Jaws

Opening Image: At night, teenagers are partying on a beach. Two split off and run away with the girl being chased by the drunken boy. She goes swimming, but he’s too drunk to follow. She’s attacked and killed by a shark.

After that action opening, we first see Chief Brody staring out at the ocean the next morning from his bedroom window. He gets a phone call summoning him to the beach. The girl is missing. His deputy finds the remains of the girl. As Brody looks down at what’s left of her, the ocean waves crash behind him. He turns and fearfully gazes at the ocean. He has, just moments before, admitted to not being an islander. He fears the water. He wishes he was back in New York.

Theme Stated: An elderly male swimmer emerges from the ocean, comes up to Brody, and says “We know all about you, Chief. You don’t go into the water at all, do you?” The movie is about Brody’s fear of, as he puts it at one point, “drowning.” The shark, the monster, is an embodiment of his fear—as all good monsters are.

Save the Cat: We’re easily drawn toward Brody. We like him. There’s one particular scene though that’s main purpose is to highlight his likeability and devotion as a father, the dining table scene between him and his younger son. He notices his son imitating his gestures and turns it into a game. It ends with him asking his son for a kiss—because he needs it.

Set-Up: There’s a shark in the water. It takes two victims. Brody wants to close the beaches. The mayor wants the beaches to stay open.

Catalyst: Quint offers to hunt and kill the shark for $10,000.

Debate: Is the town going to take the shark seriously or not? It seems mostly not. A bunch of idiots respond to a reward posted for killing the shark. They catch “a” shark. Even Brody is all smiles. A shark expert shows up. “This was no boating accident... It was a shark.”

Break into Two: Two things force the smile off Brody’s face. The shark expert, Hooper, tells him they didn’t catch “the” shark and the mother of a boy victim slaps him in the face and scolds him for allowing people to go into the water. Brody and Hooper get drunk and cut the shark open. They find no human remains. “You still have a shark problem,” Hooper says. “How will we be sure?” Brody asks. The answer is to go out on the water at night and look for the shark. “Go out on the water? I can’t do that!” Brody says. “Yes, you can,” Hooper says.

B Story: The relationship between Quint and Hooper will develop throughout the movie. At first, it’s oil and water. It is blue collar hands versus city hands. It’ll develop as Hooper proves capable of tying knots and steering the boat and culminates with the comparing of scars and a shared affinity for booze and Irish songs.

“Fun and Games”: Brody and Hooper look for the shark using sonar. They find a fishing boat. Its hull has been torn open leaving a shark’s tooth behind and the fisherman dead. Brody gets drunk and wears a life jacket the whole time. (The night scene nicely balances with the night scene later aboard the Orca just before the final confrontation with the shark.) They now know it’s a great white, but the mayor isn’t going to accept it without proof of the tooth that Hooper found and lost. He’s more concerned with the vandalism of a billboard. The beaches are open for the 4th of July. News has spread though. People are hesitant to go into the water—until a prominent family leads the way. It becomes a replay of the earlier beach scene except the “clear the water” scare turns out to just be a couple kids playing a prank. Then a shark is spotted in the “safe” pond where Brody’s son and friends are boating. The shark kills another boater. Brody’s son goes into shock.

Midpoint: Brody stares out at the ocean. It awaits him and he’s going to have to enlist the services of Quint, confront his fears, and go there. The mayor signs a contract to hire Quint.

Quint’s shack is filled with booze and shark jaws. One last warning from Quint: “Maybe I should go alone.” They stock the Orca with what it needs: fishing equipment, air tanks, shark cage. Brody takes black socks and Dramamine. They depart to the ocean seen through the jaws of a shark.

Bad Guys Close In: Quint starts fishing and hooks a big one. Hooper says it isn’t a shark. Whatever it is, it gets away. Calm.

All Is Lost: Brody throws chum over board. He sees the shark. “You’re gonna to need a bigger boat.” They harpoon the shark with a barrel. It drags it under. They wait. Brody still begs for a bigger boat.

Dark Night of the Soul: Night aboard the boat. Quint and Hooper have a scar competition. Then we learn about Quint’s horrific wartime experience with sharks, the source of his obsession. He will turn out to be too obsessed and his warnings that he should go alone were well-founded.

Break into Three: The shark returns and starts attacking the boat. They’ll all be in the water soon. Brody’s false sense of security is tenuous. His days of being dry are over. He immediately falls into the inflowing water below deck.

Finale: 

Gathering the Team: The fight with the shark resumes. They make repairs to the boat.

Executing the Plan: Hooper says he has a plan, but he’s ignored, for the moment. They continue with Quint’s plan. More barrels are readied.

The High Tower Surprise: Quint smashes the radio. He’s crazy. He subsequently burns up the motor.

Dig, Deep Down: Two barrels aren’t enough. They only make the shark mad. It starts eating the boat. Hooper goes into his shark cage and gets attacked. He swims away to safety. Quint is attacked and eaten.

The Executing of the New Plan: Brody is alone on the sinking vessel. He tosses an air tank into the shark’s mouth. He climbs to the top of the mast with a rifle, barely staying above water. He takes aim and shoots, hitting the air tank, blowing the shark to bits. (All of the elements of this were visually foreshadowed early on when Brody was looking at a book about sharks. Plus Hooper had warned that the tanks were explosive and Quint had joked that the shark would probably eat them. It’s as if Brody’s subconscious is solving the problem.) Hooper returns to the surface.

Final Image: Brody and Hooper drifting to shore on barrels. “I used to hate the water,” Brody says.

So, in the end, Jaws is about a guy, Brody, who goes from 1) fearfully regarding the water to 2) running toward the water to 3) going out on the water to 4) being forced into the water to 5) saying "I used to hate the water." The shark represents his fear of the water and the more visible the shark becomes, the more he’s able to face it. The movie actually benefits enormously from the fact that the shark seldom worked and is hardly seen until the end.

Paralleling Brody’s progress is also a nifty study in moving beyond stereotypes. Shark hunter, Quint, and shark expert, Hooper, see and despise each other in terms of blue collar versus white collar. As they come to know each other through shared experiences and affinities (tying knots, comparing scars, singing Irish ballads, fighting a great white shark), the differences disappear and mutual respect takes hold.