Jaws - Filmic Techniques, Structure Of Tension/Suspense
Essay by 24 • November 13, 2010 • 492 Words (2 Pages) • 1,785 Views
Stephen Spielberg is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. He is the highest grossing filmmaker of all time; his movies having earned almost Ð'Ј4 billion internationally. Spielberg’s films have approached a diverse array of themes and genres: throughout early years as a director, his sci-fi and adventure films were often distinguished as archetypal of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his movies attended to such historical concern as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism.
Having purchased rights to Peter Benchley’s novel (loosely based around a factual incident in which a series of shark attacks killed four individuals along American coast) in 1973, for approximately Ð'Ј125, 00, studio producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown offered Spielberg the director's chair for Jaws. Jaws, the movie, was released in 1975 and, parallel to the novel, consists somewhat bluntly of a great white shark assailing a small beach resort town вЂ" namely Amity Island (вЂ?Amity’, the audience are later enlightened, is, rather paradoxically, recognized to mean вЂ?friendly’). The escalation of fear begins to detrimentally affect the number of tourists that arrive at the beach. Subsequent to various attempts, the shark refuses to depart; thus a scientist, police officer and an old fisherman conspire to pursue the shark and slay it.
“The tagline for the tensely-paced film, "Don't go in the water," kept a lot of shark-hysterical ocean-swimmers and 1975 summer beachgoers wary.” Indeed, Spielberg’s film ignited hysteria amid masses. Astoundingly, this frenzy pervaded least vulnerable locations, alike the bitter seas of Europe. Years befallen and apprehension lingers incessantly.
The title sequence commences accompanied by gradual, nondiegetic sound (i.e. the timeless two-note theme conjured up by the Academy
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