This is Filmaking Art! One of Hitchcock's Best!

Rating: 9/10 (23 December 2007)

This movie is wonderfully shot, so beautifully composed. It is so Hitchcock. This is auteur film making. Hitchcock blesses the audience with his deep concern for their enjoyment and his respect for the viewer's intelligence. There are so many scenes and shots that reflect this. A book could be written about the camera work alone; I'm sure it has.
Everything has already been written about this film. But for those viewing for the first time (or for me, about only the fifth time) what really stands out are:
1) the use of silence not only to tell the story (Melanie's surprise birthday visit to the Brenner house), but to heighten the suspense and tension (Melanie on the bench smoking in front of the Jungle Jim, or her flashlight walk up the stairs to open the door, or the whole sequence before and during the second attack in the house, or Lydia's visit to her neighbor's farm -- the list goes on and on.) Most of the time it is real silence, since there's no music sound track in 99% of the picture to distract from the intensity of the moment created by absolute silence.
2) The beautifully framed composition of so many of the shots, for example, in all of the various one-sided telephone conversations in Bodega Bay; the last scene of Mitch and Melanie in The Tides Restaurant facing the customers; the famous final 'door' opening sequence from shadow to light. Watching the film this time I just had to stare open mouthed at the artistry displayed before me.
3) Hitchcock's respect for the audience. He doesn't slam us with a noisy soundtrack to punctuate the action, he makes such a thing unnecessary. He gets the same effects with silence. He doesn't slam us with dripping gore and bloody corpses to create horror, he tells us that is unnecessary. He gets the same effects with quick cutting, and seeing things from the character's eyes.
4) Those famous Hitchcock touches, where every day objects become omens of danger or horror, as when Lydia, after having picked up her own china from a bird attack in her house, sees broken china cups hanging in her neighbor's kitchen. You know by seeing the broken china that something horrible is going to happen, and it does. He knows how to build the suspense: we watch Melanie sit on a bench smoking for what seems like forever. We know something's going to happen, and it does, with a shock: while we've been watching her smoking, the crows have completely taken over the play yard!
You can't help but be impressed that this is real film making art. I give this movie a 9.
One final note: I grew up in Petaluma during the fifties and early sixties. We often had 'Foremost' milk, chocolate milk and buttermilk. When Melanie fixes tea for Lydia, there on the kitchen counter is the familiar brown and orange carton of 'Foremost' milk. Now that's really going for location accuracy!