The Obsessive Love of a Genius; Hitchcock's Love for Tippi Hedren

There are many stories about Alfred Hitchcock's love for the charming star of his two films, Tippi Hedren, and how this cinematic genius reacted strangely negatively when he was rejected by the beautiful blonde. This year's Vienna Festival (Wienale) is an excellent opportunity to honor Tippi Hedren with screenings of 'Marnie' and 'The Birds' in the presence of this now eighty-five-year-old actress—still lively and energetic—and to hear from her about Hitchcock's obsessive love. Before the screening of the 35mm version of 'The Birds,' Hedren answered various questions from the session host, Alexander Horvath (director of the Austrian Film Museum), about herself and her relationship with Hitchcock. From a Commercial Model to Acting for Hitchcock Hedren, who had become famous as a commercial model and claimed to have made good earnings, received a call from a studio in Hollywood inviting her to act in a film without revealing what the film was or who the director was. She was left alone in a room with a contract to read and sign if she agreed. Hedren signed the contract, and only when she started working did she realize she would be acting in a film by the legendary master, Alfred Hitchcock. From Mechanical Birds to Real Bird Attacks In 'The Birds,' her first film for Hitchcock, Tippi Hedren plays the role of Melanie Daniels; a wealthy adventurous girl who travels to a village near San Francisco in search of a man, where she is attacked by birds. The first question Hedren asked the filmmakers after reading the script was how the birds would attack her, especially in the scene where she goes alone to the upstairs of the house. She was told that these birds would be mechanical. On the morning of filming this scene, she asked Hitchcock why her character needed to go upstairs in the story. Hedren recalls that Hitchcock paused for a minute and then said, 'Because I tell you to!' Before filming this scene, Hedren learned that instead of mechanical birds, real birds would attack her in that room. The result of this scene was injuries that Hedren sustained from these attacks, leading to severe fear. During subsequent filming with real birds in the following days, a bird attacked near her eye. Hedren stood in the middle of the scene and shouted that it was enough. She remained there for a while and cried. Hedren mentioned that all the crew members left the room, leaving her strangely alone in the midst of it; 'perhaps out of shame.' She stated she would never forget that moment of being left alone. Later, Alma, Hitchcock's wife, apologized to her. Hedren said she told Alma that she knew and should have prevented this, but Alma left her without a response. The Obsessive Love of Hitchcock The session host cautiously broached the sensitive topic of Hitchcock's interest in Tippi Hedren, stating that Hitchcock's obsessive love for her resembled Scottie's love for Madeleine in the film 'Vertigo.' Hedren nodded in agreement, saying, 'Exactly!' It seemed that recalling those days and discussing them was not particularly pleasant for her, as she repeatedly stated that they were bitter and very bad days. However, she soon reflected on the matter from a distance and said, 'Of course, this is not something that only happens to me or in cinema. It can happen to a woman working in a shoe store, where the boss falls in love with her, and she has no interest in that relationship. I think most women here have experienced something like that.' Hedren mentioned that due to the pressure on her, after filming the last scene of 'Marnie,' she declared she would never set foot in that studio again, and indeed she never returned, but Hitchcock did not terminate her contract and continued to pay her six hundred dollars a week, which meant that during those years, Hedren could not act in any other films. She said that when producers contacted her, she would refer to her contract with Hitchcock, and when they called Hitchcock, he would respond that this lady was not available. Thus, the star status of Tippi Hedren quickly faded. Nevertheless, Hedren does not speak of Hitchcock with hatred and distinguishes between his work and his character, stating, 'He was a genius... He had the power to take the audience to the highest heights and then drop them suddenly.' The Birds; A Masterpiece However, aside from these controversies, the film 'The Birds' remains astonishingly fresh and is undoubtedly one of Hitchcock's masterpieces. It presents a dystopian image of our world, where 'disaster can descend from the most unexpected direction,' and our safe and calm world (where the birds are caged at the beginning of the film and everything seems safe) can be disrupted with a jolt (considering the film's production during the Cold War: a nuclear bomb?). Everything can fall apart, and our artificial peace and tranquility are at risk: with a miniature treatment serving a highly personal world (contrary to Hollywood's flow; 'The Birds' bears little resemblance to a Hollywood film and is more akin to European cinema) and, of course, a very bitter world (is there an escape? The final escape scene, where birds stretch as far as the eye can see, seems rather hopeless) with the courage and audacity that Hitchcock found after being 'discovered by Cahiers du Cinéma' in the late fifties, reaching a kind of self-awareness to transform a film that initially had a lot of dialogue into one that is very quiet at the end: a place where the characters of the film—perhaps the filmmaker themselves?—can only remain silent in the face of the power and wrath of nature.