Jaws wastes no time. The film starts off on a beach (a scene in which the film’s time period – the mid-70s - is very clear), and some goofy young guy gets together with some drunk girl, and they waste no time in getting naked to go swimming. This is a confusing scene, though, because it seems to be dawn when they get to the water. Were they drunk and going swimming at dawn? And then, in the next shot, it’s dusk again, and it even switches back and forth a few times. Needless to say, the naked drunken promiscuous girl gets munched, and they find her remains on the beach the next day. Spielberg wisely chose to present a very tasteful autopsy, which was not gory at all but still effective, and it was one of the little tricks that he pulled in this film in order to keep the rating down.
The shark attack spells disaster for Amity Island (!!), a very small town dependent on its summer tourists for a substantial portion of its economy. The mayor, who proves to be not a very nice guy, wants to keep the shark attack covered up and keep the beaches open so that tourists will come, even though those very tourists would be in danger. Little does he know that an idiotic horror film - released four years later and nearly named after his town - will probably hurt the tourist economy much more than any shark could. Some of the best parts in the film come early on, as Brody nervously scans the tourist crowded water for the shark, after having tried unsuccessfully to get the beaches closed. There are at least two shots in which the ocean itself looks menacing, which is significant because the ocean naturally radiates calmness and tranquility.
Quinn, the hardened fisherman (who, we later find out, was once involved in a historic naval accident, putting him in the water with sharks for an extended period of time) who offers to go out and catch the man-eating shark terrorizing Amity Island, given the proper reward. He provides a good guide for Brody, the chief of police who doesn’t handle himself very well in the water, and Hooper, the oceanography expert who doesn’t seem to have as much field experience as Quinn. The final scenes with these three men at sea battling the shark are probably the scenes that this film is best known for. Obviously, this is the first time we get a good look at the shark (oh shut up, it was plenty effective enough), but also, I think that the scene where Hooper goes down in the shark cage may be the most intense moment in the film, because we actually see the shark coming while in its own habitat – underwater.
A very powerful movie and a very scary one at that too. So go and see the movie if you have not while I go swimming. Uh.. lets forget the swimming.