"The Birds" (1963) was the first film Alfred Hitchcock made after "Psycho". Drawn from a Daphne du Maurier story as well as contemporary newspaper reports of bird attacks in California, "The Birds" featured the icy blonde Tippi Hedren in her first starring role. A film about anxiety, sexual power and the violence of nature, it is quintessential Hitchcock. Camille Paglia draws together in this text the film's aesthetic, technical and mythical qualities, and analyzes its depiction of gender and family relations.