Director Report Card: Steven Spielberg (1975)

6. Jaws

“Jaws” is the movie that made Steven Spielberg’s career. It was a risk for the studio. A director that had worked mostly in television before was chosen to direct an adaptation of a best selling (if not particularly well-regarded) novel. The production was fraught with problems, going over budget and over schedule. Spielberg was certain the movie was going to end his career. None of this ended up mattering when the film became a monster hit. Lines went around the block, reviews were ecstatic, and Spielberg was hailed as a new master filmmaker. The movie won three Academy Awards. “Jaws” more-or-less invented the modern blockbuster, paving the way for Spielberg’s career as one of the most successful filmmakers of all time. 

However, I didn’t know any of this when I first saw the movie in a friend’s basement at age six. I was so frightened by the film as a kid that, for several months afterwards, I was afraid to take a bath. I was gripped with the fear that a shark could somehow works it way up the drain after me. Many years later, after becoming a budding film nerd, I was prone to naming it as the greatest movie ever made. To this day, few films effect me the way “Jaws” does. Maybe calling it the greatest movie ever made is overstated but it sure is one of my favorites.

Considering what we know about sharks now, the story of “Jaws” might seem unlikely. If it didn’t happen first. When writing the novel, Peter Benchley was inspired by the true story of the 1916 Jersey Shore man-eater. This informed his plot: A small New England town called Amity Island, ready to enjoy a prosperous summer tourist season, is interrupted when a huge Great White shark swims into its bays. The local government wants to ignore the increasingly frequent attacks but Sheriff Martin Brody is on the case. Soon, the aquaphobic sheriff is joined by a shark expert, Hooper, and an old sailor, Quint, in his hunt to stop the animal before it kills anyone else.

One of the many things that makes “Jaws” so effective is how nice the town of Amity Island seems. It is established early on as a pleasant community. Kids still play excitedly in the streets. The local shops are still owned by grandparents. The local sheriff interacts with the town folks personally. There are local eccentrics, like Bad Hat Harry. Everyone is excited to be on the beach during the Fourth of July weekend. Amity is a nice place to live and that fact is right there in the town’s name. This sort of wholesome Americana would become a trademark of Spielberg’s career. In “Jaws,” however, it serves an important purpose. Amity must seem like the perfect small town. It makes us understand the severity of the threat the sharks poses to anyone who steps foot into the water.

Amity is the idyllic town. Except for one thing. The local government puts profits over human lives. The mayor, always dressed in a tacky seersucker suit, reminds Brody repeatedly that the beaches must stay open. In the years following “Jaws,” and in the numerous imitators it inspired, authority figures keeping the beach/park/camp/so forth open in spite of all the deaths would become a hoary cliché. The plot development serves several purposes here. It makes Brody a lone hero, working against the system. It ratchets up the tension. After it claims several victims, we know how dangerous the shark is. Because the beach is threatening to reopen, the heroes have to work faster and harder to stop it before more lives are put at risk. In Benchley’s novel, the Mayor is keeping the beach open because, in a convoluted subplot, he owes money to the mob. In the movie, it’s simply greed, stupidity, and pride that keeps the beaches open. In our current COVID era, authority figures putting the economy before human lives is all the more relevant. 

“Jaws” ultimately revolves around three main characters. The most important of which is Martin Brody. Brody is a family man, devoted to his wife, two sons, and their home. The early scenes of him snuggling with Ellen and playing with his boys establish him as a normal, down-to-earth guy. He’s also an out-of-towner, making his struggle against the Mayor a little more realistic. Despite that, Brody is devoted to Amity and wants to protect it. Even if that means conquering his fear of the ocean. Brody is the best kind of everyman. He has values that anyone can relate to but he’s not generic. Roy Scheider’s personable performance, full of small touches and gentle eccentricities, makes sure of that. Over the course of the film, he even evolves into an unlikely action hero. Brody’s love of family and community is the heart that powers “Jaws.”

The second part of the movie’s power trio is Matt Hooper. Hooper is young, brass, and comes from a wealthy family. He also knows what he’s talking about. He’s properly terrified of the shark. When performing an autopsy on the girl, he grows sick. Because of what he’s seeing but also because anyone who dare suggest this was anything but a shark attack. Richard Dreyfuss’ brings a jangling, nervous quality to his performance. When dissecting a dead shark, his anxiety is evident in his voice. When yelling at the mayor, he trembles with indignation. Despite these qualities, Hooper is never unlikable. In fact, he’s incredibly funny and charming. Part of this is due to Dreyfuss’ unique presence as a star but also because the part is so well suited to his abilities.

The final corner of the film’s triangle is the mysterious Quint. Quint is introduced in a deliberately off-putting manner, dragging his nails across a chalkboard. He is not a man who compromises or plays nice. This is further established when Quint is introduced to Hooper. He hazes the boy, squeezing his hands, all while making demands of the sheriff. The man is unstable yet fascinating. Robert Shaw’s immediately iconic performance makes Quint a man of mystery, misanthropic but undeniably cool. He remains calm when the boat is floating, when lamps are smashing to the wooden floor. He’s also unhinged enough to smash a phone with an axe, preventing contact with the outside world. This is because the fight with the shark is personal for him. There’s no reason to delve deeper into Shaw’s famous Indianapolis speech. It’s a powerful moment of filmmaking, focusing solely on the actor’s face and his words. Though written as an indistinct Ahab figure, Quint becomes something deeper, more likable and intriguing.

However, it can’t be forgotten that “Jaws” is a horror movie. The film begins with a moment that wouldn’t be entirely out of place in the slasher films of the next decade. A pair of teenage lovers run off from the pack. The girl strips down and leaps in the water, the intoxicated guy passing out. What follows is a moment of stark terror. As the shark pulls her down, the girl shivers in shock. She’s thrash back and forth, screaming in agony, before disappearing beneath the wave. The silence of the ocean resumes, the calm seaside ambiance in place once again. Real life has been suddenly interrupted by horror and death before the motion of the world continues.

The shark attacking the little boy is even more intense. A happy day at the beach collapses into terror. We see the child thrash in the water, huge fins spiraling around him, blood pooling into the ocean. The camera focuses on Brody’s panicked face, in an iconic dolly zoom that perfectly captures how shocked and disoriented he feels in that moment. A mother helplessly cries for her lost child. Throughout it all, we never see the shark. Instead, the creature is left off-screen. Though intended as a budget-saving measure, this choice instead turns the shark into more than just an animal. He is a phantom of death, a symbol of the random cruelness of the universe that can strike at any minute.

In time, the shark is revealed. We get a brief glimpse as it slinks under the water, attacking a boater, dropping a severed leg to the seabed. The shark’s true reveal comes during the rightly iconic “bigger boat” moment. That scene establishes how huge the shark is and how much of a problem this will be. We get an even closer look at the creature when it yanks of the ropes cast into the water, pulling barrels along with ease. The slow reveal of the shark builds suspense, while making the animal even more mysterious. There have been complaints over the years that the shark, brought to life through an elaborate and frequently malfunctioning mechanical rig, doesn’t look real. Of course it doesn’t look real. King Kong didn’t look real either. Why should the shark look real anyway? It’s not an ordinary animal. It’s a giant, nearly supernatural beast, far more intelligent then any normal sea-life. The shark’s black eyes reveal its true nature: A ghost, a killing machine, a predator at the top of the food chain, unphased by man’s supposed dominance and determined to undermine it.

The soundtrack for “Jaws” is as well-known as the movie. It is impossible to separate the film from John Williams’ famous music. The deep, foreboding strings suggests the shark’s presence even when its off-screen. It also ramps up the tension, keeping the audience in suspense of what’s to come. The music also suggests the multiple moods of “Jaws.” The score suggests the mysteries of the deep with its wandering, forlorn brass. The maritime bugle powers the adventures on the high sea. Williams’ music does exactly what a score is supposed to: Reinforce everything good about the film while also being a beautiful piece of music on its own.

“Jaws” is primarily a thriller for its first third. As soon as the boys hit the seas, it becomes something else too: An old-fashion, maritime adventure flick. The men grapple with life on the seas. There’s excitement, as the three rush around whirling fishing wires and tightening ropes. There’s humor, when Hooper tries to get a picture of the shark, telling Brody to get into the foreground. There’s thrills, as the barrels tumble into the ocean, suggesting how powerful the shark is. There’s also, unexpectedly, male bounding. All a little liquored up, the three men compare battle scars, thumping legs up on tables, rolling up sleeves and extending arms. They sing sea shanties together. Though they frequently disagree in the heat of battle, these three guys rely on each other. They are, in an odd way, friends. This makes “Jaws” a classic entry into the “dudes bonding” subgenre.

It’s difficult not to see parallels between “Jaws” and Spielberg’s first attempt at a horror film, “Duel.” In both, earthly concepts become objects of supernatural terror. Just as the truck seemingly knew wherever Dennis Weaver would be, the shark is far more intelligent then any ordinary fish. Both films build towards duels between the everyman heroes and the terrible threats. The attempt to pin the shark with even more barrels feels like a literal duel, as do the attempts to drive the creature inland. When Hooper goes down in the cage, a moment of visceral terror, it's almost as if the shark lured him down there. The beginning of the film suggests the shark as more movie monster then normal animal. The last half-hour confirms it.

Befitting a character that great, Quint gets an awesome death scene. Now a pure force of nature, the shark leaps up onto the boat, dragging it down, pulling Quint into its snapping, thrashing jaws of death. Spurting blood and screaming like a madman, Quint goes down fighting. Left on a sinking boat, Brody fully evolves into a superhero of sorts. He faces off against the terrifying leviathan, going eye-to-eye with the killer beast. The ending sounds ludicrous on paper. An exploding oxygen tank taking out the shark is not exactly plausible and neither is Brody’s incredible aim. However, it’s a perfect ending. A force as monstrous as the shark deserves an epic death scene. As the bloody corpse sinks through the wave, one last roar is heard echoing through the waves, befitting a fallen leviathan. 

“Jaws'” influence was immediate. It changed the way movies were distributed, creating the modern distribution model for big studio releases. It's record-breaking success would birth the age of the summer blockbuster, where spectacle-filled genre films are expected to pack houses all around the globe. It also led to a laundry list of vastly inferior animal attack movies, both in the sea and on land, including a few ill-conceived sequels. Despite this, the film has lost none of its power to shock, excite, and impress. Steven Spielberg would go on to make some other great movies but its hard to top the perfection of “Jaws.” Rewatching it, I feel the same effects that I did watching it for the first time as a little boy. Filmmaking this powerful never washes out to sea. [Grade: A+]