Jaws Film Analysis

Jaws as a Melodrama

Melodramas are movies where there is a clear cut hero and villain, suspense, music that underscores scenes, and shows a clear element of nostalgia. The movie jaws clearly fits each criteria to be a melodrama. I'm this movie, the hero is clearly Martin Brody, a police chief of Amity Island and the villain is clearly the great white shark known as jaws. Chief Brody does his best to protect the tourists and locals from the great white monster. There are countless scenes where his charter can be seen overseeing the beach and he also takes an expedition out to sea where he hopes to find and kill jaws. You can see that Chief Brody really cares about the safety of all persons as he tries to close the beach for spring break and tries to prevent

The mayor was against Chief Brody and could be perceived as a villain for caring more about the town’s income than the safety of its people, but his antics aren’t clearly evil. For three quarters of the movie you never actually see the face of jaws, but you clearly see him killing people. This makes the movie very suspenseful especially when you hear the iconic music of only two notes. When you hear this music you know that jaws is coming, and there is about to be blood in the water. The sense of nostalgia comes when Brody can recall a time of peace on the island without the killing nature of a flesh eating hungry shark. Jaws has a taste for human flesh, and it seems as though the food supply on Amity Island is plentiful. When you find an area that has an unlimited food supply, you would probably stick around and take advantage of the resources available. Jaws also has little to no competition in the area and is basically safe from all danger so the area is perfect for him. In one scene in Jaws, chief Brody’s son, Michael, is knocked off of his raft and falls into the ocean. You then hear the iconic music of Jaws approaching. The music is slow at first and picks up more and more as the