Jaws

Jaws was the first movie that we have watched in class that hasn't left me confused about some part of the film. I enjoyed it very much, this was the first time that I had seen Jaws.

One of the things that I enjoyed about this movie was how it went along with the post-watergate theme, even though it wasn't trying to focus on watergate. Throughout the movie Mayor Larry Vaughn (played by Murray Hamilton) was trying to cover up the fact that there was a shark that had been attacking people on Amity's beach. Eventually when Mayor Larry Vaughn realizes that there is no way to cover his tracks any longer, he says that he was acting in the towns best interest. It is quite obvious that he wasn't thinking in the towns best interest at all, in fact very much the opposite. This whole plot with the Mayor though was very much a reflection of not being able to trust the government, as a result of what happened with the whole watergate scandal.

One more interesting point that I will bring up, throughout the whole movie you are made aware of Chief Brody's (played by Roy Scheider) fear of the water. You are never given a concrete reason why he has this fear though. I noticed in the scene where Sam Quint (Robert Shaw) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) are talking about their many scars, Chief Brody lifts his shirt looking at a scar on his abdomen area. I believe that he was attacked by shark when he was younger and that was the cause of his fear of water.

I would definitely recommend this movie.

The Conversation

The conversation for me, was the most thought provoking movie that we have watched in class so far. At the beginning you have no Idea why these two people are being followed in the square. Then you see Harry in the van listening to the audio that is being captured trying to convince himself that what he is doing is just work and no more.

As the movie progresses you come to find that this is more than just work to Harry and that he has a very strong emotional attachment to this particular job. You find him constantly going back to the line "He'd kill us if he got the chance". Every time that you would hear that line repeated it would become more and more clear but it always sounded as if the man saying it was the victim.

Harry was supposed to deliver the tapes that he and his team had recorded to some unknown party and he was very hesitant to do so, thinking that if he handed these tapes over then he would be helping commit some crime.

Eventually he gives the tape in person to the man who had hired him to do this job and was then asked to leave. Right after leaving you could tell that he was very unhappy with himself and what he had just done, he couldn't let it go. Harry goes to the hotel to find out that he was on the wrong track all along, which left him questioning his abilities and everything that he had just moments before thought to be true.

In the end you are left with a shot of Harry sitting alone in his apartment that he had torn apart looking for the "bug" that had been put in his apartment. He started out being the pursuer and ended up being pursued.