Jaws Essay

Jaws is a thriller movie. The definition of a thriller movie is 'A film created with the purpose of creating tension and shocking the viewer.' Steven Speilberg made Jaws so that it would exactly meet these criteria.

'Jaws' effectively builds up suspense and shocks the audience in many ways. Also 'Jaws' has an underlying feeling of isolation and paranoia. In the following essay I will explain how Steven Speilberg achieves this aim.

The first scene starts the film and greatly uses the feeling of isolation to its advantage. The purpose of the first scene is to show Chrissy's isolation from the rest of Amity. It also indicates the ferocity of the Shark attacks and how quickly they can start.

The scene starts off with a 'pan shot' of the whole of the group on the beach. This shot is good as it also shows the group's isolation. After the long pan shot the scene does a 'straight cut' to Chrissy on her own. This also enforces how she is isolated from the group. After this it cuts to a long pan shot of Chrissy and this boy chasing her along the sea front. This also helps to show the isolation in this film. The shot then cuts to Chrissy swimming in the water. The sun starts to rise and we see the first presence of yellow in the film.

Yellow is important as in nature yellow is very hazardous, and any animal displaying yellow is often seen as dangerous. This is extremely important in the film because we learn that as the film goes on an increasing presence of yellow indicates that there is likely to be a shark attack.

As the scene continues we start to see a camera moving through the water, which is meant to be a first person perspective view of the Shark. We then hear the infamous Jaws them tune. This sound is non- digetic, as it is not involved with the movement of people in the scene. It is hear that we realise that the shark is attacking.
Join now!


Then there is a straight cut back to the boy who is now lying on the beach, in a drunken mess. It is important that this shot is shown as it helps to enforce the fact that Chrissy is isolated.

We then have a straight shot of Chrissy in the water and the Jaws theme tune starts to play again. Then quickly the shot changes back to the shark view. It is important that the shot changes more rapidly because it helps to build up tension and pace in the scene. This can also be noticed ...

This is a preview of the whole essay