Analysis of the Ways the Director Builds Suspense and Scares the Audience in Jaws

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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 director

Steven Spielberg.

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“JAWS” was based on Peter Benchley’s number one best-selling novel in

1974. The Plotline for the film is about a police officer, a

scientist, and a grizzled sailor who set out to kill a great white

shark, which has been menacing the seaside community of Amity Island.

The film was set in a seaside resort in America called Amity. The

sign, which first introduces us to Amity Island, tells us that it is

celebrating its 50th annual regatta on the 4th – 10th July 1975. The 4th

July in America is a big public holiday, so it was a very clever idea

to set in when lots of people would be using the beaches. Even though

the first two attacks by the shark were before the annual regatta,

every other attack is during the busy public holiday or after.

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During the film Steve Spielberg uses music, a mysterious shark and

camera techniques such as simultaneous track and zoom, long shot,

close up shots and medium shots to build suspense, tension and scare

the audience.

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The music represents the shark, especially its movements and its

presence. In the title sequence the camera is moving along the seabed

like a shark. Spielberg makes the audience believe that the camera is

viewing things through the sharks eyes, he uses a camera shot called

point of view shot (POV)...

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...ness, Matt Hooper is alive! They both

return to shore happy men, on a raft. The audience will feel their

happiness and relief.

The scariest moment in the film, which took me by surprise, was when

Matt and Brody went out on Matt’s boat in the middle of the night.

They find a shipwrecked fishing boat. Matt goes underwater to

investigate and finds a shark tooth in a chewed hole in the side of

the boat. He takes it away to look at then swims back to the gap and

peers in. Suddenly a dead man with a fish eaten eye, head appears in

the gap. This made me jump because it was the thing I least thought

was going to happen. I thought the shark would, turn up and attack

Matt 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 the

middle of the night.

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