Why was there no ending?
No summary or anything. Just ended. It may as well of ended after the first bird attack.
shareThe ending is wonderfully eerie and unsettling because it is so ambiguous and open ended. I think Hitchcock wanted it this way. He liked to overturn conventions like having Janet Leigh get killed in the middle of Psycho when in every other movie at the time she would have been saved. It's the same here. In some ways The Birds plays like the old 50's Sci-Fi monster films where the ants, shrews, blobs or whatever get killed in the end and all is explained. Ending it as he did lifts it far above that type of genre film. It's a famous ending because it works, and the fact that some people are still confounded by it shows it still works.
Also, I notice a number of people seeing resolution in the end in several threads here including this one, saying the birds have completely stopped attacking for good because they represent psychological and dramatic conflicts among the principal characters that have now been resolved (among other reasons). But there is no indication that the attacks have stopped completely. The announcer on the car radio even mentions that the bird attacks occur after long quiet intervals. They escape during one of these and the birds could attack again at any time.
Also, I notice a number of people seeing resolution in the end in several threads here including this one, saying the birds have completely stopped attacking for good because they represent psychological and dramatic conflicts among the principal characters that have now been resolved (among other reasons). But there is no indication that the attacks have stopped completely. The announcer on the car radio even mentions that the bird attacks occur after long quiet intervals. They escape during one of these and the birds could attack again at any time.
I think people are missing much of the symbolic and allegoric nature of the story. Why are the only two birds not attacking love birds, of all birds? To me this film is about peace and reconciliation, both on the personal and societal level. Keep in mind this film was made right after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Indeed, Hitchcock even went on to make a film dealing with that event in Topaz, so it's not far-fetched at all to make this connection. Remember also Hitchcock's strong Catholic beliefs, which he sometimes referenced in his films in subtle ways. Looking at the film from a religious/philosophical level the final shot makes a lot of sense. In the distance we see a ray of light breaking through the clouds. Mitch's mother and Melanie have a moment of tenderness together. It's as if the characters in the story have reconciled with each other and are being given a second chance, just as the world had been given a second chance after the missile crisis. The love birds represent the Christian idea of reconciliation and peace in the face of a frightening world we cannot explain or control. Even if nuclear war wasn't the intended subtext of the film, in a general sense the attacking birds are a symbol of chaos while the love birds are a symbol of reconciliation and hope. The story arcs for the individual characters follow this strife to understanding to reconciliation theme also.