Analysis of the Ways the Director Builds Suspense and Scares the Audience in Jaws
We studied the film “JAWS”, which was made by award winning directorSteven Spielberg.====================================================================
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“JAWS” was based on Peter Benchley’s number one best-selling novel in1974. The Plotline for the film is about a police officer, ascientist, and a grizzled sailor who set out to kill a great whiteshark, which has been menacing the seaside community of Amity Island.The film was set in a seaside resort in America called Amity. Thesign, which first introduces us to Amity Island, tells us that it iscelebrating its 50th annual regatta on the 4th – 10th July 1975. The 4thJuly in America is a big public holiday, so it was a very clever ideato set in when lots of people would be using the beaches. Even thoughthe first two attacks by the shark were before the annual regatta,every other attack is during the busy public holiday or after.========================================================================
During the film Steve Spielberg uses music, a mysterious shark andcamera techniques such as simultaneous track and zoom, long shot,close up shots and medium shots to build suspense, tension and scarethe audience.====================================================================
The music represents the shark, especially its movements and itspresence. In the title sequence the camera is moving along the seabedlike a shark. Spielberg makes the audience believe that the camera isviewing things through the sharks eyes, he uses a camera shot calledpoint of view shot (POV)…
…ness, Matt Hooper is alive! They bothreturn to shore happy men, on a raft. The audience will feel theirhappiness and relief.
The scariest moment in the film, which took me by surprise, was whenMatt and Brody went out on Matt’s boat in the middle of the night.They find a shipwrecked fishing boat. Matt goes underwater toinvestigate and finds a shark tooth in a chewed hole in the side ofthe boat. He takes it away to look at then swims back to the gap andpeers in. Suddenly a dead man with a fish eaten eye, head appears inthe gap. This made me jump because it was the thing I least thoughtwas going to happen. I thought the shark would, turn up and attackMatt Hooper or the shark’s eye would be seen peering through the hole.That would mean that Brody would have been alone, on a boat in themiddle of the night.
