Gabrielle Ibanez
Cinema Appreciation
15 April 2015

Jaws
“The Beach Scene”
Steven Spielberg is without a doubt a director whom has become a household name. With many thousand project titles under his belt in one way or another, one must wonder what the magic behind a Steven Spielberg blockbuster is? In this paper I will be analyzing Spielberg’s story telling in the uncut beach scene in Jaws. This was only Spielberg’s second large studio film and he shows signs throughout every bit of it to be quite an artist with a gift that allows his scenes to breathe organically. Spielberg’s early work has a under layering feeling of Hitchcock styled moments which can be felt throughout the beach scene and Jaws in general. In a very fluid motion he reveals all of the scenes critical elements. First, the camera direction is one that is worth noting. The scene starts with a left pan following a large woman, anyone in the audience would assume she would make quite a full and appetizing meal for the shark lurking in the depths of the ocean. Behind the large woman we see the young man in yellow playing fetch with his dog who will later act as the first red flag that danger has already arrived. Once the woman goes into the water and the young man’s dog goes that direction as well, the young boy we are really meant to follow enters from the left; opposing the camera direction. I feel that the large woman, the dog and the young man in yellow act like arrows pointing your attention towards the truly important subject matter; the boy in the red trunks. To reinforce that with camera direction, the camera almost jerks entirely in the opposite direction it was going in to follow the boy to force emphasis. The boy is also in bright red swimming trunks, all these details psychologically tell us he is what we are really supposed to be paying attention to. I feel Spielberg also toys with parents emotions when the boy we now know is named “Alex” goes to his mother as she tells him it’s time to get out of the water, something that would have saved him. Alex asks his mother for “10 more minutes” and she concedes with no idea that she has fed the shark herself at that very moment. The camera keeps tracking the boy until we land on our main protagonist Chief Brody close right of the screen. The Chief keeps a watchful eye but his attention is never on the boy passing by him. This creates a feeling of knowing something the protagonist missed out on, bringing tension to the viewer not being able to act. In this helplessness to act is another hitchcockian Easter egg that makes Brody feel much like the protagonist James Stuart in Rear Window. Chief Brody even looks like James Stuart to me upon looking at them both. After that established point on the chief the scene is followed by a series of quick cuts which vamp up the tension creating multiple actions going on and being unable to keep your eyes on all of them all at once. They are all shot right to left as if from the Chief’s perspective darting from potential victim to potential victim. Shots of the Chief after that point get closer and closer. Extras/Beach goers passing by the front of the camera act as natural transitions between shots. This alone also creates the feeling of angst because we as the audience are being blocked from seeing everything and each time we are blocked something does in fact happen and change that we were not allowed to see. At this point in the scene a male beach goer approaches the Chief and squats directly in front of him, obscuring his view and interrupting his surveillance of the water. He attempts to look over the man’s shoulder to keep as much visual as possible on the open water and the potential victims in the water. Just then, a scream is heard from the water by a woman. The chief looks up alert and expecting his worst fear to have happened, but this is a fake out for Brody and the audience alike. Although some might have taken this scream as foreshadowing we are just lead to believe it was a cheap scare and not a looming omen of the inevitable. The male beach goer leaves and now the chief’s wife attracts his attention. In the back as the couple has a conversation we see a flock of children all stand up and run towards the water. We see the children splashing around wildly in the foreground as we see the boy in the red swim trunks in the background. That shot once again should act as foreshadowing although the actions are innocent. The shots of the children in the water quickly ramp up into fast cuts, playful screams and slightly blinding amounts of splashing. Directly after the children splashing around, we see the young man in yellow has lost sight of his dog in the water. The young man in yellow is calling out to his pet by name and is visibly worried as a child is playing in the sand in the foreground. This makes one clench in fear that one victim has already fallen and we were never aware enough to notice it. This shows us that even as the viewers, we are not omnipotent and we are limited to catching the horrors that happen before us. They cut to a shot of the stick the young man in yellow was throwing with his dog to show us it is too late for the dog. Finally, our fears are confirmed by a long running shot underwater from the shark’s perspective. The iconic music hypes up and we see the hunter so close to the child in the red swimming trunks that we know that escape is not an option any longer. We see the attack attract the attention from the children in the water first and then the beach goers, almost lastly the chief himself. The shots chosen to show the child being eaten by the shark hold distance, once again confirming that it is too late and too far for anyone to save the child. We then cut to the last time anyone will ever see the boy again, being pulled down into the water in between the sharks teeth, surrounded by sea water and blood. The moment of realization for the chief is delivered by a dolly zoom or more famously known as a “Vertigo” shot. To the Chief’s horror, he finally sees what we as an audience have been given hints about since the beginning of the scene. At this point the tension lessens being the attack has finally happened, everyone screams and runs for safety. Parents run to save their children while one mother will never be able to see her child again. All that is left in the scene for Alex’s mother and Chief Brody is a mixture of intense shock, sadness and looming shame. At this point in the film our main protagonist reaches a new and devastating blow.