Spielberg's Jaws
Jaw’s is a horror film set underwater. It is the very first of its
kind. It tells the story of a serial killing shark off the shores of
Amity Island, America. When it was first released to the audience in
1975 it caused a sensation because it revolutionised the film industry
with its use of specialist camera technique and effects. This proved
to be a challenge for the director, Steven Spielberg, due to the
difficulties of filming believable shark attacks in the open sea with
a mechanical shark.
Before the opening credits there is effective music. The music is very
quiet and slow, you can also hear underwater sounds. This tells the
audience where the film is going to be set. A cello has been used for
this piece of music as it gives us that slow and smooth effect.
The seabed is lit, so that the audience are clear about what it is and
that the film is set underwater. It is also lit to make us feel tense
and uncomfortable. It is important that the environment looks unusual
to the audience as it is the very first of its kind and the audience
have never seen anything like it before.
The camera is moving in a wriggling motion but no specific direction,
the camera is moving in this way because it is supposed to represent
the shark.
I think Spielberg has chosen to do this because it tells the audience
that the shark is in control. I also think that he chose to do this,
as we are scared of the unknown.
As the camera is manovering through the sea, the music builds up and
begins to get louder and faster. The audience are now expecting
something to happen with the shark, but it all of a sudden changes to
the campfire scene.
As the scene changes, the music also changes. Now instead of loud,
fast music a mouth organ is being played. This happens to try and
confuse us, as Spielberg wants us to be on the edge of our seat.
Terror in Spielberg's Jaws The film ‘Jaws’ exemplifies the statement ‘Sublime terror rests in the unseen- the ultimate horror’. Some people would say that dismemberment and gore is needed to terrorise an audience, but this only shocks and disgusts viewers. A horror film should therefore make the audience imagine the terror in order to maximise the fear factor. Many horror films nowadays use similar techniques to those used by Spielberg in the film ‘Jaws’. They use techniques such as
that I will be analysing in this paper, Jaws (1975). Regarded by many to be one of the most monumental films in history, Jaws terrified viewers about the horrors lurking in the ocean, breaking all box office records and launching the age of the Hollywood blockbuster. Even though Spielberg proved that he wasn’t interested in becoming the next Hitchcock by going on to create great critically-acclaimed films that covered a spectrum of genres and themes,
Spielberg’s 1975 thriller Jaws made over $7 million opening weekend, was the highest grossing film of all time, and won 3 academy awards all while exploiting and exacerbating human beings’ natural fear of sharks (cite 1). The film, set in a small coastal town called Amity, follows a police chief who tries to save the town’s inhabitants from the gigantic and vengeful killer shark occupying their water. The horrifying and mysterious style in which the shark was depicted captured the imagination of
Suspense in Steven Spielberg's Movie Jaws Steven Spielberg, the creator of Jaws, uses many different techniques to draw in the suspense of viewers and to capture their imagination. These techniques include special effects – to create tension, different camera angles – to show facial expressions and group shots. The classic Jaws music, known by millions of people, also helps build up tension, to let us know when the shark is approaching. He uses colours, so that we can associate signs and symbols
On September 5th, 1975 “Jaws” by Steven Spielberg turned into the fastest grossing film in the history of the motion picture industry. According to Variety, “Jaw” proceeded to surpass the previous record gross of “The Godfather” by Francis Ford Coppola with an extra $38 million (Variety, Sept. 10, 1975). This immense success suggests that “Jaws” express the society’s underlying consciousness, and should be approached critically with a different point of view. By producing fictional structures which
Subjective Sound Subjective sounds are sounds that do not originate from the environment but can work well to strengthen pacing, story or mood. They can be sounds that the character cannot hear or interact with but instead affect the viewer. Subjective music could be used as a way to create contrast, for example, with typically happy music set against a sad scene. There are many ways music can be used in editing, for example; • To show when and/or where a scene is set • To establish or alter mood
Steven Spielberg's Jaws and Ridley Scott's Gladiator The two films being examined are the thriller Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg, and the action film Gladiator directed by Ridley Scott. Both directors create epic films; the films are momentous and are designed to manipulate the emotions. A thriller is intended to appeal to basic human instinct to the need of feeling fear and survival. Action movies are designed to appeal to our sense of danger: pace and experience is something we want
The 1975 film Jaws is remembered as one of the best examples of suspense and horror in cinema. Composed by the legendary John Williams, the soundtrack captures the audience and incites fear whenever there are tense moments. Spielberg’s expertise in cinematography and William’s skill in composing couple together to produce a fantastic movie that still scares audiences today. One of the most prominent features of the movie was the theme song. “Williams’s score perfectly communicates proximity and
Steven Spielberg’s 1975 film Jaws focuses on Amity Island, off the coast of Massachusetts. Notable for its beaches, the island is a popular tourist spot that is preparing for its biggest holiday of the year, the Fourth of July. However, in the days leading up to this event, the small town becomes the victim of multiple shark attacks. In Jaws, the relationship between human beings and nature falls into a close examination. Throughout the film, people and nature react negatively to the actions of each
been more frightening and influential than that of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. Each a product of horror’s 1970’s and 80’s golden era, the films have a reputation of engulfing viewers in fear, without the use of masked killers, vampires, or other clichés. Instead, Kubrick and Spielberg take a different approach and scare audiences on a psychological level. The Shining and Jaws evoke fear through the use of three different film aspects: the use of a “danger” color, daunting
Build Up of Suspense in the Film Jaws The film is called ‘JAWS’ and is successfully directed by Steven Spielberg. I will be analyzing how Spielberg builds up suspense and scares the audience throughout this film, considering how camera shots, music and characters’ reactions help to build this effect. The film is purposely named ‘JAWS’ as it is about a supernatural predator that killed many people with his deadly jaws without prejudice and discrimination. ‘JAWS’ is a masterful, visceral and
Jaws is a 1975 thriller that was directed by Steven Spielberg and is also based on a 1974 nook with the same name. The film is about a great white shark attacking Amity Island which is obviously not real but a fictional resort. -Steven Spielberg’s use of editing and cut scenes is one of the biggest factors in this movie. He uses contrast in certain scenes to amplify one and somewhat down play the other. The intensity in one scene can form an overstatement on what is really going on even when the
Distinctly unlike To the Lighthouse, Steven Spielberg’s Jaws portrays the ocean as the dangerous home of a terrifying predator, and entering the sea as a death sentence. Despite the film’s nature as a thriller film, the deaths that occur in the water hold a deeper meaning, and relations to the lives of the deceased. Chrissie Watkins, the first victim, dies drunk, while skinny dipping. The entire sequence, from the nudity to Cassidy’s “I’m coming… I’m coming” exists as a euphemism for sex, and the
Psycho, and Steven Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster hit Jaws. In both films audiences experience suspense and shock when they expect something bad to happen and have (or believe they have) a superior perspective on events in the films’ hierarchy of knowledge, yet they are powerless to intervene to prevent it from happening. The films differ however in regards to the type of shock and suspense used. For instance, Psycho relies much more heavily on the use of psychological shock where as Jaws uses the absence
Summary by Eric Dillon Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was a branch off the novel Jaws written by Peter Benchley . The Novel was written in 1974 receiving a best sellers award and therefore setting up for a movie just one year later in 1975, which soon invented the phrase “blockbuster”which simply is to gross over 100 million dollars. Since this was a highly publicized and successful novel Steven Spielberg was held to a high expectation for this movie to be an ultimate hit. The book and the movie have