Analyse the ways that the director builds suspense and scares the audience in the film Jaws.
James Turner May
10x3
PRM
Media coursework essay
Analyse the ways that the director builds suspense and scares the audience in the film Jaws.
Jaws the 1975 blockbuster film directed by Steven Spielberg. The screenplay, written by Spielberg and Carl Gottlieb based on a book by Peter Benchley of the same name. The film portrays a rogue killer great white shark, which stalks the waters around the town of Amity on Long Island – a busy holiday resort.
The three major characters that eventually track the shark are: -
Chief Brody played by Roy Scheider – the towns’ principle police chief, who is an outsider to the town as he originally lived in New York. He doesn’t like water as he has a childhood fear of drowning.
Hooper played by Richard Dreyfuss – a marine biologist.
Quint played by Robert Shaw – a grizzly fisherman and WWII veteran who is obsessed to hunt and kill the great white shark, he owns a boat named ‘Orca ‘ the only natural predator of sharks.
The story is set around the 4th July, an American holiday to commemorate independence day, therefore the beaches will be full of people and there will be lots of activity in the water.
Spielberg uses different camera techniques and shots as well as music to build up the tension.
Music plays a big part, the ‘shark theme’ a two note ‘da-dum’ musical score is used right from the opening credits and is linked to the underwater view of the shark, and the subsequent attack and murder of the teenage girl. Spielberg uses this tense music and periods of silence to build up the tension, preceding each shark attack. For the first attack Spielberg uses music playing from the radio on the beach to lull the audience into a sense of normal, safe, everyday activity, then he uses the ‘shark theme’ music when the film is shot from the shark’s point of view, this is followed by the audience hearing screams, then silence. Throughout the film the ‘shark theme’ is used whenever the shark is active or present even if the spectators don’t actually see the shark.
The camera playing ‘hide and seek’ with chief Brody, who tries to maintain a clear view of the ocean, builds the sense of tension preceding the second attack, this use of the camera highlights Brody’s struggle to maintain a clear view of the ocean, but passers- by often block Brody’s line of sight. The apprehension is then heightened by a false alarm; an elderly swimmer wearing a grey swim cap, swims up behind a woman floating in the water and is mistaken for a sharks fin. Brody starts to relax, but is soon brought back to a state of alertness when he hears a scream, it is just two people playing in the water. The dialogue between Brody and the elderly swimmer reminds us of Brody’s anxiety around water adding to the building suspense. Again Brody tries to relax, his wife massages his neck and shoulders to help him relax. The change in emotions from tense to relax takes the viewer on a roller coaster ride along with Brody. This sense of nervous strain is sharpened by quick snippets from various locations within the setting. A dog owner calls for his dog, but only the stick that the dog swam out to fetch returns to the beach, the ‘shark theme’ music starts slowly in the background, the camera shows shots of wriggling legs shot from underwater, then there is a momentary view of the sharks fin. The music quickens as the shark sees his victim and a dark shape surfaces beneath Alex’s raft. The viewer then hears a scream and sees blood gushing from Alex’s body, and then there is silence, as the water around Alex’s raft turns red. Spielberg then directs the camera back to Brody on the beach, who by now has realised his worst fears have come true, the camera zeroes in on Brody’s horrified face whilst his surroundings moves backwards.
