Why was there no ending?
-
Moscoso1967 — 11 years ago(August 25, 2014 05:08 PM)
I don't understand those people either who need everything tied up in a neat bow (as you perfectly put it). If they don't like this ending because there was no explanation, "proper" end to the story, or dramatic climax at the end of the film, I'm sure watching "Blowup" would drive them nuts!
-
fugazzi49 — 11 years ago(November 01, 2014 07:11 PM)
The ending is wonderfully eerie and unsettling because it is so ambiguous and open ended. I think Hitchcock wanted it this way. He liked to overturn conventions like having Janet Leigh get killed in the middle of Psycho when in every other movie at the time she would have been saved. It's the same here. In some ways The Birds plays like the old 50's Sci-Fi monster films where the ants, shrews, blobs or whatever get killed in the end and all is explained. Ending it as he did lifts it far above that type of genre film. It's a famous ending because it works, and the fact that some people are still confounded by it shows it still works.
Also, I notice a number of people seeing resolution in the end in several threads here including this one, saying the birds have completely stopped attacking for good because they represent psychological and dramatic conflicts among the principal characters that have now been resolved (among other reasons). But there is no indication that the attacks have stopped completely. The announcer on the car radio even mentions that the bird attacks occur after long quiet intervals. They escape during one of these and the birds could attack again at any time. -
christomacin — 10 years ago(March 02, 2016 11:08 PM)
Also, I notice a number of people seeing resolution in the end in several threads here including this one, saying the birds have completely stopped attacking for good because they represent psychological and dramatic conflicts among the principal characters that have now been resolved (among other reasons). But there is no indication that the attacks have stopped completely. The announcer on the car radio even mentions that the bird attacks occur after long quiet intervals. They escape during one of these and the birds could attack again at any time.
I think people are missing much of the symbolic and allegoric nature of the story. Why are the only two birds not attacking
love birds
, of all birds? To me this film is about peace and reconciliation, both on the personal and societal level. Keep in mind this film was made right after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Indeed, Hitchcock even went on to make a film dealing with that event in
Topaz
, so it's not far-fetched at all to make this connection. Remember also Hitchcock's strong Catholic beliefs, which he sometimes referenced in his films in subtle ways. Looking at the film from a religious/philosophical level the final shot makes a lot of sense. In the distance we see a ray of light breaking through the clouds. Mitch's mother and Melanie have a moment of tenderness together. It's as if the characters in the story have reconciled with each other and are being given a second chance, just as the world had been given a second chance after the missile crisis. The love birds represent the Christian idea of reconciliation and peace in the face of a frightening world we cannot explain or control. Even if nuclear war wasn't the intended subtext of the film, in a general sense the attacking birds are a symbol of chaos while the love birds are a symbol of reconciliation and hope. The story arcs for the individual characters follow this strife to understanding to reconciliation theme also. -
ThiefOfStars — 10 years ago(September 07, 2015 11:37 AM)
In my head, Hitchcock's original vision for the ending with the birds gathered on the Golden Gate bridge is the true ending.
https://www.youtube.com/user/ThiefOfStars -
zooymtoo — 10 years ago(September 17, 2015 02:31 AM)
Even when I saw this as a kid I never was disappointed about the ending..
What explanation really matters?
The principle characters lives were irreversibly changed by this event..
Melanie had been a rich girl use to controlling her life but feeling out of control and needing more than money could buy. Mitch had been a successful lawyer using his clingy b*tch of a mother to keep others at bay..and the mother had been a first class manipulator because she was scared of being alone. None of them were the same people.
This is a psychological film more than a horror film. They survive.
Why does everything need endless sequels to explain away everything? No one can use their imagination and imagine for themselves anymore. -
steelysunshine — 10 years ago(October 15, 2015 09:12 AM)
There was an ending. Melanie and Mitch get married and the whole family relocates to San Francisco, in fact they probably never return to Bodega Bay. Bodega Bay becomes a ghost town and in 1983 someone buys the town just because they have always wanted to own a ghost town.
-
bingoboss — 10 years ago(January 24, 2016 01:35 PM)
My take on the unresolved "ending"
Hitchcock was a brilliant director, a psychological puppet-master. He really enjoyed messing with his audience. "The Birds" may not be his very best film, but Hitch himself was certainly at the top of his form.
I think he left the ending unresolved so that people walking out of movie theaters (back in 1963) would feel uneasy and freaked out. For several hours afterward, I'm sure they thought their eyeballs would get pecked out anytime they saw or heard a bird.
You don't carry that uneasy feeling as much when you see this movie safe at home on TV, or in film lit class. -
cyninbend-149-610489 — 10 years ago(January 24, 2016 10:09 PM)
It was not a lack of content that was disappointing. It was that I only knew it was actually over because the Universal logo appeared. For those who want to treat us as peasants for not "getting" the great Hitchcock, fine. But it seems a slight alteration to the music or a shot of tail lights on the road with a bird or two on a fence post would have concluded the movie more satisfactorily. At least we'd have known it was over. I rewound it to see what was up!
I read that Hitchcock wanted to end the movie with a shot of the Golden Gate Bridge covered in birds, but it was too expensive. Could he have left it this way as a "Have it your way." message to studio brass? That was the feeling I got. He was denied his ending so he just ended the movie flat. The story and the drama were over, so he gave them the movie. And the finger. -
elena-28 — 10 years ago(February 02, 2016 11:45 AM)
The first zillion times I watched this movie, I didn't like the ending either. Then, some time around the zillion-and-tenth watch, I paid attention to the close-up of Melanie closing her hand around Lydia's wrist, and the close-up of Lydia's tender reaction.
The next time I watched the movie, it was the relationship between Melanie and Lydia that I paid most attention to; following that thread, the movie has a perfect, sweet and life-affirming ending: Melanie has been stripped of her cool confidence and is a wounded child who needs a mother. Lydia is a woman long used to thinking of herself as not needed by either her grown son or her bright, outspoken daughter, and who finds herself needed.
The birds end up being Hitch's mcguffin: it's the people involved, in the end; not the birds.