The Real 'Why'

Rating: 10/10 (13 July 2009)

I've seen this movie many times and I think I finally got it (with apologies to any posts already saying this, that I have not read). Incidentally, it's a nearly perfect film, I'm not a Hitchcock fanatic by any means, and the only real flaw is the sequence of three stills of Melanie in the diner window.
Never mind. It's Mom behind the 'bird war'. It's Jessica Tandy. We know of only one attack prior to Melanie's arrival - the gulls and the fishing boat - and it may be that was a little bit of Lydia Brenner premonition. Just watch all the scenes in the Brenner house; every time Cathy expresses affection for Melanie, Tandy is stressed. Same with Mitch. Then come the birds. Most telling is the climactic attack later on, when they're all sitting and waiting in the boarded home. Cathy feels sick and turns to Melanie, not her mother. Two minutes later...Then, before the schoolhouse attack, Lydia asks Melanie three times if Cathy will be safe there. She knows, somehow. And don't forget that, the birds aside, the pivotal tension in the storyline is Lydia's neurotic dread of being abandoned.
What is very cool is that Lydia is unaware of what she is creating through her distress.