Jaws

Throughout his lifetime Steven Spielberg has directed many films, such as:

Close Encounters of the Third kind (1977)

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Ghost Train (1985)

Jurassic Park (1991)

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

One of the films I haven’t mentioned is Jaws (1975).

 The film Jaws is based on a popular novel by Peter Benchley. The film is about a small island that’s just off the coast of America that is brutally attacked by an unprovoked giant killer shark! The shark attacks and savagely kills multiple people throughout the film. The chief of police, Brody, and an oceanographer, Hooper, go out with a local shark fisherman to try and catch the giant killer great white but end up having to blow it up!

The Tag line of the film is “Don’t Go in the water”. The tag line already tells us that something bad is going to happen in the water even before the film has started! Steven builds fear and tension throughout the film using many different filmic techniques.

One of the techniques Spielberg used was his careful manipulation of the music. In the very first scene, it is just black while showing the names of some people involved with the film, with the music playing. This builds the tension already. We next get the introduction of the first “character” by the point of view camera angle of the shark. This automatically makes us associates the music with the shark. This is very effective because when ever we hear this music we recognise it and know that the shark is coming or in the vicinity. The “shark music” is built up before the attack to get louder faster and stronger. This tells the audience that something might happen and builds tension within the audience because they think that something is going to happen. The music only played before the attack and not before or after. Usually after the attack there is just silence, this is a contrast between the loud music that has just been built up and the noise of the attack. The contrast trick is used many times throughout the film. Another time was just after the opening title sequence. The music is built up, and then it suddenly cuts to a party on the beach and a harmonica playing and people talking having a good time in the background.

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Another way the wonderful Steven Spielberg built up fear and tension was the camera techniques he used. During the second attack many different camera shots were used. The scene starts off with the camera following an old fat lady, then cuts to a young boy, Alex, who is walking up the beach to his mother. This automatically shows the importance of the boy. The boy’s mother tells him to come out of the water but is persuaded into letting him back in by his nagging. Next we have a shot of Brody, the chief of police, who is watching ...

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