Why JAWS Beach Scene May Be Best In Film History
Read Time:1 Minute, 46 Second
I’ll never forget the first time I saw Jaws and watched that haunting opening scene of the girl swimming in the ocean being hunted by a Great White Shark. There’s only one word to describe it: shocking!
From Vox.com:
It takes a lot of work to make something look so effortless.
That’s the takeaway from Julian Palmer, the creative director for 1848 Media, a video production company. Palmer explains in a video breakdown how director Steven Spielberg uses things like the color yellow, staging, scale, and camera angles to tell a story. It’s all there in the beach scene in Jaws.
Story-wise, the beach scene is simple. There’s a shark in the water, and someone is going to be eaten. But the techniques and thoughtfulness Spielberg uses are anything but. They’re something we don’t often think about when we’re enjoying the movie.
Here are some of Palmer’s main points about Spielberg’s style:
- There are elements like the repeated use of yellows — on a mother’s hat, on a boogie board, on a buoy — that instill a sinking feeling in an audience.
- The boy’s shorts are red, making you think of blood.
- There’s a shot of the film’s hero, Sheriff Brody, with the crowd moving toward the water behind him. It’s meant to symbolize the lack of control he has over what’s about to happen.
- One of the longest-running shots of the sequence is through the eyes of the shark, making it impossible for a viewer to look away.
- The composition — Brody being front and center— of the sheriff’s realization shot makes you realize it’s his responsibility to protect these people.
All these elements work in unison to create the feeling of fear that dominates the scene.
In a sense, Palmer’s insight gives a whole new appreciation to that specific scene. It’s fascinating to see how things like camera angles, colors, and composition make us feel the feelings we do when watching them. And it also will make you appreciate, and perhaps want to dissect, the rest of Jaws.
The Discarded Image: Episode 01 – Jaws (Spielberg, 1975) from 1848 Media on Vimeo.
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
Swam around a basking shark off the coast of Cornwall – and a school of dolphins another year – when I was a kid.
Wouldn’t swim anywhere there might be real sharks ever! Amazing creatures but, in my case at least, viewed from the safety of shore!
I agree with both viewpoints. I loved the movie, especially that opening scene, and also agree that sharks are being hunted to extinction by man. As Bill said, I’m pulling for the shark….
While you are absolutely correct Ross, I am still in love with the opening scene in Jaws. It had everything. Great photography, filming, drama, acting by the female, and yes fear. I have lived and worked around the Gulf coast most of my life and have actually been in the water when sharks were around but that movie is still one of my top movies. I still find myself pulling for the shark at times.
We are much more of a threat to sharks than they could ever be to us. We can stay out of the water and avoid shark attacks. Sharks cannot avoid being taken aboard fishing boats, have their fins amputated for the shark fin soup delicacy, and then released back into the water to suffer a painful death. Sharks cannot avoid being killed in mass fishing nets, either.
Sharks can do nothing to stop us from polluting their ocean home, but we as people can support environmental organizations like the Sierra Club, Save our Seas, and Greenpeace.
I would just love it if there was a remake of the 1975 movie “Jaws’ from the shark’s point of view!