Brazil

In Peter Benchley's Jaws, the song "Brazil" functions as a potent emotional and narrative device, surfacing during a pivotal lunch between Ellen Brody and Matt Hooper at Banner's restaurant in Sag Harbor. The song is not merely background music but a direct conduit to Ellen's past, a sonic artifact that unlocks a flood of specific, cherished memories from her youth. When Hooper mentions that Ellen's former boyfriend, his older brother David, had called her the best dancer he ever knew, Ellen's mind immediately travels back to a specific night: a samba contest at the Beach Club, where she and David danced to "Brazil" in the finals. She recalls the Lester Lanin band, the crepe paper and balloons decorating the club, David's favorite red silk jacket, and the yellow dress she chose to complement her tan. The memory is so vivid that she remembers winning a canned chicken as first prize, which she kept in her room until it began to swell and her father made her throw it away. This recollection is not a casual reminiscence; it is a painful, visceral experience that reinforces her sense of loss and dissatisfaction with her present life. The song "Brazil" thus becomes the emotional catalyst for the entire scene, transforming a simple lunch into a dangerous flirtation. It is the key that unlocks Ellen's carefully suppressed longing for the world of her youth—a world of privilege, ease, and romantic possibility that she abandoned when she married Martin Brody. The shared memory of the song creates an immediate, intimate bond between Ellen and Hooper, allowing them to bypass the awkwardness of their present circumstances and slip into a shared fantasy of the past. This nostalgic reverie directly leads to their explicit, mutual construction of a sexual fantasy, culminating in their affair later that afternoon. The song's appearance is therefore a masterful piece of narrative economy, using a single cultural reference to establish character, motive, and the emotional stakes of a relationship that will have profound consequences for the story's central characters. It is the sound of a life unlived, a melody that tempts Ellen to betray her present for a ghost of her past.