The effect of the famous overhead shot in The Birds is, I think, tightly
related to the place it takes in the film's development. Before this there
had been isolated bird attack incidents occuring here and there around the
town, but with the cut to the overhead shot - and with the way the birds
slowly come into the shot from behind the camera, congregating above the
town - the massive, inescapable inevitability of the birds is established.
Suddenly, thanks precisely to this shot, something which occured within the
town, and within the narrative, as localizable incident, is now unavoidable.
This is why the the shot induces anxiety - because it overflows the economy
which allowed us to situate the birds. They're now unbearably close; closer
to us than we are to ourselves - to use a Zizek turn of phrase. Its an
effect of the real.
(Jalal Toufic makes some interesting comments on this shot in
Over-Sensitivity. If I remember correctly, he describes it in terms of the
difference between an absolute and relative limit, arguing that the shot
somehow embodies an absolute limit which no longer relates to off-screen
space - i.e. the birds that enter from behind the camera are not entering
from an adjacent space which could be shown in the next shot - something
like that.)
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp
|