The panicked bathers
are aided at the water’s edge by first responders, dressed all in white like
the faithful at a mass baptism. As the camera follows a young boy with a raft
running up the beach, it latches onto the mayor who has a look of desperation
on his face. He is on the far left of the frame, the same position he occupied within
the image at the beginning of the scene. Another shot shows Brody almost
obscured by the crowd and then pans to the left to pick out a distraught Ellen
calling her son’s name. The next shot is of water, with a strip of land in the
background. The fin comes into frame from the right, and upends to reveal itself as
a fake, propelled from below by two young boys in wet suits. They remove their
snorkels and turn to face the camera as a crackling radio message alerts them
to the presence of the spotter boats. A low shot of one of the boats from the
boys’ POV has us looking directly into the barrels of half a dozen rifles.
As the men lower their guns, the younger boy raises an accusatory arm above the water and points at his friend, spluttering, ‘He made me do it. He talked me into it.’ It’s a moment clearly designed to get a laugh and release tension. More than a simple practical joke, the fake fin can also be interpreted as a hoax on a meta-level. Despite the filmmakers’ best attempts to downplay the role of the mechanical shark in the pre-release publicity, the audiences back in 1975 went into the movie knowing all about it. As Carl Gottlieb documents in The Jaws Log, the shark was regularly papped during the shooting, often in unflattering positions. So, maybe, in giving us our first glimpse of a fin that turns out to be fake Spielberg is having a joke at our expense, calling out the doubters in the audience, who are always quick to point out a movie’s flaws.
As the men lower their guns, the younger boy raises an accusatory arm above the water and points at his friend, spluttering, ‘He made me do it. He talked me into it.’ It’s a moment clearly designed to get a laugh and release tension. More than a simple practical joke, the fake fin can also be interpreted as a hoax on a meta-level. Despite the filmmakers’ best attempts to downplay the role of the mechanical shark in the pre-release publicity, the audiences back in 1975 went into the movie knowing all about it. As Carl Gottlieb documents in The Jaws Log, the shark was regularly papped during the shooting, often in unflattering positions. So, maybe, in giving us our first glimpse of a fin that turns out to be fake Spielberg is having a joke at our expense, calling out the doubters in the audience, who are always quick to point out a movie’s flaws.
