Steven Spielberg's Jaws

In the midst of a snowy Swedish winter, the United States ambassador delivered a melancholy acceptance speech in place of Ernest Hemingway. Unknowingly, the words at the Nobel Prize ceremony were prophetic, as the aging author accurately predicted the impact of his deeply personal novella, published in 1952. When he wrote that great works are the reason "a writer is driven far out past where he can go," he could not have known that Steven Spielberg 's Jaws would derive stylistic cues from The Old Man and the Sea to essentially invent modern filmmaking in 1975. Hemingway approaching the end of his life, Spielberg barely scratching the surface of his own illustrious directorial career, the pen and camera have rarely shared so much in terms of

The novella 's self-reflection and the film 's establishing shots pressure the audience into a sense of god 's eye viewpoint as the stories progress. As Santiago advances in his quest, “the fish pulled on steadily and the boat moved into the tunnel of clouds” (Hemingway 82). Instead of journeying with the old fisherman intimately, the reader watches events ensue from an indirect perspective. Once again, Hemingway’s words feel far away, because the entire work is a study of his life rather than a strict piece of fiction. Undoubtedly, the weathered scribe attempts to juxtapose the recession of his career with the failed odyssey of his novella. The self-awareness is clearest when Santiago tells the fish “I shouldn’t have gone out so far” (110). The combination of literal removal, and clear comparison to Hemingway 's life of overreach is so obvious, that it lifts the point of view to a state of separation, strategically allowing the reader to scrutinize and examine. Whilst lacking the personal flair of Hemingway, Spielberg takes no shortcuts in artistic approach. At the beginning of the third act of Jaws, the characters are briefly abandoned for a revelatory couple of establishing shots. At 125:50, the dilapidated boat pushes forward into the sunset-filled horizon, and at 126:20, its stoic silhouette rocks in the moonlight. In the intensity of previous scenes, the gravity and magnitude of the situation can become clouded. By visually taking the viewer off the vessel, the persistence of plot is given a moment to ponder the personalities on board and realities of their endeavor. Both film and novella venture away from immediacy to provide unorthodox ganders into the essence of the