How Does Alfred Hitchcock Use Camera Angles In The Birds

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‘The Birds’ (1963) is the second film I have chosen it’s one of Alfred Hitchcock's finest works. The plot is very simple, almost silly: Birds begin attacking the small town of Bodega Bay. Unlike Hitchcock's other works, in this film rather than the humans being the villain the animals are. There are no disturbed pathological killers, just birds. One of the things I noticed about ‘The Birds’ is the references to its predecessor, ‘Psycho’ the various references to birds that are either very subtle or blatantly obvious. I think all were planned by Hitchcock himself—none are accidental. Stuffed birds are placed all around the parlour room of Norman Bates' motel. The camera work constantly makes sure that the audience knows the room is infested with birds. The Birds was a conscious attempt by Hitchcock to one up the sensational shocks of ‘Psycho’. It’s just another collection to add to our collective nightmares, where we were once made scared of the shower and now made to be scared of the birds. Also in ‘The Birds’ Hitchcock has used the montage effect liked he did in ‘Psycho’…show more content…
The minimalist soundtrack on the film was not by accident it was done on purpose. Hitchcock’s lack of music in the film was to create another kind of thought process. A thought process which makes you think that there is something going on here than simple technical bravura. ‘The Birds’ is a film in which all the characters are driven to silence. In many scenes tension is built to create fear and uncertainty in when the birds attack. The film is not extremely graphical in the scenes where the birds attack yet the terror is shown through his use of camera angles. For example Melanie's phone booth scene, the camera moves around in the point of view of the birds then switches to Melanie's view however when she is getting more and more vulnerable low angle shots are used to make her look
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