On this 20th installment, I'm joined by my friend Nannina to talk about one of my favourite films, The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963).
After a general catch up about the post-Election landscape in late November 2020 in the US, we turn to discussion of the indelible Hitchcock movie, in terms of its focus, its characters and its startling aesthetic style. We also touch on the original 1953 short story, by Daphne du Maurier.
We then move on to the sad topic of Tippi Hedren's artistically productive but deeply toxic and unpleasant relationship with Hitchcock. Spoiler warnings for The Birds (and, briefly, Marnie) and trigger warnings for controlling abuse and sexual harassment.
0.00 Intro chat/the US in November 2020
0.28 The Birds
1.17 Hedren and Hitchcock
You can find the show on Twitter at @EGoat_pod (or tweet at me on @D_Faggiani) and email us with any feedback on escapegoatpod@gmail.com. All our episodes so far are on Spotify, our YouTube channel, and Apple Podcasts! Do share and enjoy.
Nannina is a screenwriter, who procrastinates at writing by going down deep research wormholes into alternate dimensions. She supports her writing habit by making coffee, and can be found on Twitter @NanninaGilder talking about early women filmmakers.
All original intro, outro and other incidental music recorded and made available by kind permission of Richard Gilbert.
NOTES
The full clip from the August 2012 BFI interview with Tippi Hedren which we play an extract from in the show can be found here. I found it pretty upsetting. There's also an interesting New Yorker piece by Richard Brody on Marnie and Hitchcock more broadly, from 2016.
