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purposeful, linear, and forward moving. There are few of the stops and starts characteristic of other genres, other than slowing the pace down momentarily to allow the viewer to catch a breath before the next attack, the next battle, all building toward the final confrontation. Battles between the fishermen and the shark are punctuated by shark attacks and superficial psychological adjustments between the various players along the way. There are, as is typical in melodrama, false and “premature” endings (when, for example, another shark is captured and mistaken as the evil culprit). But these digressions are merely preparatory interlineations, biding time, allowing for the tension to build before returning to the waters for the next round of action scenes that are at the core of the film.
    The shark becomes progressively bolder and more relentless, demonstrating the enormity of its evil, and adhering to Hitchcock’s maxim. The villainous shark—Jaws—invades a sheltered beach pond and seizes a helpless swimmer; it destroys a boat and kills another victim. It embodies the forcefulness of unstoppable natural forces of disaster packaged into the form of an archetypal villain. As the community veers psychologically from denial to panic, all that is apparent is that the community cannot protect itself; it is up to the heroes to intervene. The two heroes in
Jaws
, an intellectual oceanographer (played with self-deprecating humor by Richard Dreyfuss) and a former New YorkCity cop (Roy Scheider) enlist the aid of a mythic ancient mariner (portrayed with a mock Shakespearean theatricality by Robert Shaw). The three head out fully loaded with mythic and modern weapons to take on their superhuman prey, to meet on the ocean, a setting far beyond the zone of human habitation. It is a primal scene, in a liminal space, beyond the realm of civilization. The ensuing battle to the death (the climax) takes up the last third of the movie. The outcome of the battle, which is never in doubt, enables the audience to vicariously participate in the ultimate combat, with the shared understanding that such guiltless enjoyment is the pleasure of the genre where the characters (like the villains) are not all quite human.
    In
High Noon
, the breaking of the steady state, initiated by the arrival of the Miller gang, creates a different and more complex narrative structure, progressively introducing new dimensions to the basic problem that needs resolution before the story can end. The plot focuses on the interplay between the various “complex” characters, positioning these characters in relation to the hero and the villain and in relation to one another.
    The
progressive complications
of the plot emerge as the clock ticks down toward noon. It is just after 10:30 when the film begins; Miller will arrive at 12:00 to exact his revenge on Kane and, perhaps, the town as well. The film is cleverly shot in a “real” narrative time, with one minute of screen time equaling one minute of story time. As Miller’s arrival looms, Marshal Kane first thinks about leaving with his new Quaker bride, adhering to his promise to her to give up the gun. He can’t betray himself, however; he returns to town. The story is about the meaning of loyalty and an exploration of the psychology of betrayal. Within this unifying theme the various subplots fit together:
    1. Kane’s new Quaker bride, Amy, is torn between her love for her new husband and her loyalty to her Quaker pacifist beliefs grounded in her experience of the death of her father and brother in a gunfight years ago.
    2. Kane’s young deputy, Harvey, betrays Kane and refuses to join him in the fight against the Miller gang, not because he is afraid, but because Kane has betrayed him professionally by refusing to appoint him as the new marshal because he is young and inexperienced.
    3. Kane’s former mistress has taken up with Harvey, her new protector against her