Jaws Movie Review

Jaws

Steven Spielberg may have been shocked by the popular improvised line, “We’re going to need a bigger boat,” but who knew Universal was going to need a bigger bank account. Jaws is the story about a great white shark that terrorizes the small island of Amity, and the three men that set out to kill it. Filmed in 1975 and considered to be the first Blockbuster, Jaws can be considered the film that got Director Steven Spielberg the high praise known to follow him presently. This culturally significant film reprises the many key elements Spielberg touches in his films as well as great cinematography and editing.

Similar to his 1993 film Jurassic Park, Spielberg does a phenomenal job of terrorizing the audience with the subtlety of silence and the camera. In Jaws the silence is replaced by the use of the incredible score by John Williams, while Jurassic Park relies on the sound of the dinosaurs which is terrifying. The camera work includes a scene using the Vertigo Effect, scenes shot underwater, and working around the exterior and interior of a not so ‘big” boat. A scene portraying very good editing is the scene when the main character is focusing on the beach and the camera cuts closer and closer as beach goers pass by the camera.

Spielberg used all the elements at his disposal with caution and precision. The production for this film had a couple of bumps but Spielberg took it all into his hands and made sure those bumps got flattened. The mechanical shark had more than a handful of problems. The shark is not shown until the middle of the film. Spielberg used the score in order to overcome the difficulties he had with the shark. The boat used for the third act was probably tough for shooting. Spielberg used a boat to get a lot of the longer shots while he probably used a rig built on the boat to get a lot of the tracking shot around the boat.