A Short History Of Sharks In Film

Ξ October 27th, 2011 | → Comments Off | ∇ |

Already, the theme to Jaws is going through your mind! Legend has it that the crew of Jaws nicknamed the mechanical shark “Bruce”. There may have been sharks in film before old Bruce, but there are few characters, either human or animal, that can top him since. Some have complained of the movie exaggerating the shark’s viciousness towards humans, thereby provoking people to hate sharks. But the shark – as realistic as he was – was intended to a be a movie character, not a documentary example.I was looking for more information and found it here.

Since Jaws, there have been some extremely lame movies try to recapture our fascination with sharks. Most of them only ended up insulting both us and the sharks. There are a couple of gems, however, that find unique and entertaining ways to feature a shark.

Open Water is based on the true story of a couple who find themselves accidentally left at sea by their diving group. The movie feels like a cross between a documentary and a home movie. There are no special effects to speak of; once the couple are abandoned to open water, it feels like the real deal. I’m not sure if you ever even actually see the sharks, but you know they are there because they are biting and causing terrified looks on the faces of the actors. The effect is subtle yet horrifying, and arouses primal fears reminding us we are only at the top of the food chain as long as we have the equipment to keep us there.

Two animated films feature sharks with a sense of humor. Shark Tales features sharks as keystone mafia members. Finding Nemo features a group of three sharks who attend 12-step style meetings to break them of their fish eating habits. The biggest, baddest one is appropriately named Bruce.