Lessons from Jaws: Spielberg’s False POV

The other day while studying Jaws, I discovered a little trick Spielberg uses. It’s a trick that I guess can best be described as: false pov. We have a shot where a character is looking at something off-screen. Film logic dictates that we now cut to a pov; a shot of what the character is seeing. But Spielberg cuts to a shot that, even though it at first seems to be, really isn’t a pov.

Doesn’t make sense yet? Ok, look at the screencaps above. So, Matt just arrived, he got off a boat, climbs ashore and walks towards the camera. There is a lot of noise from the crowd in the harbor. He looks os, looking to the (screen) left. The camera begins to move in the direction he is looking. We now cut to a shot that feels just like a point of view. The lines point from screen right to screen left, towards Chief Brody standing on the dock. The angle matches the position of Matt, so this is his pov, right? Wrong. 

Because suddenly we discover that Matt is actually in the frame himself. At first I didn’t notice him because the attention is focused on Brody and Matt blends into the crowd, but as the crowds moves out we see him standing there and then he moves in from the left (breaking continuity with the previous shot, in which he was moving from right to left) and he is there talking to Brody. 

Spielberg uses different variations of this trick. For instance he also uses shots of people looking os, leading up to a pov and then has the observing character step into what we thought was his /her pov. And the character might even appear from a totally different direction than you’d expect. The cool thing is that you get everything you get from a real pov shot and then can use the same shot to do something else. (like changing the direction of movement.) Using these false pov's is a great way to be more economic with your shots.