For this year’s shark week special, we’ll start off with the biggest fish of them all, the ultimate shark horror movie. The one and only movie that scared people away from the beaches and even lakes and swimming pools (!). It scared the bejeezus out of a lot of people, and some even carries that galeophobia to this day. Yes, we’re of course talking about Jaws from 1975, an instant classic when it came and still remains one, directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the 1974 novel by Peter Benchley. While Psycho made people afraid of showers, Jaws made people afraid of the ocean.
The story starts off in the New England beach town of Amity Island, and we are presented with the first kill almost immediately. A group of young people are partying at the beach, and one of the girls decide to go for a late night swim, while her too intoxicated boyfriend drunkenly collapses and passes out in the sand before being able to join her. Lucky for him, as we soon see her pulled underwater and dragged around like a ragdoll. By what, we don’t see, but of course we have a hunch. Next morning, her partial remains are found washed up on the beach, and when the coroner concludes that this is caused by a shark attack, police chief Martin Brody wants to close the beaches for people’s safety. But, oh no…that won’t do, since the town’s summer economy would suffer! Mayor Larry Vaughn won’t have any of such nonsense, of course. So what happens next is that everything is swept under the rug, no shark here, false alarm, fake news, probably a boating accident. Then the young boy Alex Kintner is killed at a crowded beach, where everyone gets the pleasure or watching nature’s brutality at its finest. And now, of course, it’s time to take it seriously enough to put a bounty on the shark, causing a full-frenzied amateur shark hunting by the local fishermen. Soon afterwards, some of them catches a tiger shark, and the Mayor once again declares the beaches safe. Ding-Dong, the shark is dead! Or maybe not. Slicing it open, there are no human remains inside its stomach. It’s also not as big as the presumed culprit should be, which is more likely to be a great white shark of the much larger kind.
And yes, much of the plot’s key points have been copied, referenced, and parodized numerous times over the years: a giant killer shark (or other creature) plus a town not wanting to take it seriously because of tourist money and local traditions, or something similar. It’s a no-brainer that a movie’s huge success will always make people try to copy it, and there’s no doubt that Jaws has inspired numerous shark and creature feature movies, and continues to do so, because there’s just so much it got right. One of those things include Spielberg’s decision to use lesser known actors. He said that actors who were more anonymous would help the audience find it more believable, as “stars bring a lot of memories along with them, and those memories can sometimes … corrupt the story“. True words. Besides, we all know that the real star here is the shark anyway, so…
Originally, this was actually not meant to be a Steven Spielberg film at all. John Sturges was first considered as director, then it went to Dick Richards instead, but he was dropped from the project. One of the reasons was apparently that he had a habit of describing the shark as a whale…I guess he mistook it for a Moby Dick story. Steven Spielberg became aware of the position and really, really wanted the job, and it all ended with the producers signing him to direct. The producers actually also wanted to train a great white shark for the movie. Uh…yeah, nope. Of course that was not possible, so that’s where “Bruce“ came into the works, which were three full-size pneumantically powered prop sharks. And the film crew nicknamed the shark props after Spielberg’s lawyer Bruce Ramer. Fun spin on the old phrase “all lawyers are sharks”.
The movie was shot mostly on location at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. It was also the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean, and yeah…the production was troubled where both the budget and schedules went to shit. To top it all, the main star of the movie, Bruce himself (the mechanical shark) malfunctioned all the time, causing Spielberg to focus more on the shark’s ominous presence than showing it very often. Which may very well have been art by accident, as this movie is definitely an excellent example of how less is more when it comes to showing off the “monster“. Add to it the excellent theme by John Williams, which has become so iconic you’ve probably heard it even if you haven’t seen the movie, and you’ve got the shark’s threatening presence in just a minimalist theme song. That’s no small feat. And despite being a movie that doesn’t show the “monster“ all too often, it doesn’t drown in loads of unnecessary subplots or character interaction that doesn’t drive the story further (which can be an issue in some creature features). The pacing is really good, there’s a constant sinister vibe overlaying the movie due to the shark’s elusive presence. And of course, we have some kill scenes which are really well done.
I’ll admit, Jaws holds a special place in my heart as one of the very first movies to actually scare me. Like, literally. I saw it at a very young age, and as someone growing up in a coastal town where boat life and spending time nearby the ocean and fishing during the summer was a way of my normal everyday life, the idea of a giant shark prowling underneath the waves literally scared the piss out of me. Most of the other horror movies I’d seen was too fantastical and removed from reality to really give me any “but what if“ impact. And while there aren’t even any great whites here in Norway, and the only shark species that roam the Norwegian waters are no threat to humans, it still instilled a deep-rooted fear in me which persisted. At the same time I also got fascinated by sharks, and I already had a love and fascination for ideas of sea monsters and the like, so overall I guess you can say that the movie kind of got me hooked.
If there is one downside with this movie, it’s how the public perception of sharks turned very negative, causing wide-spread trophy fishing and “revenge hunts“. I’d say that this is a people problem, not a movie problem though…both Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg expressed regret over how the movie caused such an impact on the real-world shark population. That being said, shark populations have also suffered from industrial overfishing and the shark fin trade. Humans will always remain the most dangerous creature, no matter what.
Jaws was the highest grossing film in history until the release of Star Wars two years later, and in 2001 the Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the US National Film Registry. While there’s a huge ocean of shark movies out there, Jaws still takes the biggest and sharpest bite compared to all of them.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb
Country & year: USA, 1975
Actors: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Carl Gottlieb, Jeffrey Kramer, Susan Backlinie, Jonathan Filley, Ted Grossman, Chris Rebello
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073195/
