TeacherScribe

I'm always amazed at how my classes react to Jaws when we watch it in class.  This year's juniors are rapt.  They are on the edge of their desks. Why? Because Spielberg does something that rarely happens in suspense/horror films, he accurately depicts the human drama of the characters.  We care about Chief Martin Brody and whether he'll make it home to his family and whether or not he'll kill the Great White that is stalking the beaches of Amitty. Of course, it's a hell of an adventure too.  But there's more to it than that.  Spielberg taps into our primordial fears of the unknown and of being eaten alive.   John Williams' score is brilliant, and Spielberg uses music to perfectly manipulate the viewers.  Students always leap up during the Ben Gardner boat scene where the rather fake looking severed heads slowly bobs up from a hole in ship's hull.  They jump because Spielberg perfectly manipulates our mood via the score. Spielberg also masterfully employs the power of suggestion.  He knows all too well that he is stuck with a large, fake looking wood shark.  If you have ever watched any of the documentaries on the film, you know too that the shark rarely worked properly.  So Spielberg wisely keeps it off screen.  I think this is one reason Bram Stoker's Dracula scares the hell out of people: the Count is rarely on stage (so to speak). Spielberg uses the power of suggestion better than any film I can recall.  We hear Williams' famous "da --  da . . . da -- da . . ." and we know the shark is there.  We don't need to see it. Sure we see a fin here and there, but really Spielberg waits until the final ten minutes of the film to reveal the whole shark - when it inexplicably leaps onto the ship and gobbles up Quint.  Of course, it is ludicrous.  Sharks just don't do that.  Unless they're breaching and you're totally in the wrong spot at the wrong time, that will never happen. But because we are caught up in the human drama, we can suspend our disbelief long enough to swallow that image of the fake monster shark eating up everything in those final minutes.  This is a mistake most films make - think of Speed where the bus leaps a 50 foot section of highway or in Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull where Jones escapes an atomic bomb test by hiding in a lead lined refrigerator.  Once those scenes happen, the reader pulls back and says, "Okay, I'm just enjoying my popcorn right now.  This is just a movie." That rarely happens in Jaws, which is why it scares so many people.  It's also why the kids will sit in rapt silence watching a film that is over 30 years old.  That in itself is quite a feat.