Jaws

I will be analyzing the soundtrack from the movie "Jaws", The genre of this movie is Horror. The scene which I will be looking at in particular is the clip where Hooper is in the cage. The reason I have chosen this clip is because I think this certain scene is good at showing what this movie is all about, I think that it is good at playing with many of the techniques usually linked with horror movies, such as suspense. The suspense is really played around with in this scene, for example the way the scene starts is with a character underwater the feeling that this clip portrays is loneliness which is emphasized with complete silence. The silence used make us feel like the character is vulnerable and alone, there is nobody around to help him which is good at making the scene seem unsettling which is also effective at heightening the suspense. The movement of the camera shot coinciding with the silence also makes the audience suspect that the character is being watched. Every so often on screen we will see bubbles appear from the divers breathing apparatus and at the same time we will hear the ADR let off the gurgling noise which breaks the silence; this is an important part to the scene itself as it helps to show that in this dark, gloomy ocean there is still life, life itself is seen as important and this makes this scene more frightening as there is alot to loose.

Suddenly as the camera shot looks out into the empty ocean, a dark figure appears and this is when the dynamic of the scene changes. The soundtrack turns from silence to fast dissonant played stringed instruments, which makes the scene seem more exhilarated and suddenly an even more dangerous place to be, the music that is playing is the leitmotif which links directly to the main character of this movie which is extremely recognizable and it makes the audience know that something bad is going to happen. The music which is playing starts off slow and then as the dark figure is coming closer the tempo and the amplitude rapidly increases, this makes the clip dramatically turn from an uneasy feel to extreme panic. In the music that is being heard every so often there is a very low note that plays, which is a jump point; meaning that this is a point when the music is most wild and it would be more likely for the shark to strike at, being the lowest note is makes the scene seem most dangerous at this point.

The scene uses alot of L cuts especially when the shark is attacking, the use of this sound technique makes the scene seem even less secure as even when the shark isn't on screen you can still hear him and therefore you know that he is still lurking about; this gives the feeling of restriction and that there is no escape.