Dr Lenera
Posts: 3471
Joined: 19/10/2005
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A young woman named Chrissie Watkins leaves an evening beach party on New England’s Amity Island to go skinny dipping in the sea, only to be killed by something that may be a shark. Amity’s police chief Martin Brody, who is scared of the water anyway, wants to close the beaches but is overruled by Mayor Larry Vaughan, who fears that reports of a shark attack will ruin the summer tourist season, the town’s primary source of income. The medical examiner consequently attributes the death to a boating accident and Brody reluctantly goes along with the explanation. A short time later, a boy is killed by a shark at the beach. The boy’s mother places a bounty on the shark, sparking an amateur shark-hunting frenzy and attracting the attention of local professional shark hunter Quint. Marine biologist Matt Hooper examines Chrissie’s remains and determines that she was unquestionably killed by a shark………
I will never forget the first time I saw Jaws [1974]. It was late 1978, and my mother and stepfather had just seen Jaws 2. As Jaws 2 was deemed not too scary, they decided to take me to a re-release of the first movie. It was only the second film I had seen at the cinema and I was on edge throughout, except for the moment I jumped out of my seat and screamed out loud at the shock cut to the head of the dead man underwater. You have to remember that I hadn’t seen many films of any kind up to then, and certainly none of an even slight horror element. Nonetheless, it remains one of the most memorable times in my cinema-going history and I can remember bits of it like yesterday. Jaws is one of those films that seems to be remembered with almost total fondness. Even though there had been many ‘mega-hits’ before, Jaws is regarded as the first modern-style blockbuster, with mass marketing supporting an easily digestable ‘high concept’. It’s also regarded as still one of the best, and for once I just about agree with the majority view. I say ‘just about’, because for me Steven Spielberg’s best work is Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, his ultimate masterpiece. Nonetheless, I don’t think he never quite matched neither that movie nor Jaws, and there is no doubt that Jaws is one of those films that is hard to find flaws in. It has that elusive magic that every now and again will touch a film and make it more than the sum of its parts. And it’s certainly the best possible picture you could make from the concept of ‘shark eats people and men hunt it’.
Jaws originated as a novel by Peter Benchley, who wrote three drafts, each one removing more ‘fat’ from the book, most notably Hooper having an affair with Brody’s wife. It was Carl Gottlieb who became the primary screenwriter though various contributions came from others all throughout production. In fact Richard Dreyfuss, who played Hooper, stated; “we started the film without a script, without a cast, and without a shark”, summing up the haphazard way in which the film was made. The shoot went way over budget, way over time [planned shooting period was 55 days, actual shooting period was 159 days], and problems of every conceivable kind occurred, from sinking boats to Dreyfuss being trapped in the underwater cage to Robert Shaw getting blind drunk at every opportunity. Most notably, the mechanical sharks kept malfunctioning, forcing Spielberg to show the creature far less than he intended. This probably helped the film. Still, on average, only four hours out of a twelve hour day were normally spent actually filming.
Rumours persist that the initial cut was a boring mess and the film was rescued by Verna Fields in the editing room, though the deleted scenes that survive are mostly pointless and uninteresting extentions of existing scenes [though Shaw has a nice little scene in a fisherman’s shop]. A version which was six minutes longer was shown on US TV with these scenes put back in. Spielberg was happy he had one huge ‘scream’ moment at the eighty minute mark when the shark jumps out of the water, but wanted another, so he added that head in the water which made me jump those many years ago. Interestingly, test results showed that the shark moment was less effective second time round, because people had already had one ‘scream’ , and were more ready for another one. An interesting example of both the attitudes and often the results of modern ‘blockbuster’ filmmaking which continues to this day. Still, Jaws was a phenomena, though its success wasn’t entirely beneficial. Sharks, especially great whites, began to be hunted and killed off in far greater numbers than before.
Viewing Jaws again, it seems odd that so few films before it, or at least few films of much quality, had exploited the sheer terrifying aspects of a shark, because it seems so obvious. The fin in the water, the fact they make virtually no noise, the simply evil face which looks like it was designed to kill, those soulless eyes; they are incredibly scary. The first half of Jaws alternates shark attack scenes, often shot from the shark’s point of view, with slower, more talky sequences. Of course the opening scene, which is [probably deliberately] reminiscent of The Creature From The Black Lagoon in the slightly sexual way the victim’s swim is shot, is superb, but for me it’s beaten by the scene a bit later on the beach where, for what seems like an eternity, we see the people playing, and we see Brody looking out to the sea for any signs of the shark. The camera often keeps a cool distance, and yet the almost casual suspense is incredible, comparable I think to Gary Grant on the highway in North By Northwest. There’s a superb little bit of business where people pass Brody and each time his face is closer to the camera, visualizing his emotions. You actually want something horrid to happen, to see a glimmer of a fin in the seat, to hear a scream, but of course don’t want it at the same time. When it finally occurs, Brody’s feeling is shown by the camera zooming on Brody while the background zooms out at the same time, a trick borrowed from Vertigo [well, Hitchcock is evoked throughout the film].
The whole thing about trying to stop people going into the water by closing the beach, though commenting on the arrogance, greed and insensitivity of political figures in the shape of Mayor Larry Vaughn, is actually a bit silly and pointless; surely it would be easier just to tell them there is a shark out there? You could also maybe say that Jaws is a little too heavy on the chit-chat compared to what it would be today. I could maybe have done with a little less footage of people massing about on the harbour, but I like the way the camera often stays far away, like an observer. Watching one scene of some people crossing the harbour on a boat, I kept thinking how differently said scene would be shot now, with lots of cross-cutting and close-ups, and how it wouldn’t have made it any better. The way the dialogue is messy and often barely audible, with people trying to say things at the same time, helps give proceedings a kind of realism, and ‘character’ scenes which would probably be cut if the film was made today, constantly remind us that Jaws is for adults. Yes, kids, if they’re brave enough, get enough shark thrills to take them through the ‘boring’ bits, but first and foremost it is an adult film. It doesn’t talk down to its audience, it never feels it has to ‘dumb down’, yet neither does it give in to sentimentality. The silent scene where Brody’s son copies what he does at the table is one of the most touching scenes between a father and a child in cinema, and yet it’s low-key, almost casual.
That was actually improvised, as were some other great moments like the “we’re gonna need a bigger boat” line and the aftermath of the famous ‘Indianapolis’ speech, Jaws’s most famous dialogue scene, on the boat where he, Hooper and Brody are hunting the shark. Quint describes how he was on a ship which was sunk and most of the crew were eaten by sharks [actually a true event, and something that would make a great film in its own right]. The writing of the scene is a source of controversy, with it usually being attributed to John Milius, but with several others taking claim for it, including Robert Shaw himself. Whatever, it’s brilliantly delivered by Shaw who shows what a fine and underused actor he was, though there are other parts of that whole sequence I love more, like Quint and Hooper comparing injuries [how many times has this been copied and parodied?], and Hooper crushing his Styrofoam cup in response to Quint crushing his beer can. I almost wish there had been even more time spent with these three guys, alone on the boat.
However, there is a shark to catch, and the second half, though set mostly on the boat, still delivers all the thrills and spills you want. Hooper in the underwater cage is still a hair-raising sequence and all the more so for being mainly shot with a stuntman and a real shark. I will admit that, towards the end, where ‘Bruce’ [as they called him, though others were used too], the mechanical shark, is shown, the result is not too convincing, but, you know what, I doubt it would look much better if done with CGI, which, as I’ve said in previous reviews, often looks very fake indeed to me. The brief gore effects such as Quint’s leg being bitten into as he is eaten and an arm floating in the water still look fine, which brings me to the question of how the hell this film got a ‘PG’? It would soon become a normal thing for Spielberg to get material into a ‘PG’ which other directors wouldn’t have a hope in hell of doing. Interestingly it is now a ‘12A’ for its re-release, a rare occasion where I agree with the BBFC!
The three main stars play their parts brilliantly; Roy Scheider as a quintessential, Hitchcockian everyman caught up in terror, Dreyfuss as a scientist who is not at all nerdy or self-righteous, and Shaw as a modern day Captain Ahab in a film that could almost be called Moby Dick meets An Enemy Of The People, though that of course is doing it an injustice! Of course I cannot finish this review without mentioning John Williams’s iconic music, with its menacing two note theme that Spielberg initially rejected, but the whole score is a masterpiece, ranging from low-range, menacing atonality to jaunty sea shanty-type music which, far from being out of place, enhances the optimistic feel of the film. This film is already full of the Spielberg trademarks but has a maturity about it that actually makes it seem like a film he would make in his later years, not his earlier ones. My personal view about Jaws is that it is just a notch or two below being one of the greatest films, and yet, as I said above, I cannot really think how it could have been better.
ORDER OF SERIES IN TERMS OF QUALITY
1/ Jaws Rating: 9.5/10
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check out more of my reviews on http://horrorcultfilms.co.uk/
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RE: WEIRD/STRANGE favorite movies fan base? - 
Now out totally remastered,and on Blu-Ray,this film has finally got the treatment it deserves,and sound and picture on this new re-release has never been better,of this film based on the best-selling novel of Peter Benchley.Steven Spielberg directed this thrill ride of terror,way back when he was cutting his teeth as a director.And as most of us film fans know,Jaws was more than a wee bit popular when it was released,in fact it was the highest grossing film of 1975. It spawned three sequels, which were all inferior,and a bunch of films about Sharks and killer fish over the past few decades,but none have been able to come close to the level of terror Jaws gave to us.For me it is one of the great Monster films of all time,and was not only a summer blockbuster action/drama,but a good old fashion horror film,we great slow build ups of terror,and then the jump out of your seat/wet your pants moments. 
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