Notes on Jaws Essay

Characters in the film Chrissie, the first victim is different to everyone else because she almost deserved the attack because it was her own fault. She was drunk at a party and about to have sex with a random guy who she didn’t even know the name of. The boyd was ringing which indicated the fact that there was something in the water- evidently a shark. Subsequently, because she was drunk she could not hear this and the boy was to focused on running over to Chrissie that he was also oblivious to the important indication. Alex is a young boy with an older mother who says ‘just 10 more minutes’ for him staying in the water, if she had not said that and not let him go, he would still be alive. Contrasting two extremes, a large, meaty lady walked past Alex on the opening scene; straight away it strikes you how skinny Alex looks. Speilberg has done this so you think ‘Why was Alex eaten?’ when there were better people the shark could of picked. Another contrast demonstrated by Speilberg was that Alex’s mother was shouting ‘Alex, Alex, Alex’. She knew who her son was, very well, yet the first attack the boy who was the only one who could have potentially saved the victim had to ask for her name. This illustrates how different the two attacks were. False/Fake alerts Screaming makes you alert and suddenly aware of what is happening. Another technique Speilberg uses to catch your attention. There are a few fake attacks/alerts which have been proposed in the film of ‘Jaws’. Firstly, just before the first attack a girl in messing around in the water; initially we think it has something to do with the shark and so does chief Brody. Yet we are wrong, by using this technique is builds the audience’s expectations and then confounding what we expect with the reality. By doing so this makes us more aware that something is about to happen and makes us more excited for the real attack that is soon going to creep up on us. Another example of a false alarm is the ‘Sunday lunch attack’, when the two men are attempting to catch the shark. The strong shark pulls a tyre which is connected to the jetty (the trap) and it breaks the jetty causing the two men to fall in. Although, one of the men is dragged across towards the shark, in shock and realization he scrambles away towards land. Luckily, he gets out of the water just in time. But, we- the audience- believe that he is going to die because there is the shark music playing.