Jaws
Analyse the ways in which the director builds up suspense and scares the audience in the film 'Jaws'
The film I am studying is Jaws. It was made in 1975 and was directed by Steven Spielberg. The film is set on Amity Island and was set around the 4th of July which is American Independence Day and this would have caused loads of people to be out during the holiday also the beaches would have been full. The basic setting of the film is that a white shark starts making attacks on people but the mayor cannot afford to close the beach as he don’t want to lose income at this time of the year. Steven Spielberg is very good as building up tension he has a number of ways of doing it.
One way Steven Spielberg builds up tension is by using music. He uses the music to build up tension and suspense by playing the tune when the shark is around and when the shark gets closer to his victim the music gets faster and louder. He uses the music so we know that another attack is going to happen. Then when the attack is over it is just silent. So the audience knows that the killer shark is still out there.
Another good way he builds up tension is by using good camera techniques. He uses good camera techniques in the second attack which is the death of the boy on the lilo. In this scene he uses lots of close-up shots of the boy and his dog, Alex and the dogs stick. There are a few false alarms to build up tension when the old man has a black cap on and when the girl screams and Brody keeps looking around because he thinks the shark is going to attack. But we know it weren’t the shark because the music wasn’t playing so we knew it was false alarms. Steven Spielberg uses the colour yellow to show who is in danger. Then the shark attacks and all that is left is the lilo and the dogs stick floating in the water so we assume the shark had eaten the dog as well as the boy on the lilo. When Brody finds out what has happened Steven Spielberg uses a Dolly zoom on to Brody’s face. This is a...
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