Meanings in Jaws

Scars and Edits

When editing you always have to think about the rules, this then gives you the guide for what you can break when doing your next piece of editing. This comes under what's known as the Rule of 6 and these are the general rules that you should follow or think about while making your story, normally above all story is what you'd expect to be the key thing to think about or focus on but actually this isn't true. While the story of a scene is important emotion always comes first when bringing together a scene, this helps to get an audience reaction but more importantly sell your scene.

Now onto the film of choice for today, we're looking at the scar scene this helps us to connect with the characters on screen and give more meaning behind the story and their connections to it.

Now in the editing for this scene we see two opposing characters bonding with the protagonist seeming to be on the outside of the two.

In these two frames we see the lighting is dark around everywhere but the center of the table which they're on. This helps to draw the viewers to focus on that point making their actions more meaningful as they're paying attention to that point.

It also helps to follow the 180 degree as they have a reference point to use but also a singular point of focus where they can now draw meaning from their text.

However lighting and mis-en-scene aren't all that's used to give the text meaning but the type of shot as well. It's a very close-up shot giving little of the surroundings away making the audiences eyes zoom in on the scene before them. It's not just what's not around them but the length too, this scene is almost a three minute long shot of these two characters interacting.

This is all helping to establish the characters with their experiences and allowing us to bond with them much deeper than at just face value, as we can see it seems to be mainly focused on two characters who aren't even technically the protagonist which links back to the rule of six that I mentioned earlier where you draw on emotions for meaning before story. Which if you think about it makes sense to the scene, ordinarily this would be almost contextual but for the emotion of the moment and the characters in it this has been included but in one long cut too making the emphasis that this more important to the characters and the emotional link rather than any full impact to the story itself.

Another thing which is key throughout all of these scenes is that the two characters on screen are almost constantly getting closer to each other making it seem more and more like there's a connection between them.

We see that the camera still hasn't moved or followed any of the usual rules that we know for cinematography which can normally mean that the emphasis is on the environment like an establishing shot for the surroundings rather than character focus.

However this scene goes against the norm by having its focus be how close the characters are getting (symbolising the new unity from their shared experiences) whilst highlighting that all we've seen of these two is how different they are from each other but in actuality probably have more in common.

Again we see that the lighting is consistent in highlighting what the scene needs the focus on at that moment bringing the audiences focus to it and therefore drawing their attention away from anything else. The way that the camera is angled to almost reflect off the fact that these two are sharing a wide range of experiences and emotions, almost makes it seem like an outsiders point of view where only the characters on screen know the true depth behind each mark. 

This POV turns out to be a strong one as when the camera next cuts it's to the main character watching from the side out of the light and the main focus of the scene almost pushed aside, like an outsider. Having this cut in the place that it is gives an important emphasis to the characters themselves and their emotions, for example like here we see Roy Scheider's character looks almost uncomfortable to go and join them in the main part of this scene.  

Then as we see by this shot we can see why he's on the outside, the only scar he has is from an operation not any sort of experience with a shark or some other form of creature.

One really important thing of note here is that the shots are identical but the light that just highlighted his face has more emphasis and has moved lower to the part that's exposed to the camera drawing the audiences eye to what's changed and maybe why he's not joined them. 

A potential reason why the editor chooses to cut away only once they almost get to the end of the scar show-off as it were could be that there was to be a specific emphasis on the effect that each has on the story, listing off each one with a how gives the audience a sense of direction. That instead of the protagonist taking charge as is the norm in film they instead choose two characters that were only introduced mere moments ago contrasting the usual etiquette and structure of films, however it's not just the switch between them that gives a purpose but the length.

Having the two secondary protagonists who don't really relate to the story with more screen time than the main protag shows the style of the editor and DP, it shows us that they wanted to give everything they could a meaning behind it like for example to characters who act as opposites bonding over shared experiences or how isolated the main seems because he hasn't had the same as the others.

In summary it's like I stated before the editor chooses cuts and shots to create meaning behind the text that they're presenting and certainly in this case they've kept to the structure we know and placed emotion before story whilst making sure they connect.

Hopefully this has given you a better insight into how editors give different or specific meanings in the texts that they create.

Have a great day!