 Trade In this Item for up to £0.25
Trade in The Birds (BFI Film Classics) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £0.25, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
From the Publisher
Dmetri Kakmi Cinema Papers June 99 "her idiosyncratic approach, brilliant frame-by-frame commentary and peppery wit immediately make this delightful book a must buy"
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Her linear tour indicates that she thinks that Melanie Daniels is the cause of the birds' fury, though she never makes the point clear; and her review of the facts at least has the merit of highlighting what causality there is in The Birds between the affairs of the humans and those of the birds. Paglia's evident delight in Tippi Hedren's performance makes me want to take another look at her acting: she highlights the role of modelling in Hedren's characterisation. In contrast she doesn't have much to say about Rod Taylor, and dislikes the character played by Veronica Cartwright so intensely that she overlooks her performance and fails to note her later career, apart from saying that she reappears in Marnie - I hadn't made that connection, and would like to check it.
The merit of the book lay not in Paglia's analysis of argument, but in a few ancillary details where she does give some technical / factual information. Apparently Hitchcock chose not to film a closing chase sequence between the sports car and the birds. Paglia's doesn't even pause to note that Hitchcock opted for ambiguity at the end. The other interesting, though less important fact is that the original poster for movie shows an adapted image of Jessica Tandy made to look like Hedren, and normally mistaken for her. A more acute critic might at least have paused to consider whether there was a symbiosis between the mother and lover figure. But no.
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.
In 104 concise, robust pages, Paglia proves that depth of perception can be readily expressed without recourse to the labrinthian doublespeak that has infected American academia via the French Structuralists over the last quarter century. Paglia communicates clearly without seeming to try: the emphasis throughout is squarely on the intelligent conveyance of her ideas, and not on dreary abstractions and intellectualism. Her sentences virtually crackle with energy and verve, humor and acuity.
Readers familiar with Paglia's previous work already know her to be a walking testament to Western culture. Here, Paglia brings the same brilliant contextual ability to The Birds that she brought to the work of Spencer, Byron, Swinburne, Wilde, Hawthorne, and Dickinson in 1990's Sexual Personae. Whether discussing Hitchcock's oeuvre or psychology, Tippi Hedren's facial expressions, wardrobe or coiffure, the original Daphne du Maurier short story upon which the film was based, real episodes of bird attacks along the California coast, or the myriad technical processes involved in the making of the film, from sound and cinematography to special effects, Paglia, who seems to know everything, is in top form. If a character so much as crosses their legs, Paglia has something revealing to say about it.
Paglia carefully moves through and interprets each scene, expressing surprising and persuasive theories about the smallest of details, demonstrating in the process how absolutely nothing should be overlooked, assumed, or taken for granted in films as carefully planned and executed as Hitchcock's. Moving from episode to episode, Paglia cumulatively offers her own astute interpretation of the film's notoriously ambiguous meaning. Paglia has scrupulously researched her subject, interviewed Tippi Hedren, who she clearly reveres, and obviously enjoyed the writing of The Birds tremendously. Less hilarious than some of her other work, The Birds, film writing at its best and a cut well above most of the other titles in the BFI series, is a sheer pleasure to read. Illustrated with color and black and white photographs.
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > History > Cultural History
- Books > Horror > Classic Horror
- Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Film > Criticism & Theory
- Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Film > Film Genres > Horror
- Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Film > Guides & Reference
- Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Performing Arts
- Books > Music, Stage & Screen > Television > TV Genres > Horror
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
