JAWS: A Masterclass in Foreshadowing
To keep a story moving from point to point is no mean feat. You need cues and moments to guide characters on their journey and by using foreshadowing it also allows the story to flow properly. It provides symmetry and form. In Jaws, foreshadowing is everywhere.
For whom the bell tolls: the death of Chrissie Watkins has three terrifying soundtracks
The first is John Williams erratic, clattering skeleton-xylophone fright fest. Second is Chrissie’s desperate screams as the shark hits her with increasingly ferocity and third is the mournful cry of the bell on top of the buoy.
The bell is key. The buoy is there to warn boats of sandbanks or wrecks beneath the waves but this time it’s as though it takes on a personality as it calls to the people, telling them to beware of a new threat.
As day breaks, the sound echoes out across the bay, glancing off the waves, calling out to Amity. It’s a clarion call to Chief Brody, as he sits on the edge of his bed blinking at the morning sun. All is not well. Bad things are coming.
The Family Unit in Danger
Michael Brody announces with a grin that he “got bit by a vampire” and holds up a bloody palm to his parents. This is a visual warning.
Sharks are attracted to blood in the water.
As Martin leaves for work, we glimpse Michael sprinting off for a day of good times down on the shore. He is framed by a gaping hole in the white picket fence that surrounds the beachside home. It’s clearly a secondary warning.
It says all the protection in the world will not help us, boundaries and fences won’t work. There are holes we don’t notice, where danger can slip through.
The young Brody points to the ignorance of Amity towards the approaching danger.
Matt Hooper and Ben Gardner
When Richard Dreyfuss proclaims “none of them are going to make it out of the harbour alive”, watching the yahoos set off in their flotilla of overloaded boats, is he subconsciously including Ben Gardner and his ultimate fate? Then we realise that Gardner is heading off with the hoards, his attitude is that he knows everything, that all the others out there chumming the water and sailing too close to the rocks will come to a sticky end. “…there’ll wish their fathers had never met their mothers when they start digging their bottoms out and slamming into them rocks boy…” However amusing to listen to, Gardner’s fate is sealed by his arrogance. Any character who fails to be respectful to the ocean or the spectre of the shark is doomed.
Brody
Martin tortures himself by flicking through books about sharks. He pours over pictures of wounds, wincing as he does so. We see an illustration of a fishing boat being rammed by a shark’s snout - again hinting at the future of poor old Ben Gardner - and then a photograph of a shark biting down on a bite pressure gauge. Could this be where Brody subconsciously gets the idea to throw one of Hooper’s air tanks into the shark’s mouth when he’s onboard the sinking Orca?
As the Chief sits on the beach prior to the death of Alex Kintner, there’s a song that’s barely audible playing in the background. The distant sound of a radio at the beach eases us into the scene, reminding us of lazy good times. But there’s something lurking in the lyrics that clearly hint to how Brody’s feeling as he watches the waves but keeps the knowledge of the unseen threat out of sight. The song is called ‘I Love You, I Honestly Love You’ and its sung by Olivia Newton-John. The first verse goes like this:
‘Maybe I hang around here a little more than I should,
We both know I got somewhere else to go
But I got something to tell you that I never thought I would
But I believe you really ought to know…’
Now ok, it might just be a massive coincidence but let’s examine the words a bit closer.
Brody knows he’s got to deal with the problem. He shouldn’t be here, on this beach in a chair while his wife tells him to relax.
How the hell can he do that! What sort of a police officer is he?
He knows the truth and he’s complicit with the Mayor in covering it up. When the words say ‘But I believe you really ought to know’ that’s exactly how Brody feels.
He’s not let the people of Amity know there’s a man eating shark just off shore, cruising in the shallows looking for its next meal.
And this is the verse that we hear! It foreshadows exactly that Mrs Kintner says to him later on when the Tiger Shark’s been caught.
“You knew and you let people go swimming anyway.”
Quint and the Orca
The level of foreshadowing for Robert Shaw’s character is immense.
As the concerned citizens of Amity convene in the town hall, everyone’s favourite sea dog decides enough’s enough, these idiots need to face reality. He shuts them up by scraping his nails down a blackboard. The crowd parts and we see… a chalk drawing (presumably done by Quint under the noses of the townsfolk) of a giant shark with a stick figure in its mouth.
This is a warning to Quint but he doesn’t see it. His ego and arrogance hides it from him. It’s how he’ll meet his end. “This shark, swallow you whole,” he’s not wrong there.
In Quint’s shack Hooper is asked to tie a knot, which he easily does. Why shouldn’t he? He’s an expert sailor.
Behind him is Brody, the landlubber who’s petrified of the ocean. He doesn’t know anything about knots or the sea or which bit of the boat is the stern or the bow. And he doesn’t care either. He’s just got a job to do.
This will come back into the story.
On board the Orca, Brody somehow manages to tie a bowline knot but really it’s more luck than skill.
Luck is a big theme in Jaws - as we will see later.
Brody’s inexperience is brought to the fore when he grabs at a rope but pulls “the wrong one”. The compressed air tanks go hurtling across the deck, reminding us again that Brody is out of his comfort zone.
Hooper tells him sharply that “You screw around with these tanks, they’re gonna blow up.” Thanks for the warning - and maybe his mind flashes up that picture from the book...
The ‘rope trick’ starts a train of events in motion.
Brody’s finally able to tie a knot.
Later he mistakenly unties the rope holding the tanks in place and gets told how dangerous they can be.
This vital information gets locked in as a major plot point. We must remember it
THE TANKS ARE DANGEROUS. THEY WILL EXPLODE.
Gotcha!
As Hooper loads his gear onto the Orca, it’s a source of huge amusement for Quint. He asks about the cage being brought onboard.
“Anti shark cage? You go inside the cage? Cage goes in the water? Shark’s in the water. Our shark…”
Hooper laughs along, he knows how it looks but what can you say to a man like Quint? Thing is, Quint’s right. When the cage goes in the water (as Brody predicts) the shark rips it to pieces.
There’s yet more foreshadowing in the famous USS Indianapolis speech. Quint tells the tale of his friend being “bitten in half below the waist” which turns out to be how Quint eventually goes. He says he’ll “never put on a life jacket again” and he doesn’t.
Perhaps he knows this is the voyage he won’t come back from. It’s his destiny to die at sea and he recognises the foreshadowing in his own words, recognising the Sword of Damocles hanging over him and accepts his fate. But if he’s going to die like Herbie Robinson, Quint’ll fight to the bitter end.
As the Orca leaves Amity, it’s photographed through a jawbone of one of the many sharks Quint has caught over the years. And this is more or less exactly what will happen to the boat. The shark annihilates the Orca as it tries to reach the men.
The movie’s most famous line “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” is maybe one of the most obvious bits of foreshadowing. It hits Brody like a truck, the moment he comes face to face with the shark. The entire operation is a fool’s errand, there’s no way the Orca can compete with this monster, with it’s teeth the size of shot glasses and its 25 foot long body. In that instant, he sees the future. He knows what’s coming.
Goodbye and good luck
When Brody and Hooper are out at night searching for the shark, Brody tells a disinterested Hooper how Amity is a paradise compared to New York City. How the city will beat you down with all the murders and muggings but in Amity that’s just not the case.
“…in Amity, one man can make a difference!”
Brody shows he’s the ‘one man’ who finally makes the difference. It’s not Quint - the experienced shark killer, nor Hooper - the scientist with all the gizmos. It’s the mild-mannered family man with a borrowed gun. He throws the canister in the shark’s mouth and then detonates it with a one-in-a-million shot.
And he was never driven by ego, he was never arrogant or shouting the odds. He watched, waited and built his case for going after the shark.
He combined all the foreshadowing together in his mind, realising that all he needed after that was just one chance.
And a bit of luck.
Words by Tim Armitage
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