Build Up of Suspense in the movie Jaws

Build Up of Suspense in the movie Jaws

The film “Jaws” has been directed and produced in 1975 by Steven

Spielberg. It is about a police chief that has been assigned to a hot

resort on one of New England Coast’s beaches. His job is to make sure

that the killer shark, which has already eaten a person in this area,

does not have a chance to attack again.

The film is set on the 4th of July because it is a national holiday in

America – The Independence Day. Lots of people organise picnics, go

for holidays etc. The New England Coast is an attraction to tourists

and many people visit it during their holidays. In the film the

protagonist is chief Brody (Roy Scheider). The secondary characters

are Quint (Robert Shaw), Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and Larry Vaughn

(Murray Hamilton).

Tension in the audience is immediately built in the opening sequence.

This is achieved by the non-diagetic music playing in the background.

The audience can see the sea weeds from the shark’s point of view. It

is assumed that the creature is a shark because the majority of

moviegoers have seen the shark in the “Jaws” trailer and on the “Jaws”

poster on the way to the cinema. At this point the audience is

“programmed” that when the theme tune starts to play in the

background, it means that the shark is present.

In the film both music and silence are used to scare the audience. An

example of how silence is used for this effect could be the quietness

after the shark’s first attack. As the woman was trying to pull away

from the beast’s jaws, the non-diagetic music was extremely loud and

chaotic. When the attack was finished, the shark was gone as was the

non-...

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.... The tune

became extremely loud and camera angle changed again, showing Christy

from a high angle. It was very scary when she felt that something was

pulling her under the water because she had no return and no

opportunity to swim away from whatever was trying to kill her. She was

terrified. She started screaming and shaking her hands and trying to

use force to get out of the shark’s jaw.

The scariest section of this scene was after the attack. The shark was

gone and the non-diagetic music stopped playing. Dead silence came and

all that could be heard were the sea waves. This was to show that

nothing was left. It highlighted the fact that nobody came to help her

even if anybody wanted to. She had no chance of surviving. The

audience has been forced to acknowledge the horrible truth. I felt so

sad after this…