Birds
There are countless images of birds in nearly all of Hitchcock's films. Some of the most prominent are listed below.
Psycho - The film begins in Phoenix, Arizona and a Phoenix is also a mythological bird. Marion's last name is "Crane." Norman practices taxidermy as a hobby and his favorites are birds. Norman describes Marion's eating behavior as "eats like a bird".
Vertigo - Gavin's last name is Elster, which is German for Magpie.
The Birds - The film's plot revolves around birds attacking Bodega Bay.
To Catch a Thief - Hitchcock's cameo is that of a man on a bus holding a bird cage with a bird inside it.
Sabotage - the front for the bomb maker is that of a bird seller and the instructions for the bomb are in the base of a bird cage.
Read more about this topic: Themes And Plot Devices In The Films Of Alfred Hitchcock
Famous quotes containing the word birds:
“My weary limbs are scarcely stretched for repose, before red dawn peeps into my chamber window, and the birds in the whispering leaves over the roof, apprise me by their sweetest notes that another day of toil awaits me. I arise, the harness is hastily adjusted and once more I step upon the tread-mill.”
—“E. B.,” U.S. farmer. As quoted in Feminine Ingenuity, by Anne L. MacDonald (1992)
“He put before them another parable: “The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed that someone took and sowed in his field; it is the smallest of all the seeds, but when it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.””
—Bible: New Testament, Matthew 13:31,32.
“When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)