Movie Review: Jaws

The movie Jaws is a 1975 classical movie by Steven Spielberg and produced by Universal. It is considered as an archetypal film because it shows how the main character survived all the conflicts and violence in the film. The violent scenes involved the monstrous shark destroying the cage that protects Matt Hooper from being eaten alive by the killer fish. Determined to stab the shark underwater while the ship Orca is dead in the midst of the sea, Hooper eventually manages to escape into the seabed from the violent attack of the shark.

Another way in which the element of classical violence can be reflected from the movie is the scene wherein Martin Brody finishes off the life out of the monstrous shark by exploding its body into pieces after hitting the air tank jammed into the shark’s mouth with his riffle, casting a bloodbath on the seawaters.

Another manifestation how classical the film is that one of the social movements that existed during the 1970s is the movement s that focused on environmentalism that called forth the need to preserve the natural resources of the planet. This is underlined in the movie Jaws, implied in the scene where the Shark attacks human beings.

It can be translated to mean as one of Mother Nature’s way of enforcing discipline over the acts of man towards the environment. Violence in the movie has been influenced by the 1970’s claim for environmental awareness as pollution became an increasingly felt problem during those times.

            Hence, the classical social context of the 1970s has been one of the factors that shaped the treatment of violence in the movie Jaws. It is no surprise at all that the film employed the image of a monstrous shark in order to symbolize the wrath of nature against mankind, highlighted in one of the violent scenes in the movie—the scene wherein Martin Brody and his company were at the mercy of the shark’s rage.