I Didn't Know What You'd Be Serving

In Peter Benchley's novel an awkward dinner party provides the narrative with a set piece of mildly satirical social commentary. It's likely that this chapter was similar to the author's first draft of the manuscript, which - hard to believe in retrospect - was primarily comedic in tone. In the book Hooper is one of several invited guests and it is his openly flirtatious manner contrasted with her husband's boorish behaviour that ultimately pushes Ellen Brody into infidelity.

In the movie Hooper gate-crashes the family's evening meal, but does so with such charming social elan that he immediately wins over the chief's wife ('Wine. How nice!'). His entrance takes place in the background and out of focus as the camera remains on a brooding Brody, and recalls an earlier scene in the same kitchen when the action was split between two planes of vision.  Hooper's first comment ('The door was open. Mind if I come in?') serves to illustrate the trusting nature of Amity society as well as obliquely referencing the door motif that runs throughout the movie. His brief exchange with Ellen ('Your husband's home?' 'Yes, he is.' 'I'd really like to talk to him.' 'Yes, so would I.') wittily establishes a sub-text tension between the wife and the ichthyographer that will fuel the homo-erotic imagination of future fan fiction writers.

Like any good guest - whether invited or not - Hooper has brought wine to the table, and his explanation of presenting two bottles rather than one ('I got red and white. I didn't know what you'd be serving') tees up a number of satirical visual or scripted references to dinner party etiquette.

A Boy's Life

The dock scene ends with a shot of Hooper looking on with an expression of concern as a humiliated Brody walks away from the dock. This cuts to the next scene, which takes place in the Brody's dining room. The right of the frame is dominated by an old-fashioned walnut sideboard with a set of azure napkins folded on one of its shelves, and on the left is the open doorway to the kitchen with its pale mustard fixtures. These two colours - yellow and blue - will provide the visual palette for the movie's final act at sea.

Ellen Brody, dressed in a kind of half-mourning of a black polo neck sweater and white bell-bottoms, comes through the doorway. As she walks to the table her gaze is directed off camera to the left and just before she bends down to clear away some plates she purses her lips into something that is not quite a smile - an expression that acknowledges the fact that her husband has left his meal uneaten. She gives one more meaningful look off screen and as she returns to the kitchen the camera pulls back to show Brody in profile, his bowed head resting on his supporting fist. Also in the expanded frame on the right is young Sean Brody, who has adopted the same pose as his dad. As Brody reaches out for a tall glass of what looks like scotch on the rocks, Sean takes a drink of his milk. When the father folds his hands together, the son does the same. In the background, slightly out of focus, Ellen returns with a cup of tea and leans against the door frame.

Brody covers his face with his hands in a gesture of shame and as he pulls his palms downwards, the camera cuts to a low angled shot to give us a view of his face as seen from behind the little boy's head. Out of the corner of his eye, the father notices his son's shadow play and playfully moves the fingers of his clasped hands, and then makes a face by baring his teeth - like a shark about to attack. Sean, who has lost his front milk teeth, responds with a gummy smile and makes his hands into claws. Brody leans foward and asks his son for a kiss, which he receives on his right cheek as a counter balance to the slap Mrs Kintner delivered to his left.

The sequence is underscored with a delicate nursery-rhyme-like melody played on harp, piano and vibraphone, and in the manner in which it brings a lump to the throat the scene can be rightly called Spielbergian. The use of shared body language to establish connections between characters is something that the director will return to in later films (Short Round and Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, or Elliott and E.T in, er, E.T), and the use of carefully choreographed business within a single shot is one of his signature techniques. Scenes around the family dinner table will also recur in later Spielberg movies, although they are more often than not moments of discord rather than harmony.