Jaws

Jaws tells a story about one small town’s summer. Amity’s citizens and tourist are terrorized when a monster in the sea, a gigantic great white shark, begins to attack those in the ocean. A massive hunt is put forth to find the beast that terrorized Amity and many sharks were killed but none were that of the guilty one. After the failure, an unlikely team joins forces. The Mayor hires a fisherman and sends him out to see with the Police Chief and a marine scientist to find and destroy the great white. While out at sea the great white begins to attack the team and their boat, The Orca. The great white leaps onto the boat, which crushes it and begins to sink. The fisherman, Quint, loses his footing and falls into the great white’s mouth. The police chief, Brody, shoves a scuba tank into the shark’s mouth and when the shark comes back to attack them he shoots the tank and blows the great white up.

I thought that there were a lot of cool techniques used is this movie. From a visual stand point I loved how they used the zoomed the camera in while moving it away from Brody. It was a cool technique however I think it was shot too quickly. I also think it was a great way to illustrate the power of the shark by pulling the barrels underwater and towing the boat backwards. I also think the score accurately portrayed what you should be feeling at that moment and made most people feel that way.

Stephen Spielberg masterfully assembled the final product. The camera work, the score, and the acting all created a breakthrough film that became very popular very quickly. Given the time period this was assembled, I believe this film does a great job at implementing emotions into the viewer.