The Birds

Cinema 1, p. 204 directly calls the first gull attacking the heroine a demark and the thousands of birds or flock as a whole a symbol, but it does not analyze the pet-shop or playground editing for the atlas. The three scene records therefore separate evidentiary levels: the pet shop at 00:02:00–00:07:10 only proposes an ordinary relation of merchandise, gift, and captivity; the bay crossing at 00:25:00–00:25:42 receives direct primary support for a gull that reroutes that relation; the playground at 01:09:45–01:12:15 tests how the flock changes school/play, song/alarm, perching/encirclement, and classroom order/urgent evacuation together. The children's song continues through the flock's accumulation, timing each cutback and delaying alarm.

Film details

Original title: The Birds
Director: Alfred Hitchcock / 阿尔弗雷德·希区柯克
Year: 1963
Region: United States

Film analysis: how shots organize concepts

SHOT AND CONCEPT ANALYSIS

The pet shop first places birds within an ordinary order of merchandise, gifts, and captivity; the strike over the bay breaks that order; the playground editing then shows how the flock joins the children's song, school, and evacuation into one threat. Page 204 directly supports the difference between the first strike and the flock as signs; the atlas is responsible for the shot chain.

01
First establish the birds' ordinary place
From 00:02:00 to 00:07:10, caged birds, commodity classification, a lovebird gift, and Melanie pretending to be a shop assistant initiate interpersonal exchange.
This is only a candidate mark: if merchandise, gift, captivity, and environmental presence do not form a recognizable later series, the pet shop remains a romantic meeting.
02
The first strike reroutes the prior series
From 00:25:00 to 00:25:42, a single gull dives and wounds Melanie during the bay crossing, whose engine, water sound, and clear destination had sustained ordinary continuity.
Page 204 directly supports this gull as demark; the criterion is its departure from a prior relation, not strange appearance or the amount of later damage.
03
The flock changes what the school space can do
From 01:09:45 to 01:12:15, the children's song continues while crows accumulate on the climbing frame; after Melanie turns, the school shifts at once from play and study to evacuation.
The flock changes school/play, song/alarm, perching/encirclement, and classroom order/urgent evacuation together; these relations, rather than number alone, make it a candidate symbol.

Shot timecodes and visual descriptions

00:04:31
Inside the pet shop, stacked wire cages fill the frame, with small birds arrayed along the perches.
Birds first enter exchange as merchandise, classified objects, and gifts; number itself has not established a mark.
Open local high-resolution still Watch from 00:04:31
00:25:23
The skiff is still crossing the bay as Melanie covers her head and a gull passes through the upper right of the frame.
A demark is not another anomalous bird but a term suddenly leaving its habitual position and rerouting the prior series.
Open local high-resolution still Watch from 00:25:23
01:11:22
A backlit climbing frame is crowded with crows, with more birds on the shed, roofline, and ground.
The flock becomes a shot-level candidate for symbol only when it reorganizes play, song, alarm, architecture, and escape together.
Open local high-resolution still Watch from 01:11:22

Official Bilibili feature page · The Birds

The official page runs 01:59:30 and carries regional conditions. The three stills come from a separately checked 01:59:24 public repost; the timelines differ by about six seconds and must not be mixed.

Atlas analysis · shots located; passage boundaries and conceptual limits accompany each scene.

Reading attribution: Atlas editorial synthesis · Sources and locators

Close-reading questions

The pet shop places birds within an ordinary order of merchandise, gifts, and captivity; the first strike over the bay breaks that order. How does the playground flock then join the children's song, school space, and urgent evacuation into one threat?

01
From 00:02:00 to 00:07:10, how do cages, species names, the lovebird gift, and Melanie pretending to be a shop assistant establish everyday human–bird relations? If those functions do not form a later series, why must the claim that the pet shop is a mark be withdrawn?
02
From 00:25:00 to 00:25:42, a gull wounds Melanie while the skiff still advances toward its destination. Does it become a demark through strange appearance, harmful result, or its sudden departure from the environmental bird's position and rerouting of the prior series?
03
From 01:09:45 to 01:12:15, the children's song continues as crows accumulate on the climbing frame, and the school shifts from play and study to urgent evacuation once Melanie turns. Which relations among sound, architectural use, and humans and birds must the flock change before it qualifies as a symbol candidate?

Shots, relations, and concepts

1
Record
Melanie pilots the skiff alone toward the dock while Mitch watches her approach; the bay crossing still advances toward a clear goal. The skiff engine, water, and harbour ambience sustain the ordinary continuity of the crossing; a sharp bird cry cuts in with the impact.
Open the scene currently used to ground this chain: The first strike over the bay: a demark is not another mark
2
Judge the relation
The crossing originally carries Melanie toward Mitch's dock. The gull interrupts this goal-directed action from outside, so landing immediately becomes a matter of treating a wound and questioning the attack. The sudden attack invites the spectator to reinterpret the earlier caged birds, lovebirds, and environmental birds: the same kind of creature has shifted from display, gift, and landscape to attack.
3
Name the concept last
Relation-image、Mental-image. Only concepts whose scene relation resolves to “supports” under the current record are named here; candidates, adjacent terms, and countertests are not merged into the conclusion.
Concept: Relation-image Concept: Mental-image Term: relation-image Term: mental image
4
Countertest
Cinema 1, p. 204 makes the first gull attacking the heroine a demark. If a clip begins only after the wound or supplies no prior habitual series to be rerouted, the card cannot establish the claim by itself. Nor can the gull be called another mark: it departs from and reroutes an established habitual series.

Shots and scenes

Inside the pet shop, stacked wire cages nearly fill the frame, with small birds arrayed along perches on every level. — 00:04:31Caged birds, the shop-assistant role, and lovebirds: how ordinary relations are established
The pet shop does not become a mark merely because it contains many birds. The atlas retains the candidate only if merchandise, gift, captivity, and environmental presence form a recognizable habitual series across later passages. If the analysis reduces to a romantic meeting or the birds do not recur within a series, the mark claim must be withdrawn.
Open viewing position ↗

The skiff is still crossing the bay as Melanie suddenly ducks and covers her head with one hand; a gull's body passes through the upper right of the frame. — 00:25:23The first strike over the bay: a demark is not another mark
Cinema 1, p. 204 makes the first gull attacking the heroine a demark. If a clip begins only after the wound or supplies no prior habitual series to be rerouted, the card cannot establish the claim by itself. Nor can the gull be called another mark: it departs from and reroutes an established habitual series.
Open viewing position ↗

A backlit climbing frame is crowded with crows, with more birds on the shed and right-hand roofline; a pale building occupies the frame's right edge. — 01:11:22The song continues as the flock takes form: when number begins to bear relations
Numerical increase and greater danger are insufficient to establish a symbol. The playground passage can serve as a shot-level candidate for p. 204's flock-as-a-whole only if the flock changes school/play, song/alarm, perching/encirclement, classroom order/urgent evacuation, and the human–nature relation together. If the account reduces to a numerical threshold, the symbol claim must be downgraded.
Open viewing position ↗

Primary texts, scholarship, and locators

Theory coordinate: Cinema 1, Minnesota 1986, ch. 2, p. 20; ch. 12, pp. 203–204

01
Cinema 1: The Movement-Image
Standard Minnesota English translation and a principal citation edition in Anglophone scholarship.
Open the atlas source record →

Scholarship cited by the scene records: Each study is listed once, with its locators and supported scenes retained together.

01
Deleuze’s Cinema Books: Three Introductions to the Taxonomy of Images
Locator(s): David Deamer, Deleuze’s Cinema Books (2016), pp. 132–137
Cited by scene(s): Caged birds, the shop-assistant role, and lovebirds: how ordinary relations are established · The first strike over the bay: a demark is not another mark · The song continues as the flock takes form: when number begins to bear relations
Deamer reconstructs the operative difference among mark, demark, and symbol: a habitual series, an anomalous term departing from that series, and a concrete term bearing abstract relations. The pages provide criteria rather than classifying these three passages for the atlas.
Open the atlas source record →
02
Cinema After Deleuze
Locator(s): Richard Rushton, Cinema After Deleuze (2012), p. 50
Cited by scene(s): Caged birds, the shop-assistant role, and lovebirds: how ordinary relations are established
Rushton lists Melanie and Mitch's meeting as an initiating event in the relational chain; he does not thereby classify the pet-shop passage shot by shot as a mark.
Open the atlas source record →

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Viewing gateways and editions

Official Bilibili feature page: 群鸟bilibili.comOpen film page ↗
Page access
Region restricted
Version extent
Recorded as a complete version
Source type
Distributor or streaming platform
Edition note: Official Bilibili feature · 1:59:30, subject to regional and account conditions. The three scene analyses use the 1:59:24 edition, BV1jJ411g7Yj. The runtimes differ by about six seconds; timecodes identify their respective editions.
Link checked: 2026-09-01
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