The Birds (BFI Film Classics) Paperback – August 26, 1998

I like the Bird movie classic book . Thankyou

One of my favorite authors writing about one of my favorite movies--how could I resist buying this book? I know, I know, Paglia's reputation as a "scholar" is not on the firmest ground, but you have to admit she can write some memorable sentences, and she outdoes herself in this slim but entertaining read. It's basically a scene-by-scene analysis of Hitchcock's film, with some great backstage info and gossip (much of it from a revealing interview with Tippi Hedren) interspersed with Paglia's typical rantings about Dionysian aspects of this or that, phallic pencils and dock pilings, and why the perspective of drag queens is to be treasured over that of the average viewer. I'm not trying to be dismissive--on the contrary, I love Paglia's theories. For me, this book was pure fun to read. However, if you're looking for serious, traditional film criticism, you may want to look elsewhere.

Camille Paglia is a controverisal choice to review the Birds which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1962. She is a writer with her own mind and this approach puts her out of step with nearly everyone in academia. Paglia is a always readable and controversial. She has put a generation of feminist's teeth on edge. And on occasion she gets distracted from the task in hand to take a jab at her opponents.Yet this is a superb piece of criticism taking in every apsect of the production of Hitchcock's masterwork. Paglia is very good at the sexual and oedipal politics that pervade Hitchock's work.It shows that film criticism needs not be dense writing aimed solely at obscuring meaning.Her discussion on the ending of the Birds certainly opened my eyes to a flaw of the film. As great as the film is, the ending does not work. The original ending would have provided a great climax to a masterwork, yet it was not chosen. Anyone interested in the Birds or hitchcock should read this book.The book covers a lot of ground and is immensely readable. The best of the series which has shown good marketing sense, but really not a lot of good criticism.

This vividly wrought study gives back to Hitchcock some of the creativity, aesthetic politics, and lurid mix of Catholicism, apocalyptic ecology, and paganism that were crafted into this American masterpiece at Bodega Bay. Allusive yet absorbed in the subliminal quest, Camille Paglia captures the glamor, dread, and malice of "The Birds" as figured, por ejemplo, in the Darwinian adventures and subjections of Tippi Hendren.Hitchcock must be sipping some Pacific Rim chardonnay in heaven over this BFI study and pondering how to work the tenderly cantankerous Paglia into the beatitudes of the sequel.

I love film analysis; essays that go beyond thumbs-up vs. thumbs-down and offer real insight into the hidden language of movies that operates on our subconscious. Camille Paglia has given us such a tome on Hitchcock's last great* work.My only beef with the book is Paglia's hysterical hatred of the Cathy Brenner character. One suspects the young Veronica Cartwright's resemblance to some junior high tormentor of Ms. Paglia's is inducing PTSD, causing her to project her painful memories onto this fictional character. Setting aside that irrational bias, and this is a terrific book.* Marnie is grossly under-appreciated, but not quite up to "great" status.

It's one insufferable sentence after another. The ultimate display of idiocy posing as scholarship. In Paglia's universe every object on the screen has a hidden meaning: pencils become phallic objects, statues in the streets become carriers of major themes, and fur coats symbolize male economic dominance.It is a joke. If someone wanted to make a parody of bad scholarship, this is what he would end up with. Alas, it is not even funny. This book is a test of patience. I would give it zero stars if it was possible.

Another favorite movie of mine from The Master of Suspense, I love The Birds. It also explained a lot of unanswered questions about the movie and Miss Paglia explains things well.,

Brilliant! A must for any film connoisseur or Hitchcock fan.