Why was there no ending?

As far as I'm concerned, that was a perfect way to close the film.



Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!

The ending was so anti-climactic - I didn't care for it much. The whole movie is building up suspense and fright and everything, and then at the end, basically nothing happens, it's just over. I guess I didn't get the sense that the birds were just done attacking, because it was weird that they were still just perched everywhere, as if waiting to attack again, even though Mitch & company managed to get away. I would've loved the alternate scene where Hitch wanted to cover the golden gate bridge with birds - that to me would've been the perfect ending.

I also expected someone else to die in Mitch's house - for some reason, I kept thinking something was going to happen to his creepy mother...

"Are you going to your grave with unlived lives in your veins?" ~ The Good Girl

The "resolution" if you want to call it that was a tad disappointing and anticlimactic, there's not really any other way to describe it.

However, you could argue that it ended just like a bad dream; abrupt, which is itself a little disturbing, and unsettling.

Not that I'm trying to go out of my way to defend a lack of effort but, sometimes directors or writers do this in order to prevent a worse ending or 1 that they believe the audience won't accept. When you write yourself into a corner, you kinda have to take this route, which is why you should avoid ever writing yourself into a corner but I digress. The story is more about the ride rather than the destination.

Other reasons for open ending would lean toward the potential of a sequel but we know that probably wasn't the intention of this film.

Another thing of worth about the open ending is that it promotes discussion and controversy which leads to more ticket sales.

Yes I would have liked some closure but thats just my personal preference, I don't let the ending bother me anymore.

Interesting video on Youtube where the writer talks about the planned ending: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JupbvUq5OE0

That's pretty much Hitchcock's point of the film, that any ending would be arbitrary, unlike life, where things tend to go on and on, with no real "Mission Accomplished". This was the beginning of an era of doubt, a Cold War time of moral ambivalence, and Hitchcock wanted to subvert the notions of good and evil, and of the clear happy or tragic ending.

It's a sign of Hitchcock's subversive nature that a half century later, people are still upset by his unorthodox artistic sensitivity.

Listen to the river sing sweet songs
to rock my soul

I saw The Birds in it's first run when I was thirteen and found the ending baffling and somewhat of a letdown, though I still loved the film as a whole. But in those days it was standard fare that in the end the birds would be defeated in some way and mankind triumphant as any number of ants, gila monsters and aliens had been in the Fifties. Now I'm really glad he didn't do that and find the ending a masterstroke of eeriness.

The ending was absolutely perfect. Why on earth do you need everything tied up in a neat bow for you? You would probably have liked to see Rhett and Scarlet in a final clinch at the end of Gone with the Wind instead of the perfect ending it had.

No summary or anything. Just ended.