Counter-Currents Radio Podcast No. 600: Derek Hawthorne’s New Book Being and “The Birds”

You can order Derek Hawthorne’s book Being & The Birds or: Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Heidegger (But Were Afraid to Ask Hitchcock) here.

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Derek Hawthorne‘s new book, Being and “The Birds,” was the subject of the latest broadcast of Counter-Currents Radio. Philosopher and film critic Hawthorne draws on the thought of Martin Heidegger to illuminate Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 classic film The Birds, about a series of savage and inexplicable bird attacks on Bodega Bay, a sleepy California fishing village. Hawthorne argues that The Birds depicts a Heideggerian “event” (Ereignis): a sudden and fundamental transformation of the meaning of everything. Modern men believe we are masters of our own destiny. Heidegger calls this “humanism” and rejects it completely. The Birds is an anti-humanist film. In the space of one weekend, all pretensions to the understanding and mastery of nature are shattered, and man is reduced to helplessness in the face of unfathomable mystery.

The author himself was joined by Greg Johnson, Austrian film scholar Martin Lichtmesz, and Counter-Currents’ in-house magus, James J. O’Meara to discuss both the book and the film, and the recording is now available for download and online listening. Topics discussed include:

00:02:57 The Birds and Black Lives Matter
00:06:28 The Heideggerian concept of Ereignis
00:08:14 Is The Birds a horror movie?
00:17:40 Character development throughout the story
00:27:30 Is The Birds anti-feminist?
00:36:57 Alfred Hitchcock Presents/The Three Investigators
00:40:00 Martin Lichtmesz’s analysis of the book
00:45:08 Abstraction vs. reality
00:48:08 Comparisons between the original script and the final product
00:50:04 Is it an anti-humanist film?
00:53:24 Is Ms. Bundy the town lesbian?
00:54:29 The sociopolitical significance of smoking
00:57:46 The film’s main Heideggerian concepts
01:09:50 James’ humanistic challenge to Ereignis
01:17:16 German translations of Heideggerian terms
01:26:26 The attic scene
01:31:19 The Heideggerian concept of “thrownness”
01:32:11 “Serenity” or “releasement”
01:37:01 On the film’s unusual ending
01:42:41 Edvard Munch’s The Scream
01:47:54 Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining
01:49:47 Visual effects in the film

To listen in a player, click here or below. To download, right-click the link and click “save as.”

https://counter-currents.com/wp-content/uploads/podcasts/CCR-Being-and-the-Birds-Jul-27-2024.mp3