JAWS (1975) — Where it All Started
It has been said that Steven Spielberg’s favorite audience reaction to JAWS (1975) was when Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) chucks the bloody fish off the boat and into the water, making wise-ass remarks while doing so, only to turn around and see the shark’s head pop out of the water. As the story goes, Spielberg would sit in the back of the theaters and watch the audience when this moment happened. Everyone would go from laughing at Brody’s swearing to screaming at the first visible sight of the shark’s face. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” Brody says to Quint (Robert Shaw), and with that, the real adventure begins. In this one moment, Spielberg epitomizes the magic of his moviemaking: laughs, thrills, and the journey.
With the summer movie season starting in 2023, it only seems fitting to go back to where it all began 50 years ago in 1973, when producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown purchased the rights to the Peter Benchley novel before it was even on the shelves. A young 26-year-old Spielberg was fresh off the heels of his TV film Duel (1971) and was making his directorial debut in theaters with The Sugarland Express (1974), and yet was not the first candidate to direct this film. As history has shown us, it was the right call, and Spielberg would go on to be the name most synonymous with the movies for the next 50 years. The summer movie season owes everything to this one.
What’s most fascinating about that statement when watching JAWS today is that, in comparison to blockbusters that would define the genre for the next five decades, this film is very minimal. One-half of the reason for this approach is intentional, with Spielberg agreeing to direct under the condition that the shark not be seen for the first half of the film, and the other half unintentional as the mechanical sharks kept breaking down and forced them to improvise. Whether planned in advance or improvised on the spot, Spielberg proved his artistic instincts valuable, especially when under pressure. As such, JAWS is one of the most effective thrillers of all time because instead of blowing its load, the film patiently takes its time and allows us to be grounded in the lives of its characters before heading out to sea.
One of the film’s tricks with editing can be felt in the opening shark attack. The girl swims out into the ocean under the sunset, and the Great White begins to attack her. Intersected between these frightening images of the girl being attacked with a grisly sound design to accompany it are shots of her drunk boyfriend passed out on the beach. With more shark attacks, the film again utilizes this cutaway trick to show ordinary people oblivious to the horror around them. Notice when the shark attacks for the fourth time in the pond the way the camera fixates on Brody’s youngest son on the beach as the shark submerges into the water in the background, then during the attack how the film suddenly cuts from a man being eaten alive to girls sunbathing on the beach, then it cuts right back to the attack and a severed leg falling to the ocean floor. Think back to the opening attack; the girl gets dragged into the water, and the calm and quiet sets in. What the film illustrates to us is the horror lurking beneath the surface of our seemingly peaceful lives.
The attacks are in due time, however, as the film patiently focuses on the people. Not many blockbusters have the bravery to hold on to the slow and intimate moments like this film, making it all the more fascinating to watch with new eyes. At the heart of this is the newly instated chief, Martin Brody, and his family, who’ve just moved here from New York. He looks out the window to check on his kids in the yard, and his wife reminds him, “In Amity, they say, ‘yad.’ [yard]” He says, “They’re in the ‘yad,’ not too ‘fa,’ [far] from the ‘ca’ [car],” as he gets up and starts his day. Just like that, we are given a wholesome family dynamic; outsiders who are ever so slightly out of their element.
Upon learning of a shark attack, Brody wastes no time to close the beaches and protect the people but is persuaded not to by Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), who goes as far as to change the ruling of death. This, of course, leads to another shark attack and a town frenzy to capture and kill the Great White. This leads to a painful moment later on when the mother slaps and confronts Brody about her dead son. Brody is at fault for this boy’s death and knows nothing he can do will bring him back. After this low point, he’s back home and sits at the dinner table; he takes a drink, buries his face in his hands, and clearly feels stressed but notices his little boy mimicking everything he does. He asks his son to give him a kiss because he needs it, and he most certainly does. More importantly, we need this moment because we need to know the heart that lives within the Brody family and what’s at stake. This is a quiet moment that says a lot about the Brody’s without literally saying anything.
The first half of the film is occupied by the community of Amity Island, who are all but useless in the grand scheme of things in terms of the problem that must be dealt with. Mayor Vaughn is too wrapped up in the economic ramifications of closing the beaches to consider the urgency of the situation, one of Spielberg’s playful jabs at the uselessness of our politicians. The only useful people are the outsiders, Brody and oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss). The introduction of Hooper’s character into the proceedings, where he examines the dead girl’s body, is a standout, thanks in no small part to Dreyfuss’s tense acting. He reports the autopsy of the girl but breaks his report with snaps towards Brody and the coroner: “This was not a boat accident! It wasn’t any propeller! It wasn’t any coral reef! And it wasn’t Jack the Ripper! It was a shark,” he says as the coroner holds his head down in shame and Brody looks on in anguish.
The second half of the film shrinks down onto the Orca with the trio of Brody, Hooper, and Quint out on the sea, as it should. The screenplay was tightly written so that nothing gets tangled within the narrative thread: characters are introduced, motivations are clear, and the film punctuates who these people are with precise exchanges of words. The peak of this comes during the main voyage when Brody, Hooper, and Quint get drunk and begin conversing. This is the favorite scene for many people, Spielberg included, because of its range of character depth. It starts as cutesy drunk as the men show their scars, with Hooper showing the biggest scar of all as he points to his heart, “Mary Ellen Moffit, she broke my heart.” Then it takes a chilling turn as Quint tells of his experience on the USS Indianapolis. The monologue Shaw delivers has folklore surrounding it, as there is much debate about who wrote it and how much was improvised. One thing that is clear is that Shaw’s delivery of this story is riveting, and a drastic shift takes place because of it. Brody and Hooper are in awe, and the story draws the three men together. Notice how when the scene starts, the three are isolated in their own parts of the room, with the camera fixating on one at a time. By the end, they’re together at the table and singing, and with that, the climax begins.
Of course, there’s another character who’s equally as essential in all of this, the shark. The genius of the shark is how it’s never seen, but we feel its presence throughout the entire film. Part of this is, of course, the score by John Williams with its sinister two notes that Williams described as “grinding away at you, just as a shark would do, instinctual, relentless, unstoppable.” What many people tend to forget about the score is that it’s not a shrieker in the same way as a jump scare but is more of an escalating sense of danger. The horror quality of Williams’ score should not deter anyone from forgetting the calming and adventurous qualities throughout the film. Think of the peaceful harps that convey the soothing vibes of the ocean in the early parts or the swashbuckling nature of the Orca theme when the men are out at sea. With those two notes lingering beneath, there is a sense of danger swimming in the murky depths beneath the tranquility or excitement — complimenting the visual language Spielberg creates.
Other parts of the shark’s presence are the underwater POV shots and the use of objects to signal its presence. Much of these items, whether it be the dock of the two men who go shark hunting late at night or the yellow barrels, were improvised by the film crew when plans went array but turned into happy accidents. As the old saying goes, what we don’t see is a lot scarier than what we do see. Spielberg concocts so much within our imaginations throughout the build-up of the shark that once we finally see it in all its glory, its menacing presence doesn’t deteriorate in our eyes. If anything, the thrills keep building to an ultimate resolution.
JAWS was Spielberg’s breakthrough, and the rest, as they say, is history. As Spielberg went along in his career and grew older, he seemed to relinquish many of the killer instincts he had in his early adventure films that featured blood and grit, which makes them even more eye-catching. As a piece of film history, it’s impossible to overstate the influence JAWS continues to have. Nearly 50 years removed from its release, it still contains all the thrills and excitement we want and has gained even more resonance over time. These qualities are apparent because Spielberg knew how to pull us along with an adventure, scare us, tug at our heartstrings, and turn any of us into a smiling son of a…