How Does Spielberg create fear and humour within ‘Jaws’?

The involve Jaws was made in 1975 and was the word picture that brought the director Steven Spielberg his first major success. The film, with Spielberg as director, won three honorary society awards for editing, sound and original source. Spielberg, as a result of the film, became one of Americas youngest multi millionaires. Spielberg was given $7,000,000 to spend as the films budget. This may not seem a large sum of money compa bolshie to the sort of money that is spent on films nowadays but, it was a truly large sum of money to spend on a film in those days.The film received mostly positive re trip ups, there was the odd bad review, which was critical of Jaws not being able to make the auditory sense feel sorry for the victims.The film is based on calamus Benchleys best selling novel, in which Jaws centres around the fictional North Atlantic resort island of Amity. A coarse great white shark terrorizes the island. There are two killings at the beginning of the film, which br ings in monotone Hooper, played by Richard Dreyfuss, an ichthyologist and oceanographer that is taken to Amity to help, using his expertise.Later on in the film, Amitys most consider and most feared shark hunter, the enigmatic, vaguely malicious Quint teams up with Matt Hooper and the chief of the Amity natural law Department, Brody, to find and kill the enormous shark and save the town from financial disaster.Jaws has one of the best anti-heroes movies piss ever seen, Quint played by Robert Shaw is humorous and is frightening all at once. His soliloquy in which he tells the others ab out the tragic sinking of the USS Indianapolis is a most chilling and unforgettable performance.As well as analysing the storyline and plot, many other aspects of the film should be analysed such(prenominal) as digetic and non-digetic sound, television camera angles and their upshots and the use of props and setting. It would be impossible to analyse the entire film in such depth without producin g an epic piece of writing, therefore for the purpose of this essay an indepth analysis of the scrap attack go out be used to show how fear and humour are used.John Williams had to make the music scary as the shark is not seen at the beginning therefore it needs the music to build suspense. It is at present recognisable and almost as famous as the music from Physco. One of the reasons the music had to create the creative thinker of the shark effectively was because, obviously Spielberg could not use a real shark. There was a mechanical model of a shark built (it was nicknamed Bruce). It created many problems. Bruce was made of polyurethane, was 24ft long and weighed 11/2 tons. On Bruces first test, he sank, and on his second, he exploded. An inspection of the shark revealed that the shark was cross-eyed and its jaws would not shut. These problems compelled Spielberg to be more inventive and to hide the shark for as long as he could throughout the movie.The Stravinskian rhythms of John Williamss remarkable score created the idea of a menacing under piddle killer. The fear that Williams created meant that the horror of the chisel is left to the audiences imagination which is far scarier than anything the most creative special effects department could create.In the second attack, the camera is placed in front of Brody and characters walk in front of the camera, we get an interrupted view of the sea, like Brody does and this creates tension. There is an over the shoulder guessing of a girl screaming, this prepares the audience for the attack. There is likewise digetic sound, such as splashing and the sound of laughter helps to build atmosphere of calm and fun. The close up of the people in the sea and screams build up the tension. The pursue owner shouting his dog lets the audience know the shark is around. When we see the stick floating in the sea, that the owner of the dog has thrown, it is confirmed that the dog has been attacked, this builds the fea r and tension for the audience as we know the little boy on the lilo is still out at sea.The non-digetic sound is the music and its effect is that we know the music represents the shark, we dont have to see it. The underwater shot also represents the shark with the views of childrens legs which creates fear without seeing the shark itself. The climax of the music lets you know the attack willing happen.The zoom in on Brody further heightens the fear. The victims are coded, Dog owner wears yellow, boy goes out to sea on yellow lilo and his mother wears a yellow hat.The police chiefs nervousness and refusal to go near the water is first seen in comic terms by the islanders, but is gradually vindicated by a slow slippage of menacing imagery- a disappearing dog, an anxious mother and a sudden, gushing fountain of red that signals a fatal attack. This contrast between tension and humour creates a wave-like rollercoaster of emotion for the audience which has the effect of increasing the tension.Overall the film creates a rollercoaster effect, with the humour in the film given the audience a short respite in the tension. Which later further heightens the more tense movements and the attack.This is all done very cleverly because the use of non-digetic sound and shark view camera angles create tension and fear without really seeing the shark and without seeing the attacks.