Jaws

1. Jaws (Steven Spielberg, 1975)

I considered making this post all visual and with no words. I find Jaws to be the most-visual movie I've seen, so it seemed appropriate, but I also find it to have wonderful dialogue, the kind which not only shows its characters to be flawed humans but also to be warm and witty about it. Yep, this is my ultimate movie and has been ever since it basically saved my life in the Summer of '75. Before Jaws, I deeply enjoyed movies; after it, I was obsessed with them.



From its opening scene, Jaws proves itself to be a film full of tension and unafraid to show you things which you've never seen before. The scene where unfortunate Chrissie Watkins goes for a swim and encounters a shark still has never been topped or even approached.



I truly love all the characters of Jaws, but my fave is Chief Brody (Roy Scheider). Saddled with an irrational fear of the water, he is forced to come to the aid of his family and his town. Roy Scheider gives an incredible performance, full of frailty and wisdom.



The grizzled shark fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw) offers to try to pull the community of Amity out of its potential financial losses due to shark attacks, but the "town fathers" refuse to accept that there's a problem.



Rich ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) is called in by Brody to prove that something is still rotten in Amity, despite the protests of Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton). Too bad Matt dropped that tooth the size of a shot glass he found in Ben Gardner's boat.



Things come to a head when the Fourth of July turns nasty, and Vaughn is forced to accept that there IS a shark problem. As the shark claims its fourth victim, it narrowly misses Brody's older son.



Well, the first part of Jaws is certainly nerve-wracking and humorous, but when Brody, Quint and Hooper go out on Quint's boat Orca to hunt the shark, the movie definitely takes several steps up the scary adventure scale. John Williams score, which heretofore has mostly been a scary theme similar to Psycho turns more classically adventurous. Much of Jaws wonderful music reminds me of an Errol Flynn swashbuckler.

The characters' individuality come even more into the forefront in this part of the film. Quint, who's harboring a secret about his hatred of sharks, tries to put Brody in his place because he knows the Chief knows nothing of seamanship, but the sailor also tries to put Hooper in his place because he feels he knows too much, despite the fact that Quint considers him a rich brat. This certainly adds to the tension on board the Orca.



Jaws just seems to be such a fortuitous combo of events. The shark wouldn't work, so what do they do? Film the scenes without the shark. Borrowing from Val Lewton, Spielberg makes things scarier by showing less. The novel was a potboiler. It was thrilling, but bogged down with adulterous subplots. What do they do? Streamline the whole thing. Toss out everything which isn't directly related to how the characters relate to the specific situation at hand. In other words, how do we kill the shark before it kills us? How do we work as a team?



Jaws flows all the way through for me. I don't usually use the word "pacing" because it really doesn't convey anything, but I will say that there is not one scene I would cut from Jaws. If I were to cut scenes, it would lose some of its power and entertainment value. No, it's not perfect; but it's the closest I've seen to perfection.



Just when you think things couldn't get more personal, Quint goes ahead and drops his bombshell. Sure, the three are enjoying a drink and comparing "war wounds", but then Quint reveals that he was a crewmember of the U.S.S Indianapolis. Robert Shaw is riveting delivering his self-written monologue about what it was like to be stuck in the water with numerous sharks when the ship was torpedoed after delivering the Hiroshima bomb. You want to see world-class acting?



From here on in, Jaws escalates once again, and I'm not going to talk about the plot anymore. Hopefully, these photos will bring back memories and not ruin anything for anyone who hasn't seen it. Somehow, I don't think they are super spoilers.



I will say that of all the films I've seen in the theater, this one had the greatest crowd reaction. It's hard to believe that it could top the participation of Star Wars, but I have to say that it did. I can't tell you why. Of course, I believe this to be the better film, and it did come first, so maybe that's part of it. But even though this film is as much of a fantasy as Star Wars, it seems to be more about real people which you can relate to. I'm not saying that I don't fully relate to the characters in Star Wars, but Brody, Quint and Hooper truly seem like members of my family, so in that way, yeah they're uniquely human for me.

For all its cinematic invention, suspense and special effects, Jaws is a film about people, Real People. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when the mourning Mrs. Kintner approaches Chief Brody on the dock, and upon learning who he is, she slaps him and reads him the Riot Act. This immediately makes Brody feel lower than he already feels, but the film quickly segues to a poignant scene around the dinner table where the Chief silently "plays" with his younger son by making faces and gestures which his son copies. It brings a tear to my eye, and then ole' Matt Hooper shows up to start eating off people's unfinished dinner plates, and I'm back to laughing.

I could do a commentary on Jaws, but it would be from the viewer's perspective and not the makers'. I wonder which one would ultimately have more of an impact on the average film buff?

Please be open to feel free to love movies and share your love about them, especially here at this site. I feel secure that even if somebody doesn't believe you (think: Mayor Vaughn), eventually enough of the other members will rally to your aid to solve your personal shark problem. Of course, it always helps if you know which way is up and how many barrels your shark can drag under your boat. Happy fishing!