Mrs Bundy- Portrait of a Skeptic

 

One of Alfred Hitchcock's most celebrated films is his 1963 work The Birds. It is a mystery horror movie adapted from a novella by Daphne Du Maurier in which birds start attacking humans for no explained reason. The film has no score and many purely visual action scenes without dialogue; its purpose is to leave the meaning up to interpretation by the viewer. One of the most interesting scenes appears just after the first bird attack happens at a school. Melanie, the main character, goes to a cafe to use their public telephone and call her father. There she encounters a number of excellent temporary characters including a drunken Irishman at the bar who says: "it's the end of the world!" and recites bible passages. Another woman accuses Melanie of being the cause of the crisis, calling her "evil!" and an old lady called Mrs Bundy who is an ornithologist, an expert on birds, brilliantly portrayed by Ethel Griffies. (I personally feel very uncomfortable watching the scene because Mrs Bundy reminds me very much of Isabel Menzies-Lyth, see: https://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.com/2023/10/am-i-gate-child.html, but that's my problem.) As soon as Melanie begins telling her story about the birds attacking the schoolchildren, the old lady contradicts her. At one point she strikes a match to light her cigarette and then pauses; leaving the match to burn down unused, forcing her to strike another. This generates dramatic tension; it's a technique Hitchcock used a lot. She doubles down on her doubt despite the fact that another witness, a fishing boat skipper, has also seen birds behaving strangely. Somebody else reports birds behaving aggressively in another town. Mrs Bundy's stubborn demeanour begins to irritate the other characters. Then, outside the cafe, the birds attack a petrol station killing a man who's filling his car resulting in an explosion and fire. The cafe patrons try to flee, but are driven back by the birds. Melanie is forced to take refuge in a phone box and is rescued by her friend Mitch. When they return to the cafe everybody is sheltering in the corridor outside the toilets. All of them are staring at Mitch and Melanie in confusion and terror. There is one exception, Mrs Bundy. She is sitting with her back to them, unwilling to show her face. Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VviFbDyIsxQ and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CU3RdE5yGFk (the music has been added to the second clip; as I said the film has no score). I think Mrs Bundy represents the entire skeptic movement in a single individual. The truth they will have to face will be the one she does and some of them will respond exactly like she did.
See here for background: https://hpanwo.blogspot.com/2021/08/skeptics-portal.html.