What can we learn from the foreshadowing in Jaws?
How all the pieces are put in place, but the ending still delights us.
In Jaws, Spielberg and the writers shows us everything needed by the hero Brody to beat the shark, yet the ending feels fresh and surprising. This is an amazing trick so let’s look at how they reeled this in.*
*Every fishing pun in this post is on porpoise.
As writers, we constantly struggle to make our endings feel surprising-yet-inevitable, and Jaws presents a masterclass in putting pieces together into creating an astonishing finale that feels believable while also extreme.
NOTE 1: Due to images, this post probably won’t fit on your email browser, click through to ‘read on the web’ to get the full text.
NOTE 2: SPOILERS AHEAD! If you haven’t watched Jaws yet then you really should.
Before we’ve seen much of the titular great white, we get Police Chief Martin Brody leafing through a book, trying to learn more about sharks. In a brief flash on the screen, we see this:
It’s only on screen for a second, and it’s interwoven with many other images that linger in the mind: wounds from shark bites, close-ups of sharks, and enormous bones of shark jaws. This is effectively a montage of the threat, telling us sharks are very dangerous and can grow to enormous sizes.
But also, sharks will stick gas cannisters in their mouths like they’re Groucho Marx with a cigar.
Already, the seed of the ending is planted: for some reason, sharks love having a gas canister stuck in their teeth.
A few minutes later, we have a bunch of foolish fishermen in tiny boats, including one using small sticks of explosives to try to kill a shark. What a fool! Who would try such a silly thing!
So, we’ve got another seed that perhaps you can hunt fish with explosives… But it’s pretty ridiculous to try it.
We’ve learnt that sharks can eat cannisters, and you can hunt with explosives but, you might ask, how dangerous could a gas cannister possibly be?
About two thirds of the way through the film, we get a sequence where Chief Martin Brody hasn’t tied a knot properly and diving aqua-lungs roll loose:
“Oh my cod! What’s that you say, Cooper? Compressed air cannisters can explode?”
We probably missed the image in the book, but we can’t miss this.
However, we might not immediately link it to tackling the film’s fishy problem: at the time this happens, it highlights the incompetence of Chief Brody and just how out of his depth he is on a boat. This heightens the danger of the situation.
But we’re nowhere needing emergency measures yet.
Instead, the team tries hooks and lines, guessing they just need stronger lines. This results in a short outburst from Brody, who already senses something more is needed:
Brody tells us that hooks and lines won’t be enough. He might not be a sailor or a fisherman, but we’re beginning to trust his heroic instincts.
The camera hints to us what Brody hasn’t understood: hooks and lines won’t do the trick, but there are gas cannisters on board. It only hovers on the fire extinguisher for a moment, but it’s just long enough to register ‘there’s something important here’.
Soon we’re into the end sequence:
In the final sequence, the gas cannister finds a natural and reasonably-believable path into the mouth of the shark. Brody still doesn’t put all the pieces together initially (trying to poke Jaws with a stick) and then, when he does, it takes many shots before he overcomes his fear, believes in himself (shown by the cocky one-liner), and slays the monster.
Take-away lessons for writers
How did Spielberg and the writers make this wonderful inevitable-yet-surprising ending?
The key foreshadowing information is presented in the background of more startling and eye-catching moments, such as gory photos in a book, or behind character conflict.
At no point is ‘we should blow up the shark’ said aloud. The viewer is piecing together the final plan moments before or concurrently with the hero.
The hero has to overcome his fear to be victorious: Brody is afraid of swimming, but he must become calm in the final moment to take the shot he needs.
It feels inevitable, even if we couldn’t imagine a sequence of events that would lead to it being possible.
In this brilliant film, we are given all the pieces for the ending (including the death of Quint, foreshadowed in other moments), and yet the characters never put the pieces together until the final desperate moment.
It’s the act of assembling all the pieces (cannister in mouth, explosions, overcoming fear) at the last possible moment which makes this so satisfying.
What makes this stand out more than many other films is the combination of multiple elements learned along the path which are crucial in the end.
Compare this to Madame Web, where we’re told in a vision at the beginning then directly again around halfway through: “You can be in multiple places at once.” What’s the key to saving her companions? Being in multiple places at once. It’s the first time she’s needed it, the first time she’s tried it, and it works perfectly. Personally, I quite enjoyed the film for the performances, but the ending felt lack-lustre. In Madame Web, the ending doesn’t assemble pieces, it just executes what was promised all along.
The finale of most stories has several components, but we could simplify these to be:
The initial safe-ish plan fails.
A new and desperate plan, based on something learned along the journey, saves the day.
In many stories, there’s just one trick learned along that path which saves the heroes. In Jaws, there are many pieces of the jigsaw, all pointing to a extreme situation which somehow believably occurs.
When many the pieces of foreshadowing align at once, it produces a bigger impact than a single foreshadowed skill/item saving the day.
For me, that’s the lesson I’m taking away from this rewatching of a cinematic classic.
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If you have questions, comments, or requests for other films you’d like me to write about, let me know below.
Until next time, close the beaches, and be kind to yourselves and others.
Mata xxx
It's hard to imagine the film being quite so successful had Spielberg stuck with the book's ending. I'm sure filmgoers would have left the cinema rather dissapointed that the 2 hours of anticipation ended with the shark just getting a bit weaker from a harpoon wound and then sinking into the depths to die.
We want explosions! Boooooom!
I've watched the film several times, but never put together the clues ahead of time as you've highlighted here! Doh! I'll have to watch it again and see how different it feels to understand the foreshadowing. Thank you!