CIN270Y1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 19: Richard Nixon, Shark Attack, Monster Movie
11 May 2018
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Department
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Thursday, Nov. 16, 2017
CIN270Y1
CLASS 19
CLASS 18: Screening of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”
Jaws and the New Hollywood
• Jaws inaugurates a second “great age” for Hollywood
• Buoyed by business tactics
• Exhibition patterns, marketing and promotion, ancillary merchandising, etc.
• These are fastened to the film’s conception
• Its story and style are “high concept”
The Nixonian Aura
• Business tactics: enough to explain a film’s popularity?
• Jaws is OF its time
• 1974: fallout from Watergate
• Jaws is a “monster movie”, but it is also a paranoid thriller
• The Nixonian aura: crucial to Jaws
• The “rogue” shark vs. Mayor Vaughn
Post-Watergate?
• Mayor Vaughn: “deniability”
• Devoted to big business and consumerism
• Manipulates the press
• Smoothly corrupt: he puts beachgoers in danger
• But he is ultimately “sincere”
The Migration of Guilt
• The mayor’s story ends at the film’s midpoint. And then?
• Jaws’ final acts return us to its first scenes
• It begins with a shark attack on a young woman
• Tom’s guilt migrates to Brody: he seeks revenge (which is intensified when his own son
is endangered by the shark)
• At the end of the film, failure is overcome: night becomes day, etc. (instead of the
nighttime at the beginning of the film, it is daytime and the character that wasn’t willing
to get into the water at the beginning is now comfortably in the water)
Jaws and Generation
• The concluding acts: generations
• Quint: the locus of old-fashioned “private enterprise”
Local businessman; down-East typicality (Quint’s character)
But he’s also a remnant or relic. How?
He is characterized as a relic/a remnant that has to be discarded
Strongly linked to World War II, classical liberalism, etc.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Class 18: screening of close encounters of the third kind . Jaws and the new hollywood: jaws inaugurates a second great age for hollywood, buoyed by business tactics, exhibition patterns, marketing and promotion, ancillary merchandising, etc, these are fastened to the film"s conception. Post-watergate: mayor vaughn: deniability , devoted to big business and consumerism, manipulates the press, smoothly corrupt: he puts beachgoers in danger, but he is ultimately sincere . The migration of guilt: the mayor"s story ends at the film"s midpoint. And then: jaws" final acts return us to its first scenes, tom"s guilt migrates to brody: he seeks revenge (which is intensified when his own son. Jaws and generation: the concluding acts: generations, quint: the locus of old-fashioned private enterprise . But he"s also a remnant or relic. He is characterized as a relic/a remnant that has to be discarded. Strongly linked to world war ii, classical liberalism, etc.
