Page 29 - Cinematic Thinking Philosophical Approaches to the New Cinema

Alfred Hitchcock 19

At the beginning of the film, Melanie is presented as confident of
her own agency. In the first scene, she plays the part of a saleswoman in
a pet store to fool Mitch. Soon we find out that she is a rich playgirl used
to having her own way, who has been in the society papers for her antics,
including breaking a plate-glass window and jumping into a fountain in
Rome, nude. But in the opening scene ^she is also put in her place by
Mitch (representative of paternal law). He catches the bird that Melanie
accidentally freed, saying, "Back in your gilded cage Melanie Daniels,"
indicating that he is the true agent in control not only of the situation but
also of Melanie, whom he compares to the bird that he catches and cages.
Later in the film, Melanie is shown in a phone booth under attack by
birds; in an interview Hitchcock describes this scene as a reinforcement of
the comparison between Melanie and the caged bird; only now her cage is
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not gilded but dangerous. Melanie is also associated with the birds that
are breaking the glass of the phone booth and windows throughout the
movie in that like the birds she has broken a plate-glass window, which is
why she went to court.
The most haunting scene of the film comes at the same time as Mel-
anie and Mitch apparently consummate their desire: Melanie is shown
in her nightgown, brushing her hair and putting on lipstick, as Lydia
drives off to talk to her neighbor about the chickens not eating their feed.
When Lydia returns, after seeing her neighbor with his eyes pecked out,
she catches Mitch and Melanie (still in her nightgown under her coat
with her hair down) in a romantic pose; when they approach her to see
what is wrong, she violently pushes them both out of her way and runs
into the house. She was composed enough to leave the scene of the gory
bird attack and drive the truck back home, but when she sees Mitch and
Melanie after they have perhaps consummated their desire, she becomes
violent. Next Lydia is in bed, telling Melanie, who brings her tea, that she
cannot stand to be alone and that she wishes she were stronger—a phrase
she repeats several times. Although she has just witnessed the horrors at
the chicken farm, her only fear is being abandoned and losing Mitch to
Melanie, whom, as she says, she doesn't even know if she likes. In the end
the mother-surrogates, the birds or Mother Nature, render Melanie delu-
sional and catatonic after a brutal bird attack in the attic. It is only after
Meianie's agency is taken away completely that Lydia can embrace her. By
the end of the film, the sexually active "playgirl" is both punished for her
sexual agency and rendered passive.