The Woman in Black

Brody's eager introduction of Hooper to Vaughn is only cursorily acknowledged by the two men. The mayor continues working the crowd, pressing the flesh of Amity voters, while the fish expert - fixated by the bite radius issue - draws the police chief to one side. His line of argument draws on the language of risk and gambling ('...the chances these bozos got the exact shark ...' '...it's a hundred to one') in much the same way that the mayor and the selectmen did when they argued for keeping the beaches open in chapter nine of the novel. It's the precise phrase about the odds that attracts Larry Vaughn's attention and draws him into the conversation. Whilst Brody's initial reaction of denial is quickly overcome in the face of facts ('Maybe the only way to confirm it'), the mayor refuses to back down. Just as he got Brody to agree to amend his report with a combination of friendly persuasion and bullying, he seeks to contain the situation with an initial appeal for solidarity ('Now, look, fellahs, let's be reasonable') and then follows it up with an uglier line of argument ('I am not going to stand here ... and see that little Kintner boy spill out over the dock').

At the mention of the second victim's name, Vaughn's narrow-eyed stare is distracted by something off screen and there is a cut to the boy's mother approaching the dock. The movie's subliminal colour for danger is evident on the right of the frame in the form of the yellow road blocks and on the left by a fisherman in bright oilskin dungarees. As the camera tracks backwards the woman in the yellow sweater and hairband glimpsed earlier amongst the crowd comes into view. Spielberg cuts to a dramatic close up of the grieving mother's profile as she comes face to face with Brody. There is a certain theatricality to the scene: the measured approach of the woman in weeds and the dramatic gesture of the slap, which is followed by an accusation that in its repetition of the phrases you knew and my boy has a certain incantatory ton to it - elements that would not be out of place in a Greek tragedy.

A low-angled wide shot of the dock presents a tableau of Hooper, Vaughn and Brody against a backdrop of the chastened crowd and the crucified fish. As the chief walks away, mournful horns on the soundtrack signal the shift from the celebratory mood of the group with which the scene began to the tortured introspection of the main protagonist. The mayor once again takes control of the situation. He refers to the dead shark as 'an ugly sonofabitch', an epithet which Brody will use (but not complete) when he fires the fatal shot that blows up the air tank. Vaughn gives instructions for two fishermen to dump the carcass in the sea the following day, which serves to set up the upcoming scene where Brody and Hooper must perform their half-assed autopsy under the cover of night.

The Three Stooges

The three local fishermen who crowd around the dead shark's gaping maw have the appearance of a knockabout comedy act. There's the bulky curly-haired one in the camouflage jacket with the whiny voice, the plump wise-cracking one with the mustard-coloured pork pie hat, yellow shirt and blood-stained light blue jacket, and the narrow-eyed creepy-looking thin one dressed in grey. Creepy Guy taps the snout of the dead fish with a pen and wrongly calls it a mako (which he also mispronounces, shortening the vowel and putting the stress on the second syllable) whilst Pork Pie Hat peers into the gullet and makes a joke that references both Seventies mainstream porn and politics. Hooper is revealed as a passer-by in yellow crosses the frame from right to left, and he identifies the catch as a tiger shark, whereupon Camouflage Jacket turns and stretches out the word what? in a high camp voice. As Mayor Vaughn approaches, shaking hands as if he were running for office, Hooper, who has begun propounding his bite radius theory, is hemmed in by the locals. Creepy Guy stands behind him and in a strangely unsettling moment blows on the back of his neck. In a movement that acts as a counterpoint to Vaughn's eager advance, Hooper retreats across the frame from right to left as the fishermen, not wanting to be robbed of their moment of glory, shout down any suggestion that they've caught the wrong shark. Hooper himself seems to be doing a bit of back-pedalling by finessing his words - 'I'm not saying it's not the shark. I am saying that it may not be the shark. It's just a slight difference in semantics, but I don't want to get beaten up for it.' Hooper will revert to more semantic distinctions in the following dinner table scene when he tells Ellen Brody 'They caught a shark. Not the shark.'

Ben

Larry Vaughn's second appearance sees him sporting another summer jacket in pastel stripes that is reminiscent of the pattern of a deck chair. As he approaches the dock he asks Brody, 'Ben getting plenty of pictures for the paper?', which is either a reference to the uncredited Amity Gazette photographer or a fluffed line reading in reference to Harry Meadows. Or perhaps the sight of Richard Dreyfuss (who shared a few seconds of screen time with Murray Hamilton in The Graduate) acted as a subconscious trigger in the actor's memory and made him recall another Benjamin. Or perhaps he meant it as a sly reference to the rat that was the subject of a 1972 horror movie and a Michael Jackson hit. Or maybe he was chanelling George Lucas, who in 1974 was still going through draft after draft of his proposed space movie and working out the names for the characters. I guess we'll never know.

You Wouldn't Hit A Guy With Glasses, Would You?

Harry Meadows gets his picture for the paper and as the group of fishermen break up again Brody spies Larry Vaughn approaching the dock. The camera pans with the chief from left to right as he runs to share the good news with the mayor, and, as he walks, he puts on his glasses, which - perhaps in a moment of vanity - he had removed to have his photograph taken. We can assume that the character of Brody suffers from long-sightedness: he needs glasses to read the shark books (and to provide a reflective surface for the images to be projected onto), but he is able to draw a bead on the air tank in the shark's mouth without them.

Putting your male protagonist in glasses is one way of signalling that he's unlikely material as a hero, and perhaps the most knowing use of this trope is the thick-framed pair of spectacles worn as a disguise by Clark Kent. Glasses may also be used to suggest that the character is an intellectual or a scientist. Roy Scheider told Nigel Andrews he was initially unhappy with some of the decisions that were being made about his character. 'When the campaign to soften my part began, when they started to encourage me to make changes - wearing glasses, bumping into things and falling down - I was worried. [...] I resisted Steven at first because I felt he was pulling Brody back into wimpdom - which he was doing. He didn't want to give the audience one damn clue that it was remotely possible for me to kill the shark.'

Brody finally loses his glasses when a barrel strikes him on the shoulder as the shark threatens to pull out the Orca's stern cleats, and he has to face the monster - literally eyeball to eyeball - without them. There are, of course, practical reasons for getting rid of Brody's eyewear before the final confrontation - having to wipe his lenses before firing off a shot would have diminished the heroic nature of his final stand - but symbolically the moment is there to mark the character's transformation from observer to man of action. Interestingly, Hooper never loses his glasses, and, in fact, has to be reminded to remove them before he descends in the shark cage - for him they are a badge of his scientific discipline.