Horror and the Human Mind: Hitchcock’s The Birds

Recently, I watched Alfred Hitchcock’s film The Birds, for the first time in many years. The film, based on the short story by Daphne du Maurier, tells the tale of a lady who goes to a seaside town to deliver two birds as part of a vindictive prank, the kind the idle wealthy spend their time doing. The irony of the film is that these two birds in a cage soon watch humans experience what they themselves experience as birds in general decide, for whatever reason, to attack humans and kill them. Their reasons are never explained, nor is the issue resolved with the film ending with the protagonists fleeing back to the city. Nature has won.

Whilst watching the film, I started thinking about the nature of horror films. What is it in a horror film that makes us so uneasy? The biggest fear that many have is fear of the unknown. What the film does is trigger this unease. Without showing any ‘monsters’ the film makes people anxious. How? By having a group of people barricaded in a room and having the sound of birds without the room. The inference is clear- they are not safe- what they fear is waiting for them, trying to get to them.

The use of sound in horror films is very interesting. The unsettling score and use of ‘oldie’ music in Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining, makes the hotel itself into a character in the film. Whilst it does not become as personified as the hotel does in the book- the notion that humans are far more scary than ghosts- the hotel gives the suggestion that it has engulfed them and that they are slowly decomposing in its stomach. No actual danger is seen, but the suggestion of it creates it. Another good example of unactualized danger is in the 1942 Jacques Tourneur film Cat People, where, similar to The Birds, nature strikes back. The most unsettling moment in the film features an indoor swimming pool. Having just seen a cat, the protagonist takes a swim in the dimly lit pool. Through use of ambient noise (the water) and the reflection of the water on the walls, one almost swears that one can see the silhouette of a cat. There isn’t any cat in the room that we know of, however, the use of light and shadow manages to almost convince us, as with the protagonist, that there is a cat stalking her and that she is in real danger.

Studies have show that sound is the biggest cause of fear in humans, most notably, unexplained sounds. When one hears a sound one is unfamiliar with then one is gripped by uncertainty. What is that sound? What caused it? What will happen next? The film director John Carpenter is dismissive of the film Cat People, saying that light and sound aren’t scary. For him, what is scary is the actual monsters, as seen in his films, such as The Thing where the fear has a tangible basis- the big monster coming after you. However, for me, the suggestion of danger is more fearsome than a big monster. If you see a monster, you can run away from it and hide. If you cannot see the monster, or even know if there is a monster, how can you hide? Every shadow, every noise, could be the monster coming to kill you…or the heating pipes knocking. One of the most effective horror films of the modern age is Ridley Scott’s 1979 film Alien. Alien combines the two elements of Tourneur and Carpenter. There is a danger that for the most part is undefined, the crew of the spaceship have to try to find it, at times following the trial of its acidic blood which threatens to eat through the hull of their ship, yet, in brief moments when one actually sees the alien, it is frightening, often flickering in the shadows and then gone similar to the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, in which the technology meant that it could only be shot in a certain vague way, but which makes it more real and terrifying than any of the computer generated images (CGI) Jurassic Park franchise films that followed it.

Wait…sorry…I think I heard something behind m….

‘till next time          

Internal vs External Perception of Self (or How to Take Yourself Not Too Seriously)

The front cover of Leonard Cohen’s album I’m Your Man features a picture of Cohen in a (I assume) designer suit, wearing designer sunglasses. What makes this different from other album covers featuring the performer looking dapper is that he is eating a banana. The picture was taken with Cohen unaware, but when he saw it, he thought it was wonderful and decided to make it the album cover. When asked about his singular choice for the album cover, Cohen replied, “Sharon (Robinson- friend and collaborator) showed it to me later and it seemed to sum up perfectly. “Here’s this guy looking cool,” I thought, “in shades and nice suit. He seems to have a grip on things, an idea of himself…and it suddenly occurred to me that’s everyone’s dilemma: At the times we think we’re coolest, what everyone else sees is a guy with his mouth full of banana…”.

Here we have an amusing, and strangely profound, example of the conflict between pubic and personal perception. I use conflict in the loosest possible terms; however, the conflict is real. Again, to quote Cohen, “I struggled with some daemons/they were middleclass and tame”, a topic we will cover in more depth another time.

Our lives are broken into two parts- internal and external. These lines of demarcation are not rigid, and there can be bleed over from one to another. Indeed, this is where the trouble can lie. To be healthy psychologically we must have a clear sense of self, an inner belief which can help us to not only endure hard times but to also keep our identity. However, there is a danger inherent in this and this is our subjectivity. For example, imagine a person thinks its ok to be brutally honest with the truth. Yes, it is often good to be truthful, but it depends on context. If you are speaking to a person who really likes you and you turn around and say, ‘leave me alone, I don’t like you, you’re horrible’, then, although this is being honest, it is using it as a weapon to impose your will upon them. This is a topic we will look at in more depth another time, however, if the person who speaks thinks, knows, internally that they are a ‘good’ person and ergo, what they do is good, then they are halfway through the battle with their self to convince their self that any negative reaction from the other is a problem of the other and not of them. Yet, as we can see from this example, the inner perception does not match with the external perception for by seeing this behaviour, or experiencing it, the image of the one speaking will probably be contra to how they perceive their own self.

Opposed to this is the opposite situation. A person may be honest and truthful, speak truth to power, and be kind and considerate in how they speak, only speaking truth at the opportune times. To them, internally, they may feel like they are not honest enough. However, externally, they may be seen as someone with great integrity, someone who is deeply admired. And so, as with the example above, the internal image is not real so the internal image here is also a distortion.

So, the question becomes, if we shouldn’t listen to all of the voices around us and if we shouldn’t take our internal perception to be absolute truth, then how can we create a healthy image of ourselves? The answer, surprisingly, comes from observation and reflection. Albert Camus said that an ‘Intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself’, yet Camus certainly fell foul of the distortions of internal perception, however, we cannot ignore the underlying premise of his thought. If we observe people around us and observe how we think. If we observe how we act as opposed to how we think/speak/or think that we act, then we can start to form a clearer picture of the internal and external worlds and through this we can start to create a healthy picture of who we are. Indeed, after a time, maybe we’ll be able to look at ourselves and laugh and say, here is someone who thinks they know what is what, but to others they are just eating their breakfast.

‘till next time                 

Is Less More?

A while ago, we started looking at truisms to see if they are actually true. Truisms are things which people say for a variety of reasons- to make themselves look smart, because they believe them, because they think it is expected etc., however, as with all language, it is important to make sure you know what you are talking about. So, let us consider the truism that less is more.

As with almost everything, to understand something one must first know its context. Truisms, as with aphorisms, can be complicated as they can have meanings assigned which the writer did not intend. The German philosopher Nietzsche wrote many aphorisms as part of his attempt to say in a few lines what it takes others books to say. However, without a clear context this leads to misinterpretation. For example, one of his most famous and oft quoted aphorisms, even if many do not know that stems from him is, “what does not kill me makes me stronger”. This aphorism is often used as a sign of defiance, a sign of strength. However, if we look at it from the context of his life and the book in which he wrote it (Beyond Good and Evil) then, instead of some grand statement, a Sermon on the Mount moment, it is more bravado than anything. In the context of Nietzsche’s life, a life which was ravaged through sickness and a personality that does not easily fit, the heroic notion of which the aphorism is attributed falls rather flat.

 (Note: Indeed, as with many creative people of genius, Nietzsche could be said to fit with the quotation of Hermann Hesse, a man who you may recall was exiled from Germany due to his opposition to Fascism and World War II, that ‘Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours’.)

With this is mind we can see that to trot out a truism without context can be dangerous, as words shape more realities that guns. So, let us consider the truism that less is more.

The truism is wholly dependant on context and personal circumstances. To avoid being smarter than I am, let’s keep this simple and consider it in relation to food.

There are three people (or bears if you’d rather) and three bowls of porridge. All three bears have the same level of hunger. The food in the bowls is different. One is 1/3^rd full, the other 2/3^rds full and the last bow is 3/3^rds full, or in English, full.

Bear one eats the 1^st bowl and is still hungry. Bear 3 eats the 3^rd bowl and is too full and bear 2 eats the 2^nd bowl and his appetite is sated. In this instance, because the bears were less hungry than usual, less is more. However, less (bowl 1) is still less and more (bowl 3) is still more.

If we repeat this with bears we have cruelly been starving, then bowl 3, which has more, would be optimum (assuming we haven’t starved them so much that eating makes them sick) and if they had just eaten and we cruelly force them to eat again then bowl 1, which has the least in would be the optimum amount, and the truism ‘less is more’ would be applicable.

From this we can see that it is important to understand the context of what we say when forming judgements, something which we can think about another day.

‘till next time