I know that a lot of people on MoFo love Jaws, and I won't ever consider it a bad movie. All 4 Jaws movies are on Tubi right now so I'm taking advantage of that.


Now I'm pretty picky with the concept of "perfection." I believe perfection is possible based on what the film is trying to accomplish, and what it sacrifices to succeed. And it's kinda rare for any director to do more than one perfect movie based on my criteria. Spielberg's already got three: Raiders, Jurassic Park, and Schindler's List in that order.


I've only seen Jaws once years ago. At the time I felt it was just a LITTLE too slow, which detracted from the overall horror a bit. Watching it again, I remember what I liked about it so much: its serious fixation on story. But overall, does anyone feel that two hours is a little long? Depending on what we discuss, I may reconsider my rating for Jaws, seeing whether or not Spielberg's got another flawless movie.


P.S.: Please don't use this opportunity to discuss any other aforementioned Spielberg movies.

P.P.S.: I like some slow movies, like Satantango, which is better than Jaws. And I adore Solaris. This isn't complaining about slowness in general.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

No. Its pace, especially in contrast with sequels and later films of the genre is more or less created, is what I love with this movie. It's one of these movies that I appreciate more with each viewing.

I'm not sure if this answers your question, but it's slow in the parts that I wish were slower in more movies these days, specifically in the ones that develop the characters and their relationships. The last time I watched it, when the family dinner scene ended - the one where Brody drinks a tall glass of wine, he asks his son to kiss him, etc. - I said out loud that I was impressed with how well the scene takes its time and is willing to risk boring the audience. If Jaws were made today, the scene would likely have a lot of quick cuts on the assumption that the audience would probably whip out their cell phones during it.

Never once thought it was slow.

Very true. I cherish that stuff.

The scene where Brody realizes his son is mimicking him is one of my two favorite scenes in that movie. The other one being the Indianapolis narration (which would be a gory CGI fast cuts flashback if done today, for the reasons you mentioned).

Nope. But I would consider modern audiences who haven't seen older movies spoiled by fast edit, music video influenced action films.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Perfectly paced!

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

No. The movie is more about Brody's family, and the community, than it is about the shark. The shark is menacing these things, it is not our focal point. Turning the focus of the movie towards it anymore would make it a movie much less worth even remembering.



As Torgo mentioned, more films need to take heed of this lesson they can learn from Jaws. In fact, it's a shame that so many filmmakers seem not to understand this basic principal. Just like most quality musicians or painters, one of the most important elements to keep in mind is the use of negative space or silence. It is no different in film. Nothing matters if everything matters.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Thanks. No comment.

Jaws isn't solely about the shark. It's also about the characters, how the shark effects them both directly and indirectly, and causes conflict amongst the community. I rewatched Jaws a couple months ago and found myself impressed by these quiet moments which may seem insignificant on the outside, but actually add a whole lot to the film. Brody, his family, Hooper, Quint, and even the mayor are all memorable characters in my eyes. This is one of the reasons why no other shark movies have managed to capture the greatness of Jaws. They're more concerned with cutting out the slower bits and hurrying along to the shark scenes to prevent their audiences from growing bored or impatient.

Also, this is one of the greatest monologues of all time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO60RohuARY

Ture, but sometimes they draw it out. I kinda got the message that Vaught was a greedy scumbag.

I don't mind slow movies in general. Personally, I thought Solaris and Satantango were better than Jaws. I just felt that once you really knew what the characters were like, the characterization fell a little short a couple of times.

That's cool, I mean we all view things differently. I hadn't seen Jaws in a decade or more and then watched it again...I was even more impressed with it.

I then watched the other 3 Jaws films and found stuff to like in each of them. No they are not masterpieces like the first one. But one of them contains a point of view shot from the shark's perspective as it cruises the shoreline of the beach looking for victims. I thought that was pretty darn cool.

Oh, Jaws 3D if seen in real 3D would look pretty cool, but seen in 2D the 3D effects looks silly.

Absolutely not.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

I didn't think it was slow, nor did I think the movie was too long. It was perfect.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Yes. Shark Week has proven that sharks are much faster than Jaws is depicted. Could be age. Could be bloat, as that shark ate anything. Iderno.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

No.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Yes the first hour definitely a bit slow, doesn t even look like the movie it is about until the hour mark

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Not sure how anybody can consider it slow. The story building and character building is sublime.

I think perhaps people who consider it slow only watch fast paced genre movies.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Those older movies with their talking and the music. So last century. Soon movies will come in pill form and we will be able to view a 2 hour movie in about a minute. Life moves pretty fast.

No, because the plot is as much about a father and his son as it is about a shark. It takes time for their character development.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGoekw7e-3U


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLDsl-BANc0


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSNVvfbMIz8


I actually enjoy the early part of Jaws over the later ones.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

A lot of movies nowadays such as The Fast and Furious movies are other blockbuster action movies, will go over 2 hours in their lengths, and somehow they seem more rushed and fast paced compared to Jaws even though Jaws is shorter. I would say Jaws' runtime and pacing is pretty good.

It may have some slow parts compared to nowadays such as showing people walking down a hallway and talking before entering a room, where as nowadays we would just start out in the room maybe for example?

But still good pacing I would say. There is also not as much music in the movie, compared to movies today, so maybe that is one of the reasons why it may seem slower, or more quiet?

Absolutely not. Jaws is Spielberg's masterpiece. I don't like Spielberg but he made an essentially perfect film with Jaws. The fact that the narrative always has room to breathe and time is taken for character moments and for good dialogue to sink in with the audience is part of why it's a masterpiece.

Jaws is better than the Spielberg films you called flawless.

I love the opening scene of the girl in the water by herself and after that, Jaws loses me.

Well, by their nature, sharks aren't the brightest species, but it seems pretty cruel to ridicule the poor thing. They did a lot of great editing to work around Bruce's, um, charismatic challenges, shall we call them? But slower sharks are just easier to work with, and he's no where near as slow as that practically catatonic ichthy-diot that played in The Last Shark.


Are you trying to get your name in National Geographic or The Marine Psychologist?

I love Jaws, but I’d have it squarely behind 4 other films of his. That’s still good company.

Loses you where?

After the opening scene;)

After the opening scene where the girl with the long red hair gets eaten by the shark. I love that opening scene, I think it's absolutely brilliant, but the rest of the film just doesn't interest me, I don't know why.

I just went over this. No I don't. Satantango is better than Jaws IMO and it's literally "slow cinema."

How do you feel about The Shallows (2016)? Have you seen it?

Nope. I might, though.

Jaws is a guy movie, so it deals with things that concern guys. There's Brody who epitomizes the concept of useless. He's a sheriff in a town that has no crime, (in the book, his wife has an affair with Hooper). Then there's the know-nothing Hooper who, despite knowing how to do things like scuba dive and pilot a boat, has mostly lived as a sheltered and pampered girl. Then there's Quint! Quint is a manly man's man. He doesn't use guy liner, or spend much time shopping for skinny jeans at the local mall.

The movie is basically a coming of age movie, where Brody and Hooper learn how to be men. The shark symbolizes a problem that needs to be dealt with, and Quint is the professor who will ultimately teach two boys how men deal with problems. When Brody has time for just one more shot, and he's the only one who can do anything, that's when he became a man.

Hooper... well, he tried.

Too slow? No. I'd say that an awful lot of subsequent movies are too fast. Jaws had a good slow-burn that's missing from fast paced flix.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

My first time watching it (I would have been around 13 years old) I definitely thought it was a little slow. But after watching it over and over again (it became a yearly summer movie) the pacing became one of the things I appreciate most about it. Nowadays I find I enjoy the quieter portions of the film most of all.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Never has been since 20 June 1975.

Rather than slow I would call it "patient". It lets us know the characters so well that when their lives are truly endangered we really want nothing bad to happen to them. If they didn't put the calmer moments of character development and light witty dialogue in there we might still care about Brody, but we wouldn't care as much about the trio as a whole. Some fans even list Quint as their favorite character in the movie, thanks to all the endearing quirks we grew to love about him. This attention to detail is what makes Jaws such a timeless masterpiece, and contain much more substance that shark films typically have. I enjoy Deep Blue Sea for the cheesy affair that it is, but it still can't compare since the characters are mostly surface-level entertaining rather than people you genuinely get invested in.

In all seriousness though, I'd say my biggest issue with Jaws (despite feeling it was a very good movie on the whole) isn't how slow it's pacing is, since I didn't have a problem with that, but the fact that it lacked a certain amount of environmental tension on the whole, and by that, I mean that, while there was obviously a threat when people were out on the ocean, they were still completely safe when back on land, so there wasn't much tension in the atmosphere of those scenes. I mean, when you watch Alien, although there are no Deep Blue Sea-style abrupt attacks in it, there's still this mood in the air that the Xenomorph could be lurking anywhere, even in the scenes where it's clear that the alien isn't anywhere near, because the characters have no idea where it is, which is what ultimately gives that movie a leg up on Jaws in the tension department. Still, this take is based on my fourteen year-old memory of watching it on Netflix Instant, so a rewatch with more mature eyes may very well lead to that not bothering me as much as it did before, hopefully.

It's not that sort of movie. It's not that canvas. Well, actually the second half is that, and even so, not entirely. Or more precisely, it's only progressively revealed to be so, both to the spectators and the characters.

It's a crescendo movie, about a marginal issue that can be dismissed depending on the perspective (it's just a statistical chance of an attack, not worth cancelling economically and politically important festivities). And even when the movie starts being about three people on a boat, there's still joyous, exhilarating scenes where the hunting seems all fun and giggle. Even John William's music goes all Spielberg kid stories, there :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfD62xXv0UA

The movie keeps progressively unmasking the nature and the magnitude of the threat. It's a bit ruined by the poster and the film's notoriety (as these things often are : omg the terminator was a robot all along), but the shark's size, power and monstrosity is only progressively revealed, in a sequence of "we'll need a bigger boat" moments. The spectator is always aware that the threat is bigger than the characters imagine, but each time the characters seem to catch up with this realization, the spectator learns that it's even bigger.

But even at the top (survivors stranded without a radio on a sinking ship), it stays a small story. Just a shark. An individual scale issue, a journal's bottom column. The Earth isn't threatened by a cosmic invasion.

I'd definitely recommend rewatching it, because Jaws is more about the characters, the way the shark effects them, the conflict it causes amongst the community, etc. than it is about the shark. The threat of the shark attacking anyone obviously doesn't exist on land, but the film remains great for different reasons.

Now that you mention it, that might actually be why I considered it slow. To add to your point, I didn't like how some of the later scenes had a more bombastic adventure score that John Williams was known for. The movie just wasn't scary enough. It was exciting as hell, but it wasn't always SCARY.


That was really it. Thanks!

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

EDIT: Oh, come on. MORNING COFFEE WORK ALREADY.

The story's simplicity may easily be a result of the omissions of various subplots from the novel. I never read the novel, but apparently there's a mafia in it for whatever reason.


Guess this movie.


https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/vi...20130111034559

Mondo TV's True Story of the Titanic ? I recently watched a bewildered review of it on youtube.

And yes, the Benchley's novel has a terrible reputation, apparently all the subplots (including Brody's wife's affair with Cooper) were cut out for quality reasons as much as pacing.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

It seems this thread is beginning to show the harm the expectations of genre does to our movie going experience. Since Jaws became notorious for the fear it caused in its audience, it gets labelled as a horror movie, and then because it is considered a horror movie, its success becomes entangled with how scary it is. Apparently, even during scenes that are obviously not meant to be scary. Which actually undermines the point of the film.



It should be obvious to state this, but Jaws has no obligation to create unease during its land based scenes. This doesn't mean the shark becomes irrelevant in these moments. Only that its influence is instead on the dynamics of Brodie's family and how it exposes the cynical and craven nature of the mayor's decisions to keep the beaches open. While it is fair game to talk about how frightening the scenes involving shark attacks are, it starts becoming a little weird if any criticism of the film centers around how safe the characters are while they are eating dinner in their living room.



I'm actually okay with Jaws being labelled a horror film, even if it really barely qualifies as such. My hopes are always to include as many films under the umbrella of a genre so that these narrow expectations of what a genre film is supposed to do become less rigid. Because, when we start focusing our critical lasers on whether Jaws is horror enough, and some find themselves disappointed that the entire film doesn't take place under water to maximize threat, the way we are thinking about that film has clearly been polluted by completely irrelevant 'rules'

Yep. We know it here as Legend of the Titanic. Nowhere near as bad as Titanic: The Legend Goes On, just really dorky. Still, I'd rather pick this dork-fest than that shameless ripoff of every Disney movie known to man. I'd put the Mondo TV one on the same comedic league as The Room.

God, that movie sucks.

I actually can't tell if this is really good satire or you're a crazy person. Your screen-name doesn't help.

One of my favorite bits of All Time.

If I may piggy-back on this thought:

Something that I think that Jaws does really well is portray the rollercoaster of experience and emotion during a very specific threat.

I don't know if anyone else here lived in the DC area when the sniper attacks were happening, but that is how it is. The actual literal threat isn't there when you're in your house, or in school, or whatever. At those times, it's an uneasy background anxiety. But that anxiety spikes when you are in a place that could be dangerous. And you're sort of waiting for the next piece of news. There's a lot of unknown, and you're getting mixed messages from different "experts" about what is actually happening and how to handle it.

What the land-based scenes show really well is also the tension between action and inaction. Someone needs to deal with the shark. But does that someone need to be Brody? Risking your life to protect others at the possible cost of losing your life and your family losing their father/husband is no small choice. Those family scenes really drive home that his affection for his family is both what drives his decision to help and what makes it so hard to do.

The land-based sequences also reveal the way that many people respond to a threat when the most obvious solution (stay out of the water!) is against their own self-interest. First there's the denial ("Shark, what shark? Everyone will be fine. Get in the water!"); then there's the grasping at saying it's solved ("Yay! This dude caught a shark! Must be the one!"). In the face of greed and lack of logical thinking, someone needs to step up to protect the citizens from themselves.

I kinda agree, though I think the film is a masterpiece, with what you're saying here. It's scary in the first half and then morphs into an adventure film for the second. Which I usually hate (like my preference for Alien over Aliens is so large I never even understand people talking about ranking them versus each other). Which is maybe even more why I think it's a masterpiece. Navigating that shift and never losing my interest or investment at all is pretty damn good.

There is no way I could agree with you more. Unless you were like, "And I coffee is the nectar of the gods." Then I would agree slightly more.

The real lesson of Jaws is that being

Must be why the film is so popular with 8 year old girls.

That person believes the moon landing was a hoax, so there ya go.

Admittedly, I'd like a version of Jaws where Quint wears skinny jeans.

Tea > Coffee

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Hot chocolate >>>>>>>>>>> tea > coffee

This is all excellent, Tak.
This is why Brody is easily, as he's supposed to be, my favorite character in the movie and one of my favorite movie characters. He left New York because he'd had enough constant danger and suddenly, in this idyllic little town, he's thrust into a choice to protect these people he barely knows and who frankly don't treat him that well, and to go against the town leaders and risk his position as well, or simply do what his job requires and take no personal risk. Despite him being an outsider, suddenly everyone is looking to him for answers.
Meanwhile, he has a family and he's afraid for them as any normal person would be. The movie does a great job of escalating that additional stake with the scene with the kids and the boat on their pier and Elaine and then with the scene where his child is actually in the water with the shark when another child is killed.
Scheider really shines in this role, I cannot imagine anyone else capturing everything he put on screen for the audience. I personally think it's like a master-class in an unexpected place, a performance that's overlooked when it should be in the acting textbook.

And all of that is why my favorite scene in the film has no shark in it and takes place on land.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJLqTYAhlgk

"I'm sorry Martin... she's wrong."
"No, she's not."

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Coffee Flavored Ice Cream > Tea > Coffee > Insects

I mean, you're not wrong.

Where does James Wan fit in that ranking?

So I was right I was agreeing with you the exact right amount.

https://i.imgur.com/hQw61d6.png?1

https://www.theonion.com/fancy-man-e...tea-1819569438

I've always been a little sad that we've never gotten to see the deleted scene where Brody and Hooper braid each others' hair and play MASH.

No, wait, we need hipster Jaws. All the arguments take place in an Urban Outfitters. Quint tells a tragic story of how a delivery to the locally-owned co-op went wrong. "So anyway . . . we delivered the quinoa."

I love to ridicule hacks, so probably pretty highly.

Fixed ;)

Right. It creates a push-pull between him feeling like they are at risk, and risking his own life.

As a father, he can also connect to the woman who loses her child. I think that having someone with a family and feeling the weight of that and how it impacts the main character is what elevates Jaws above a lot of other shark (or even monster/creature) movies.

The shark attacks are effective and frightening, but they aren't the heart of the film. Brody is the heart of the film, and all of the scenes on land do a great job of raising the stakes for his character.

My sister and her best friend ordered a pizza and watched Jaws together every Friday night for like a year. The film is definitely deliberate, but I'd never think to call it slow.

Saw's one of the best things I've ever seen. HAHA! I SAID IT! HAHA! HAAAAHAHAHA! And I like it more than Jaws! AAAAAHAAAA!

It's been a while since I've seen Saw, so my memory of it is pretty fuzzy, but I remember enjoying it a whole lot. I have a feeling I'd like it less if I were to revisit it though.

LOL, Hadn't seen this before :laugh:

I love Jaws and all, but this is the most ludicrous exchange on this thread.

Are you discriminating against me because I love hot chocolate? How dare you?!?!

It's what I think the movie/book is about. The plot really isn't three guys go hunting for a shark. It's a lot deeper than that, which is why I think the OP doesn't really get the movie. All that boring stuff before they get to the fishing part of the movie is necessary to the plot.



bleh... If you think that I'm crazy, then great. Hey, did you know that Moby Dick is about hunting a white whale? You'll love it!

Exactly.

I like Saw, I do, I never didn't like Saw.
But to compare it to Jaws in any way or even think that their clearly separate leagues could be close enough that they could be compared... no sir. Nope.

:eek:

Of course the movie isn't about hunting a shark. I think all of the discussion here makes it clear that absolutely no one said or even thought that, so I feel your snark is obviously misplaced. You Moby Dick parallel was obvious when I was in high school and I suspect that's true for everyone here.
But Brody is clearly, obviously, who the film thinks is a real man, with Hooper being second and Quint actually being dead-last. That is not necessarily the point of the movie, because I don't think this maleness narrative is the central thesis of the film by any stretch, but the film is very clear that Quint is a stupid ******* who nearly gets everyone killed, Hooper is a helpful and decent man, but Brody is actually the ideal.
For further example, in Moby Dick, Captain Ahab is the stupid ******* who nearly gets everybody killed and that is why he dies.

Oh, but it's also about hunting a shark.

Hooper's got some arrogance to overcome as well.


Brody is the Goldilocks Masculine, vulnerable but not soft, stoic but not strict.

I'd never really thought about Jaws as being any kind of statement or exploration of masculinity. (Again, I find the most interesting aspect of it the action-vs-inaction stuff). It's always interesting when people think a film is about being a "real" man or woman just how they interpret what the film is trying to say.

In any event, it is interesting to note that Brody is the only one of the three men who has a family, friends, and, you know, anyone who would be sad if they were eaten by a shark.

Well, this is in response to someone asserting that it was all about that and I'm saying if that's in the movie, Quint is not the best man, not by a long sight. But Brody is kind of a paladin and is really the guy

Yeah sorry, but I'm tired of the lies about my position on the moon landing. I suspect it didn't happen as reported, which shouldn't be too much of a damn leap when we're talking about the government.



As for Brody being a real man, I don't see it. He's a nothing burger. Quint is the guy who served on the Indiannapolis and dealt with the sharks. Brody has done nothing, and when the SHTF, Hooper dove to the bottom and stayed there.

Oh, I'm not saying it's right or wrong to think of masculinity as a theme (especially in a film that largely centers on three men in a boat), but that it's interesting in such a situation to see who people say is the one they think is meant to be considered "the best".

I just rewatched Quint's monologue to make sure I wasn't missing anything. In what way is Quint bobbing around in the water until he was rescued by a plane in any way braver or more "manly" than Hooper going into the water with a killer great white and then hiding to avoid being eaten? What masculine qualities are apparent in Quint's story--a story in which he and a bunch of other sailors huddled together in a group, screamed and made noise when a shark came close, were repeatedly traumatized by the deaths of the men around them, and then were pulled out of the water by rescuers? And by contrast, what "manly" action was Hooper supposed to take once he was out of the cage and had lost his only weapon? How has one of these men "dealt with" sharks but the other hasn't?

The need to have a singular definition of manhood just hamstrings, in my opinion, the ability to think about what the film is saying by contrasting these different men. Both Brody and Quint are facing up to a personal fear in pursuing the shark. Brody does so out of a sense of duty and protection, while Quint does so out of a sort of weird, almost self-destructive impulse. One of the most important moments of the film--Quint smashing the radio so that the men can't get help--is a borderline villainous moment. He's got tunnel vision because of his personal obsession.

I don't know anything about you and the moon landing, believe what you want.

Brody is the clear hero of the film and the one who not only saves himself, which Quint can't, but saves everyone else as well, risking his life and the well-being of his family to do so.
That's a man.
Hooper is actually the first to truly risk his life to kill the shark. First of all, getting on that boat took a lot of balls given HE knew what they were up against (unlike all the idiots who got in their boats and tried their hands at "shark hunter"). Then he has to endure Quint's narcissism and douchebaggery the whole time, which is probably worse than the shark. Then, when things were starting to look bleak, he gets in the cage and is face to face with the shark. Quint makes it clear that he knows what it does but you don't hear him volunteering to get in that cage.
Quint, on the other hand, is an arrogant narcissist who gets himself killed, nearly gets the whole crew killed (and would have if not for Brody), and fails in his only mission, the one he bragged he was the only one that could do. He is, in the end, kinda pathetic. Which, if there is a point about masculinity in this movie, that may be it.

I forgot about that, yeah, Quint really is the ****in' worst. That's the last kinda guy you want along with you on anything. Stupid, self-centered, thoughtless, and impulsive, just generally a danger to himself and everyone around him. Society is probably better with him in Bruce's belly.
And again, that may actually be the point of that whole "three guys in a boat" part of the movie.
The other two survive in spite of Quint, obviously, through the heroism of Brody.

I think there is a lot to be said about holding Quint up to some idealization of masulinity. What is clearly being observed here is that because he appears to be the most masculine (he's gruff natured and acts irresponsibily) he is by default the most heroic. It's almost like completely superficial readings of masculinity and heroism are what are at play here. Not any actual analysis of the character and what he actually does over the course of the movie.


Similarly, Brody is some kind of wet blanket of a man, even though he is actually the one who saves the day. It's almost like his character traits of being a family man and showing his vulnerabilities negates the fact that he's obviously the ****ing hero here.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Jaws is just the best damn film there is. If it's too slow for you (or anyone else) that's OK. But it isn't too slow for the film. The pacing is perfect.

Re: Would you consider Jaws a little too slow?
 

Jezus, Jaws is just a good movie. It doesn't need to be dissected, analyzed or philosophized. Besides we all know that the shark was the real victim in the movie...It did nothing wrong but feed itself and yet was victimized by self righteous humans;)

The ending in the book is a bit different. Quint and Hooper both die, and Brody only survives because the shark dies from the various wounds it received during the fishing trip. Spielberg didn't want such a gloomy ending, so he changed it up.
I think to really understand Jaws, we need to understand Moby Dick, and for that, we need to know what inspired Melville to write it. Like Quint's ordeal with the Indianapolis (a true story everybody should learn about!), a similar incident happened to a whaling ship out of Nantucket called the Essex. However, instead of Japanese torpedoes, the Essex was sunk by a whale. The Essex was captained by captain Pollard, who became Ahab, who then became Quint. What happened is that Pollard was out on longboats hunting whales when a sperm whale basically sunk his ship by ramming it twice, leaving Pollard and his crew stranded on the longboats in the middle of nowhere.

So what did Melville think of Pollard? Melville said "To the islanders he was a nobody—to me, the most impressive man, tho’ wholly unassuming, even humble—that I ever encountered.”

Hardly the basis for a narcissistic lunatic.
I know it's easy to think of Brody as the hero, but I think he is simply Benchley's version of Ishmael. The real story is what happens to a man after living through hell, and Ishmael/Brody are there to tell the story. This is why both characters are fairly bland with no knowledge of whaling/sharking prior to the fishing trip. This is to allow the reader to understand how men like Ahab/Quint/Pollard can be affected by life changing events that most men will never have to endure. We will never understand what happened to them, but we can observe their subsequent behavior.

I'm pretty sure that you thought that taking an ax to the radio so Brody couldn't call for help was the action of a madman, I see it as trying to tie up the loose end of being able to call for help, which is not what Pollard was able to do. The Indianapolis was in much the same situation, which Quint explains in his drunken monologue. They couldn't call for help because they had been on a secret mission to deliver the atomic bombs that were later dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Was Quint an arrogant narcissist? No, I don't think so. He was forged by a terrible incident into a man with a singular purpose in life. His death was necessary to the character in order to show how far he would go towards that purpose.

I agree with you that the film is not "too slow". It took its time solidly building the scenario, ever increasing the suspense and tension. It took the country by storm in the summer of 1975, and it was practically the only film anyone was talking about.

The picture knocked me out when I saw it. The only problem is that ever since 1975 I've not been able to swim out into the ocean anymore. And I live on the Gulf Coast. Wading or swimming in water deeper than my waist or chest gives me visions of my legs dangling in the water, and some shark attacking me. It's silly, but I can't shake it. It's like people who get scared in the shower ever since they saw Psycho.

Perhaps some folks feel that Jaws is slow because of its contrast to some of the modern horror movies, which seemingly jump right into fright and gore right from the git-go. Not sure about that. I don't watch horror movies.

IMO Jaws was not only a landmark film and an enormous blockbuster, but it was a great film as well.

Benchley's Jaws is notoriously a POS pulp tome and the film has long been considered one of the rare feats of making a classic from crappy source material and no one in the world thinks the book is better than the film except someone who may or may not be responsible for educating your child.

Also, Ishmael had lots of knowledge of whaling, the Pequod wasn't his first venture, but since we're just riffing, I guess who has time to read these days?

So a man who comes out of a traumatic experience and is willing to endanger the lives of two other men (and by extension cost at least one family their provider and protector) is "manly" why?

If you want to see Quint as the most compelling figure in the film, that's fine.

But nothing you are talking about is particularly masculine, is it?

Assuming you alone can handle an overwhelming problem and endangering the lives of others just to serve your own personal purposes is literally the definition of being an arrogant (overestimating one's own abilities) narcissist (self-centered).

And if the purpose of the radio-smashing was the script wanting to recreate the Indianapolis, then why not have the radio get damaged in any other way? Given that Quint himself is the one that smashes the radio, isn't the much more obvious conclusion that Quint is recreating what happened on the Indianapolis, recreating the conditions in which he was formerly powerless so that he can this time be powerful and triumphant?

Also: if you need to understand the history of the real man who inspired Moby Dick who inspired the author of Jaws which was adapted into the film . . . in order to understand the film, I think you're doing too much heavy lifting.