What's The Angle?

As Brody and Cassidy walk along the top of the dune, the camera - tilted to capture the blue sky streaked with cirrus clouds in the upper half of the frame - tracks along the beach at the base of the slope. Brody carries items of the missing girl's clothing together with an orange hemp handbag with an Inca-type sun motif on it (echoing the sun image on the billboard), and fiddles with a pair of aviator sunglasses. Cassidy, his sweater tied around his waist, holds a length of driftwood in his hands. As they come to the end of the twisted broken fencing and descend the slope onto the beach, each actor executes a small piece of physical business. Brody, testing his shades against the glare of the sun, loses his footing and stumbles. Cassidy, stung by the suggestion that his girl ran out on him, snaps the driftwood in two to punctuate his petulant delivery of the line, 'Look, I reported it to you, didn't I?' Brody's misstep is one of a number of instances that suggest a certain physical clumsiness in the character - later in the hardware store, he knocks over a jar of paint brushes and walking down the corridor to the council chambers he bumps his head against a hanging door sign.

The part of Cassidy was played by Jonathan Filley and it is his only credited role as an actor. He would go on to have a movie career, but as a production manager, not a performer. It was probably a wise choice: the way he snaps the piece of driftwood feels like something done on cue rather than a genuine moment, and, moments later, when called upon to react at the discovery of the girl's remains, he looks frantically about him in an almost pantomime gesture. To be fair, he looks right for the part and his delivery of the line 'I was sort of passed out' carries the appropriate tone of self-centered indifference.

As the two men descend the dune and begin to walk along the beach, the camera swivels round to follow them and then continues to track along the sand with the sea sparkling in the background. Shooting the scene would have required extensive laying of tracks for the camera to run on (this was before the days of the Panaglide camera) and thorough rehearsal of the actors to make sure they hit their marks. Maybe that explains why Filley's snapping of the stick seems slightly wooden - he and Scheider had probably run through the scene countless times to get it right.

Possibly every Spielberg film contains a scene like this - one that involves a single shot, a roving camera and carefully choreographed actors. Orson Welles was a master of this technique, which dispenses with the need for editing whilst retaining a visual dynamic within the frame, and the low angled shot Spielberg uses here is somewhat reminiscent - though not quite as drastic - as those Welles employed in Citizen Kane.

The brief exchange between Brody and Cassidy about their origins ('You an islander?' 'No, New York City.') is the first reference to the notion (already hinted at by the wording of the welcome on the billboard) that Amity is a community unto itself. As one of the residents later says, 'You're not born here, you're not an islander.'