That's strictly very good ! (a strictly McGuffin movie)

Rating: 8/10 (11 February 2001)

In 1960 Hitchcock topped himself off. That's exactly the point. He directed three masterpieces in three different genres. A visual investigation: Vertigo. A reference for every action movie (esp. 007 movies): North by Northwest. An horror tale, Psycho, where he reaches the top of what he always tried to do: enthrall audiences.
Imagine you reached the top. Then can you go further and not downhill? Fortunately Hitchcock is far from using the same recipes. But what story to shoot now it's over with all that wrong man's stuff? He wants to prove he can play with our emotions once more. The fact it is difficult to show more efficiency than in Psycho is of the utmost importance. He can't. What he can do is experimenting new ways of telling a story. That's why The Birds might look arid as some experimental movies.
At the summit of his art, Hitchcock knows he has nothing to account for to the critics. Some of those might have written some time 'That's strictly for the birds'. Easy to say as any critical commonplace. Now look, I'll direct no star and lay the emphasis on the technical aspect. No music but a work on sound effects (today the soundtrack is the very first by-product). For the camera work, the importance is not in the filming of the climax scenes. It's the 'resolutive' shots that follow. What I call resolutive shots is the fact you don't just get in the action and then breath. The follow up impression is much more important.
'There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.' That was Hitch's definition of suspense. Now he wants us breathless after the bang too. Psycho already did that, sure (remember Hermann's score after the stabbing violins). Just trying a visual experimentation (perhaps Hitch was kinda jealous of Hermann's contribution to the atmosphere of Psycho and he asked him just to make birds sing). You have two examples of resolutive shots in the overwhelming shot of Bodega Bay after the birds attack and when Mitch' mother comes back after she discovered the dead body of a neighbor.
The McGuffin is a great one. Why are those birds attacking us gentle human beings? Hitchcock doesn't dare inventing an other story than just filming a McGuffin. He just experiments that one; something of a sadistic attitude to his audience with no packaging. Spielberg did the same thing in Jaws: why is the shark so bad? We don't care but there's a non-sadistic ending. On the contrary Hitch shoots as if he loves us and then he fools us. No happy ending.
So I think this film is for Hitch fans. Strictly. Others would feel disappointed as they are not sure to understand why they've been fooled. And people usually don't want to understand as long as they feel fooled.