This film was based on Daphne du Maurier’s 1952 short story, “The Birds,” as well as news articles Hitchcock had seen that featured stories of bird attacks.[3] Du Maurier’s story is a parable of the Cold War, using the birds as symbols of nuclear bombs. Overall, the story acts as a critique of Cold War politics, and Hitchcock’s The Birds can easily be seen as such a critique. The film, released in 1963, followed the Cuban Missile Crisis, an event that marked an escalation in Cold War politics. With the knowledge that Russia shipped nuclear weapons to Cuba, America’s mindset was focused on the conflict between the US and the USSR throughout the 1960's.
The bird attacks begin small, with a lone seagull attacking Melanie, but they soon start more attacks in other towns. The style of these attacks can relate to the domino theory, where communist war victories in distant countries might set off revolutions in other countries. There are many types of birds featured in the film, including seagulls, crows, and finches, which might symbolize the Warsaw Pact, a group of countries united to combat democracy.[4] Some of The Birds’s moments in the latter half act as a film from the Department of Civil Defense, urging people to cage themselves and listen to their transistor radio for updates.[5]
(a
handy dandy transistor radio)
However, according to Bernard Dick, Hitchcock has claimed that he was “only interested in two aspects of du Maurier’s plot: a coastal setting, suggesting isolation…and of course, the birds’ seemingly unprovoked attacks.”[6] This statement does not mean that Hitchcock would not tap into the obvious fears of Soviet attack. He does this, but he also cleverly incorporates the same apocalyptic imagery to further emphasize the film’s theme of fear of isolation to form relationships. Bob Wake says, “In the film’s desolate vision, we’re cut off from any semblance of integration or wholeness with the natural world and with one another. We’ve lost our capacity for giving and accepting love. Personal desires and yearnings have been twisted beyond recognition by our damaged psyches and broken families.”[7]