How Sound Creates Tension and Suspense in Jaws
The opening scene in Jaws opens with a view from under the deep blue sea, swimming through colorful seaweeds. Continued by a scene where young people are hanging around at a bonfire where they are generally having a good time. The shot pans right from the crowd that sits nearest to the bonfire to a boy who sits further and he’s staring at a young girl (Chrissie) who sits by herself outside the circle of teenagers. Chrissie watched him back and the boy went to her. Not even talk for a minute Chrissie stands up hurriedly and running to the beach to go swimming with this boy. The boy follows her but he’s drunk. Chrissie undressed her self while running and gets into the water swimming alone but the boy couldn’t help and suddenly passed out.
Before we see images, Spielberg leaves us in the dark for more or less 15 seconds after the Universal logo appears with a light non diegetic sound of sea creatures that produce sonar. Following the sonar sound, we can hear mysterious yet heavy sound played which will lead us to see image. The sound of cello played slowly around two low pitch notes combine with a sound of bubbling water. It creates an atmosphere that we’re ready to dive while we stood in the dark. After few names are shown the sound is getting louder (crescendo), as the Jaws title appears (1.1) we can feel something, we’re getting closer, but we still see nothing beside the point of view from a Shark (the hunter) swimming. We may feel so because the tempo of the sound is getting faster and more frightening. We can also hear other instruments such as percussion and tuba. After the first two notes from cello being played (duhh-dum. Duhh-dum) we can hear silence but interrupt with the sound of water, and then two notes being played again same tempo but four times and then faster with a percussion in between followed by the sound of powerful tuba (dum dum dummmm~). The tempo of the sound didn’t...