Michael Brody and
his friends are carrying a small sailboat down to the sea. The police chief
halts them and takes Michael aside, the camera pivoting to follow father and
son as they move back up the beach. They stand on the far right of the frame,
the son in a pose of mild defiance with his hands on his hips, the father with
a protective hand on the boy’s shoulder. Behind them is a body of water that is
reassuringly fenced in by a solid bank of sand paved with flat rocks, and a
bridge that runs to the far left of the frame. This Brody identifies as ‘the
pond’, a real-life tidal pond that no doubt helped shape the impromptu shooting
script. The first mention of this location comes much earlier in the movie when
Quint references it in his town hall speech (‘It’s not like going down to the
pond and chasing blue gills or tommy cods.’), but at that point in the
narrative the audience has no reason to assume that the word is being used
other than in its generic form. Quint associates the pond with a
non-threatening form of fishing, and this perception is reinforced by Michael’s
retort that ‘the pond is for old ladies.’ Brody wins the argument with a
self-deprecating remark (‘I know it’s for the old ladies, but just do it for
the old man, huh?’), and then walks back to the shore line, confident that he
has placed his son out of danger.
