Film Analysis Of Jaws

Steven Spielberg’s summer blockbuster Jaws from 1975 is a dramatic thriller that has audiences afraid to go in the water. Dealing with the terror of the unknown is the major theme in Jaws (Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. 2014). In this film Spielberg uses many different techniques to draw in the suspense of the audience and to capture their imagination. This essay will analyze how the theme of the film is established by the use of cinematic techniques such as camera shots, sound, and camera edits/movements.

I believe what made this film so great was the fact that for most of the first half of the film the audience never gets a clear visual of the shark but only the water. This helps create that sense of fear of what is actually out there in

Some scores actually prove so important to a film that they become so well-known themselves that you cannot to begin to think of the film and not think of the music involved. In this film, it is the sound of the shark, the duh-dun, which I believe had the greatest impact on the audience as it helps build up tension, to let us know when the shark is approaching. The music is introduced slowly and quietly and the buildup of the slow tempo which eventually crashes into a louder pitch creates suspense, tension, and fear because as the tempo becomes quick, it is an indication the shark is closer. In a simple yet terrifying scene we see two fishermen attempting to capture the shark by using a roast to use as bait. They put a large hook through the roast and fasten the chain to the pier, and toss in the bait into the ocean. As soon the shark takes the bait we hear the music of the shark and right away the suspense happens. The shark rips the pier loose and drags it out into the ocean with one of the fisherman caught in the wreck. As the man attempts to swim back to shore we see the pier turn around and head back to shore. As soon as this happens the music gets louder and the tempo begins to increase. As the man swims back to shore and pier follows the tempo increases even more building up the tension as to whether or not this man make it safely to shore. It isn’t until the man is able to

Spielberg opens this scene with an establishing shot of the beach. This shot is used help identify the setting which in turn allows the audience to determine where they are so that they can engage with the movie. The camera tracks a boy, reason being that he will be the victim, going up to his mother asking if he can get his raft and go back in the water and continues to track him until he walks off scene which the camera then goes in on a close up shot of the Chief of Police. These types of shots help the audience to understand the characters’ emotions, which in this case is concerned, and that makes this shot so effective due to the fact that the characters in the background depict a different emotion of happiness and delight. The shot then cuts to an extreme long shot of the sea shot where we can see that someone is floating which can be recognized as Chief Brody’s point of view. Spielberg then does an amazing camera edit here with the use people walking past the camera to cut from one shot to another. We see the Chief in a medium wide shot that cuts to a medium shot when a character walks past him, then to a close up when another passes by. Next, the camera returns back to the person floating in the ocean as if we are looking from the Chief’s point of view again. This shot is from a high angle which allows us to see how small the person is compared