Comparison between “Psycho” and “The Birds”
Both films; Psycho and The Birds have been written by Alfred
Hitchcock, who started directing himself in 1922. However his career only began
properly in 1925, after he directed “The Pleasure Garden”. As it said on the ‘IMDb’
website that from those years, Hitchcock has become ‘the most widely known and influential
director in the history of world cinema, with a significant body of work
produced over 50 years.’ He directed nine of the American Film Institute’s 100
Most Heart-Pounding Movies – including ‘Psycho’ and ‘The Birds’. ‘Psycho’ was
filmed in 1960 and become the number one on the American Film Institute’s 100
Most Heart-Pounding Movies, however ‘The Birds’ which was filmed in 1963, only
made it to number 7 in the chart. One of the most obvious similarities about
these two movies is that they are both thrillers.
‘Psycho’ was one of his masterworks that Hitchcock directed
and filmed in 1960. It was his first real horror movie, which became one of his
best movies that he’s ever directed, and it was so successful that he then
directed another three ‘Psycho’ films. Throughout the whole movie there is tension
and mysterious clues given to the audience to figure out the story line and
what’s the mystery behind it all, and it ends with a very confusing and twisty
ending which keeps the audience on the edge throughout the whole movie right to
the final scene. Even though ‘The Birds’ was only filmed 3 years later, it was
filmed in colour, which gave a different effect on the audience, because compared
to ‘Psycho’ it created an old mood and theme to the movie, because it was
filmed in black and white. In ‘The Birds’ film, Hitchcock used similar techniques
to ‘Psycho’ to keep audience engaged with the storyline. Throughout the whole
film there are strange things happening, which makes the audience confused but
willing to watch the whole film to find out what’s going to happen next.
Comparing ‘Psycho’ film to ‘The Birds’, it’s clear to see
that there are many differences and similarities, for example it was easy to
recognise Hitchcock’s work, because he used different techniques on many of his
movies; for example he used zooming in camera technique, in both of these
movies, to show the little details, so the audience would be more aware of the
objects and give them hints to figure out the storyline or the mystery that’s happening
in the film. In my opinion, the most interesting scene in the ‘Psycho’ movie is
when Marion is in the shower and Norman’s mother comes to kill her. It’s an
interesting scene, because it brings the audiences tension up, as they’re
unsure if she’s going to kill Marion or not. At this point Hitchcock uses
extreme close ups to show the object that Norman’s mum kills Marion; she uses a
knife which is clear to see, because of the close up that have been used. The
zooming effect makes it clear for the audience to see what Norman’s mother does
with the knife, and Marion’s facial expression. Hitchcock also uses this type
of camera shots in ‘The Birds’ throughout the film, however the scene that I’m
mostly interested in, is when Melanie Daniels (Tippi Hedren) walks upstairs in
the house to look at what has happen, and she opens the door to a huge amount
of birds attacking her. At this point there are extreme close ups shown when
the birds are biting and attacking her, so there’s a mixture of her facial
expressions shown and the birds attacking. This makes the audience worry about
what’s going to happen, because they can clearly see that Melanie is bleeding
so the birds might kill her.
Looking at the first five minutes of both films, they are
both quite similar at the beginning of both of the films there are opening credits
shown, in ‘Psycho’ there are shown on black background and in ‘The Birds’ they’re
shown on white background with blue font, however these opening credits are
shown with birds flying in the scene, and in ‘Psycho’ there is only black
background with white font for 2 minutes, in till the camera starts to show a
panning shot from a high angle of the city, whilst zooming in onto a specific
building, where Marion is with her lover, then it straight away cuts into
dialog of Marion talking to her lover. Hitchcock uses the same type of editing
on the opening credits, because he makes the titles/credits cut up into pieces,
so it adds an extra effect which audience find interesting. In ‘The Birds’
Hitchcock has first shown the scene of where the lady is, but whilst she’s
walking there is a diegetic sound of cars driving by and birds making noises. In
both of the film the first five minutes of the film don’t show much action, for
example in ‘The Birds’ the only thing that happens is the man walks into the
birds shop and he has a conversation with a women about different birds, and in
‘Psycho’ exactly the same happens, there is a women talking to her lover for
five minutes. Hitchcock has done this to ensure that the audience are more
aware and understand the film and also to give them clues about the film, for
example in ‘The Birds’ the man and women talk about different types of birds
and he man asks if the women doesn’t feel bad keeping all these birds caged up,
which links back to the title ‘Birds’.
Alfred Hitchcock made a total of 37 self-referential cameos
in his films over a 50 year period, one of his most famous ones was to appear
in his own movies, which he also appeared in both of the movies; ‘Psycho’ or ‘The
Birds’. One recurring theme was that Hitchcock used in this films is he carried
a stringed instrument in some of the cameos. In ‘Psycho’ he made an appearance on
the camera when he was viewed through Marion Crane’s (Janet Leigh) office
store-front window, standing on the sidewalk, as she returned to her Phoenix
realty company after a lunchtime quickie in a cheap hotel with her lover Sam
Loomis (John Gavin). At that point of the scene, he was wearing a large cowboy
hat. In the film ‘The Birds’, Hitchcock appeared on the screen right at the beginning
of the film when he was walking out from the San Francisco’s Davidson’s Pet
Shop with his two white terriers. Another similarity that I’ve observed in both
films that Hitchcock has done, is that in both movies he uses romance but in an
obsessive way, because in ‘Psycho’ it shows romance but in perverse way, and in
birds it’s more obsessive romance. Hitchcock’s work is very different compare
to the other directors that we’ve looked at in our lessons; for example The Coen
Brothers, because in both of the films that I’ve compared he uses mysterious
scenes to gives audience clues throughout the film.
Sources: progress
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