Truth be told, I’m not sure there’s all that much left to say about Steven Spielberg’s 1975 masterwork, Jaws. As far as films go, it’s been well analyzed, dissected, studied, and commented on. However, I’ve been blessed with an ego and a love for the movie-both of which make me feel compelled to offer my own $.02 on what I consider to be Spielberg’s greatest film.
That’s right-I’ve said it-his greatest film…forget Schindler’s List and Saving Private Ryan, which are two solid films for sure, but are marred by a sense of mawkishness and a preachy overall tone that makes them more than simple movies. Movies tell stories, and while both of those films do tell a story in the strictest sense of narrative structure, both seem designed primarily to use the story to deliver a message or show us how we should feel about something…and if you’re entertained along the way, great-but it’s not the films’ main objective. Jaws, on the other hand, is exact inverse of this equation-a film that has a primary goal of entertaining an audience for two hours. Of course, that’s not to say that Jaws is devoid of message or thematic meanings, because it’s not (more on that in a bit), but instead to say that anything you take out of the film in that regard is of secondary importance. Here, Spielberg’s main interest is entertaining you-and this is clearly when he’s at his best as a filmmaker.
Moby Dick for a new era
Based on Peter Benchley’s novel, Jaws is essentially an updating of Melville’s Moby Dick (replacing the great white whale with the great white shark). When a young woman wanders into the ocean for a late night swim and is devoured by an unseen monster from the depths, it becomes apparent the town of Amity Island, New York has a shark problem. When local police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) discovers that the girl was indeed killed by a shark, he sets out to close the beaches. However, mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton, sporting some of the greatest sports blazers in film history-particularly the one with all the anchors on it) doesn’t want to jump the gun. Amity’s a summer town, and the 4th of July is just days away-meaning if you close the beaches, people won’t come…and if people don’t come, then Amity loses valuable tourist dollars, which allow the locals to survive the winters.
Brody relents to the mayor’s wishes, and before you know it, the marauding shark is back-this time feasting on small boy. The boy’s mother offers a bounty for the shark, which brings wannabe sports-fishermen from the entire east coast and icthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) to Amity. When some fisherman bring in a fairly large tiger shark, Hooper knows it’s not the shark they’re after, even though Vaughn and the rest of the town are convinced their troubles are over. Hooper’s concerns are proven correct when the shark again devours another helpless islander on the 4th of July.
With the island now in a panic, Hooper and Brody enlist the aid of shark fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw). Together, these three men set out to kill the great white shark-but are they after it, or is it after them?
The Bataan Death March of filmmaking
By the accounts of everyone involved in the production of Jaws, the filming was a long and arduous process. The crew set up shop in the scenic Martha’s Vineyard area for several reasons-one, it was a pretty area that seemed to capture the feel of Amity Island as portrayed in Benchley’s novel, and two, you could go roughly twelve miles out to sea and still only have water that was thirty feet deep. This second factor allowed Spielberg to fulfill one of his major desires-shooting the film on the actual ocean as opposed to in a tank or pool. Little did anyone know just how daunting a task shooting on the open ocean would be…
It took 149 days of shooting to complete Jaws, with many of those days spent out on the open ocean where water and tide conditions, a malfunctioning mechanical shark, or boats on the horizon interfering with the shot caused the crew capture as little as six seconds of usable footage in a day. Spielberg himself admits that he felt overwhelmed by what he’d undertaken-but he stuck with it, thanks to the support of producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown. Despite this support, nearly everyone involved feared that the film might be eventually shut down.
Bruce
As any serious Jaws fan realizes, one of the main problems in making the film was finding a realistic looking mechanical shark. Sharks aren’t like other animal actors-you can’t use a real great white shark in a scene-they’re uncoachable creatures. So, in order for the film to work, Spielberg and crew would have to enlist the aid of someone who could make a credible looking shark replica.
They eventually did find someone to do the job (Robert Mattey), and the result is the monster you see on the screen-a pneumatic great white shark which Spielberg christened Bruce, after his own attorney. Bruce was a roughly twenty-five foot replica of great white shark, complete with automated features, and mounted to a giant sled and gimble combination that was stationed on the sandy bottom of the Atlantic in order to move the shark through the water.
Unfortunately, the sea is a harsh environment, and the constant pounding of waves and the corrosive quality of salt water worked to make it so that Bruce malfunctioned far more often than he worked-a fact which further delayed the filming and cast the whole project into jeopardy as the studio FX people wanted to halt production in order to perfect the shark.
Barrels to the rescue…
Since the mechanical shark seemed destined to only work sporadically, Spielberg needed another way to show the audience that the shark was in the water nearby-an effect he achieved by using large yellow barrels. Quint harpoons the shark on several occasions, and these harpoons are attached to large barrels. These barrels are designed to wear out the shark by making it harder for him to submerge. Whenever Spielberg wants the audience to know that the shark is near, he simply has the barrels pop up on the surface near the ship-which gets the audience agitated, and keeps his monster shrouded in secrecy throughout much of the film-a masterful idea, really.
Spielberg as auteur
Because Jaws is a fairly straightforward horror/adventure film, and since it was the first of the summer blockbusters (becoming the first film to break the $100 million mark in domestic box-office receipts) it’s easy to dismiss the film as fluff and entertainment. However, it should be readily obvious even to the casual film viewer that the film showcases Spielberg’s burgeoning abilities as a director as well.
Simply put, Jaws is a far better crafted film than just about any other mainstream summer film that I can think of. Time and time again, Spielberg demonstrates a keen eye for the visuals and use of color (there’s really no red in this film, save for the blood and keep an eye open for both the brilliant wipe cuts where a character in the extreme foreground crosses in front of the camera while Brody is sitting on the beach watching the bathers, and the great reverse zoom onto Brody’s face as the Kintner boy is devoured), visual foreshadowing (the shot of The Orca leaving port-viewed through the giant shark jaws in the window of Quint’s shack) and for the psychological as well. He shoots a great deal of the film on the water, but he doesn’t give us the traditional overhead view-no, instead, he constantly puts the camera at water level-essentially putting us in the water with the characters.
If water is a common psychological symbol for the unconscious, Spielberg clearly understands it and exploits our primordial fear of not only the murky depths, but also the monsters that may live in it. Yet, in a way, we love our monsters, for as sociobiologist E.O. Wilson points out, “we’re not just afraid of predators, we’re transfixed by them, prone to weave stories and fables and chatter about them endlessly.” Spielberg knows this, too, and offers up a compelling tale about one of man’s only natural predators (although, current scientific data demonstrates that these sharks aren’t the predators we once thought they were.)-A monster that terrifies us and mesmerizes us…often in the same instance.
Themes and Archetypes
At its core, Jaws is almost a modern day myth-a story about men being men and going off to vanquish a monster. In a way, it’s one part Iron John, one part Arthurian legend. Spielberg takes these archetypes-the grizzled old wise-man, the everyman, and the young man and transports them to the present…then he gives them a dragon to defeat. However, the shark itself isn’t just some simple monster, out there in the water, solely existing for our heroes to vanquish. In fact, you could make a case for the shark being the fourth major cast member of this film. On numerous occasions it acts like a thinking person with an agenda of its own (especially in the later parts of the second and third act, where the shark is chasing the men as much as they’re chasing it). As to just what that agenda is, we’re never really told-but personally, I like the idea of it seeking revenge against Quint…a man who’s made a career out of killing sharks. This notion, whether accurate or not, makes Quint’s demise at the climax of the film seem quite poignant (and again, seems to tie in with Melville’s Moby Dick).
There are many other lesser themes at work in the film, including examinations of the idea that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few (witnessed through the bureaucratic Vaughn’s desire to keep the beaches open despite the danger to swimmers in order to protect the town’s future), and how men must overcome their fears by confronting them (Brody, who’s afraid of the water, must not only go out to sea, but winds up in the water at the climax). Granted, these are fairly simple themes and ideas, but finding them in a summer film makes them stand out even more-and demonstrates that Jaws is actually something of a multi-layered movie.
The Cast
While Spielberg’s direction is fantastic, at least part of Jaws’ success has to be attributed to the film’s cast. Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw all turn in rich, nuanced performances that make their characters come alive.
Each of the cast members does a solid job of portraying the interpersonal tensions that arise while on the boat-be it through the physical action of Hooper crushing his paper cup after Quint squashes his beer can, Brody’s look of contempt and disdain as he assembles the shark cage, or Quint’s obsession manifesting itself physically when he destroys the boat’s radio.
Yet, each character also gets a chance to shine in a one on one confrontation with the enemy as well. Brody overcomes his fear at the climax, becoming a hero as he climbs the sinking ship’s mast to do battle with the shark. Hooper risks his life by making the ultimate sacrifice-going into the water with the shark in the hopes that he can stab it with a poison-filled needle. Quint takes on the beast armed with only a machete-stabbing it repeatedly even as it devours him. These sequences in particular lend more credence to entire male myth angle of the film-each must battle his own demons personified through the shark and the environment, and they allow the cast to shine as well.
The U.S.S. Indianapolis
No review of Jaws would be complete without mentioning Quint’s speech about his time on the U.S.S. Indianapolis-a scene that features what might be the greatest film monologue of all time.
The scene, which takes place at night, inside the ship, starts out as a simple comparing of scars. When Hooper notices a scar on Quint’s arm, he asks what it was-to which Quint replies it was a tattoo he had removed.
Quint then relates the tale of his time on the Indianapolis and how they delivered the Hiroshima bomb, then were torpedoed by a Japanese sub. Quint relates a terrifying tale of how 1,100 men went into the water and only 300 came out five days later when they were rescued-and how the sharks took the rest. It’s an absolutely mesmerizing scene-one of the most unforgettable moments in film history in my opinion.
Over the years, there’s been a lot of conjecture over who exactly created that monologue-and it appears as though it was a group effort. Spielberg asserts that Howard Sackler wrote the first version, which Spielberg liked, but felt was too short. Sackler felt that less was more, and never managed to expand it to Spielberg’s satisfaction. After that, John Milius took a crack at it, turning in pages of dialogue, which Spielberg liked and passed on to Robert Shaw. Shaw felt that the dialogue was too ‘John Huston’, and tweaked it into its final form-which is what you see on the film.
Ba-dum…Ba-dum…Ba-dum
Film composer John Williams won an Oscar for his score for Jaws, and it’s a well-deserved reward. Honestly, this might be the most recognized piece of film music in the world today. The deep bass of the main theme has become almost film cliché for dangerous situations-and every filmgoer immediately sits up and pays attention anytime they hear the piece.
Essentially, Williams found a way to personify the shark through music-with the ominous bass tones rising in intensity as the shark’s frenzy increased on the screen and he got closer to attacking. It’s proof that sometimes the simplest ideas are the best.
However, the entire film isn’t scored with one piece. The rest of the soundtrack to the film is equally impressive, with several lighter numbers punctuating the men’s adventures on the high seas. And while some of the pieces are a bit lighter than I’d prefer, all of the tracks do a splendid job of conveying the mood of the scene they’re used in.
30 years later-or in conclusion
For a film that’s now more than a quarter of a century old, Jaws has aged incredibly well. The story still holds up, remaining just as intense and suspenseful today as it was in 1975. And, even more importantly, Bruce still holds up as well. It’s odd in a way that in this time of breathtaking special FX that an old rubber and pneumatic bladder shark still looks better than the CGI monstrosities in films like Deep Blue Sea.
With Jaws, director Steven Spielberg has done something rare-he’s cut across age, nationality, and demographic lines to create a film that taps into a universal fear-the fear of not knowing what’s in the water with us, and of being devoured. Now, twenty-five years later, you can’t walk onto a beach without hearing someone talking about this film-proof that the movie has transcended being entertainment and become part of our collective consciousness-and proof that we love and need our monsters. Few films have ever given me nightmares…but Jaws has given me recurring ones-ones that I’ve had for well over ten years. How’s that for powerful filmmaking?
In the end, it’s hard to imagine that there’s anyone out there who hasn’t seen this film. However, if you haven’t, then go out now and rent a copy-you’ll never look at the ocean in the same way again…I guarantee it.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws gets nothing less than my highest recommendation. It is essential viewing for everyone who loves movies.
Horror Geek Rating: 5 out of 5
Variety brings us news today about that mini-series adaptation of Stephen King’s newest novel, Under the Dome, that I mentioned last week. Steven Spielberg’s Dreamworks TV has optioned the novel and hopes to release it on cable.
