As mentioned in a few other places in this guide, the thrills of Jaws' most suspenseful moments manifest chiefly as a result of what we don't see. Imagination is a powerful, terrifying weapon, and in Jaws Spielberg wields it to manipulate the audience's minds, scaring them far more by what they think their terrifying antagonist looks like than what it actually does.
It's fairly well-known that in the original version of the Jaws script, the shark had a lot more screen time. However, continuous mechanical problems and stroke-inducing budget overruns forced Spielberg to reimagine the terrifying beast's effect on Amity and the audience through mere suggestion. Instead of giving us a good scare during Chrissie's death by revealing the shark, thereby putting the audience on edge and gradually immunizing them to the fear that the shark could elicit, Spielberg bides his time, giving us glimpses here and there, but waiting until over halfway through the film to bring us face to face with the monster for the first time, after which point it becomes less about its eerie lurking or horrific attacks and more about its continuous battle with the men aboard the Orca, at which point the need for suspense drops dramatically. Still, to create the exhilarating chase scenes and powerful instances of the shark sneaking up on the boat, Spielberg used the yellow barrels to imply its presence, utilizing the art of what we don't see right through to the film's end.
Had the various mechanical sharks worked as planned, it's possible that Spielberg would've been remembered for revolutionizing the use of robotics in filmmaking. Instead, his role was perfecting rather than inventing the notion that you can create more anxiety and fear in an audience by NOT showing them the thing they fear. Jaws' original version probably would have had a lot more scenes of the shark physically attacking the residents of Amity Island, but it would've looked more like a zombie movie, or King Kong, or even The Wolf Man films of the 1940, and probably would've been less effective. What Spielberg learned in a very specific way while trying to make Jaws with a stubborn, malfunctioning shark was that, under certain conditions, you can manipulate audience emotions to a far greater extent by not showing what people on screen are seeing. It's this extra stroke of creative genius that has helped the film build its legacy and leave the cultural imprint that it has.
