Human uses of birds with effective mimicry of birds. The play's chorus consists of characters playing many identifiable species, including the kingfisher, turtledove, and sparrowhawk; birds feature as messengers and dancers, and several Athenians are compared to specific birds. In film, birds can feature as the major driving force in a story, as in Alfred Hitchcock's acclaimed 1963 "The Birds". Loosely based on Daphne du Maurier's story of the same name, it tells the tale of sudden attacks on people by violent flocks of birds. A bird plays the role of an outlet for a person's feelings in Ken Loach's much admired 1969 "Kes".
The Haunting (1963 film) magazine, critic Pauline Kael called the film "moderately elegant and literate and expensive", but criticised Russ Tamblyn for being "feeble [and] cowardly-comic". She considered the film to be superior to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds", also released in 1963, yet didn't consider it to be a great film. Kael said of it, "It wasn't a great movie but I certainly wouldn't have thought that it could offend anyone. Yet part of the audience at "The Haunting" wasn't merely bored, it was hostile—as if the movie, by assuming interests they didn't have, made them feel resentful or inferior. I've never felt this