Steven Spielberg's Jaws and Ridley Scott's Gladiator

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 but don't have in our everyday lives

to this extent. Both films are examples of media, which manage to

induce you into a certain way of thinking: Jaws into being scared and

Gladiator into sympathising and rooting for Russell Crowe in his fight

against evil.

In the opening shots of Gladiator, Maximus is seen walking through a

cornfield. There is an orange soft focus on the scene; this, along

with the music, adds to the feeling he is dreaming of his homeland

where it is warm, safe and pleasant. Here the director is trying to

show the feeling of wanting to be back home through the evocative

colour and sounds of Maximus's dream. When the scene shifts to the

battle, the opening shot centres of his face, there is now a blue haze

on the scene. It appears to be early daylight or evening. The weather

is bad and the area is covered in decimated forest. The overall scene

is very misty and dirty. A contrast is set between the previous

scenes; the sharp difference between the two extreme emphasises the

reality of the two positions. A close up shot of a robin creates a

disparity between the lifeless settings of the battlefield and is

symbolic of Maximus's f...

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them steadily, flicking from each person, singling them both out. When

the girl dives in, the camera goes to an extreme close up; her friend

is unconscious furthering the isolation of the girl. The first upward

shot starts to establish the suspense; at this point the camera

becomes the shark. As the shark gets closer, the camera moves into an

extreme close up of her, suggesting the position of the shark an its

grip on the victim; the director wants you to feel her pain, fear and

realisation as much as possible. When the attack is over, the scene

reverts to the calmness it had before. The camera moves into a long

shot scanning the horizon and the gentle sounds of the water become

audible again, this signifies the end of the scene but leaves the

doubt in the audience's mind of the unidentified creature below.