`` Oh, I See The Birds And The Culmination Of...

In the essay ‘â€Å"Oh, I see†¦Ã¢â‚¬â„¢: The Birds and the Culmination of Hitchcock’s Hyper-Romantic Vision,† John McCombe attempts to connect The Birds to literary Romanticism. McCombe begins by citing a text from Robin Wood’s book Hitchcock’s Films Revisited. In the text, Wood discusses how Hitchcock controls the audience through editing and camera movement like a poet controls the reader through verse rhythms. To illustrate his point, Woods discusses how traumatic horror is conveyed in E.M. Forster’s A Passage to India and Hitchcock’s film. Woods conclude that it is better conveyed through visual images in Hitchcock’s film rather than through the text in the novel. Because of this, Hitchcock is considered to be more of a poet than a novelist.†¦show more content†¦Although Woodsworth is the most prolific poet of the two, Coleridge stands out with his unique style in â€Å"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner† a nd â€Å"Kuba Khan.† McCombe chose â€Å"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner† and older works by Coleridge and Woodsworth to show how Hitchcock’s film is similar to British Romanticism. Hitchcock films are rarely read in the context of a literary framework. For the most part, scholars read Hitchcock’s film through Jacques Lucan’s psychoanalysis methods. McCombe does not disagree that the film can be read through psychoanalysis and go on to cite texts that have successfully done so. However, he focuses on the romantic style of Hitchcock’s film which validate Hitchcock as a hyper romantic. Hitchcock’s romantic style is evident in the comparison of the characters in Hitchcock’s films Vertigo and Psycho. McCombe reference John Calabrese who described Romanticism in Vertigo as the â€Å"dark, sinister aspect of the character that distinguish the romantic hero.† McCombe points out that those aspects and qualities are evident in Norman Bate (Psycho) and Scottie Ferguson (Vertigo). McCombe tells how romanticism entails the suspension of disbelief. The Birds plays on this element of fantasy by having the birds deviate from their normal behavior to attacking humans. Similarly, Coleridge uses the element of fantasy in the real world in â€Å"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.† Next, McCombe discusses how the