Almost exactly nine years ago it was reported that Michael Bay would be direccting a remake of Alfred Hitchcock‘s The Birds (’63). I didn’t think that was a good idea. The Bay part, I mean. It sounded like a desecration waiting to happen.
But if someone with an austere, highly disciplined aesthetic were to take a fresh crack at Daphne du Maurier’s 1952 short story, something fascinating could result. Perhaps more than that.
The first rule of remakes (or adaptations for that matter) is to always start with something that wasn’t all that good to begin with — something pulpy that needs an upgrade or a deepening of some kind.
Hitchcock’s Birds definitely qualifies. Take away five scenes — the first, very brief gull attack upon Tippi Hedren, the finches attacking through the fireplace, Jessica Tandy discovering the body of her farmer neighbor with his eyes pecked out, the Bodega Bay diner scene (“It’s the end of the world”), Hedren being attacked in the upstairs bedroom — and you’re left with a fairly mediocre film. Stiff, stilted, constipated. Hedren’s brittleness is oppressive — there’s no chance that Melanie Daniels did anything “wild” in Rome, much less jumped naked into a fountain. The kids are such awful actors (Veronica Cartwright excepted) that you’re rooting for the birds during the Bodega Bay School attack scene. Get ’em!
I would love it if Ari Aster, Robert Eggers, David Fincher or Michael Haneke wanted to give it a go.
Variety‘s Owen Gleiberman on the reported Robert Downey, Jr. remake of Vertigo:
