Classic Film Review: Jaws

Jaws: Leigh Maddox

Benchley’s novel, although a best seller in both the US and UK, will never be hailed as “high literature”. The story is relatively simple; a coastal town is set upon by an oversized shark at the height of its tourist season. Stuck between his duty to protect the public and pressure from local businesses to keep the beaches open, is New Yorker police chief (and aquaphobe) Martin Brody (Roy Schieder). After a spectacularly bloody shark attack occurs in front of a packed beach Brody, shark expect Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and the piratical, Ahab-esque Quint (Robert Shaw) venture out in his ship, the Orca, to capture and kill the shark once and for all. Full of beans from the recent success of his road thriller Duel, 26-year-old Spielberg cut much of the clutter of Benchley’s original penning and set out to make a film that was a purist exercise in suspense, horror and adventure.

The tension between Benchley and Spielberg was the first of many problems dogging the production team working on Jaws. Filming on a constantly moving sea proved to be a daily nightmare with the environment taking its toll on the crew and the equipment. The actors were not impressed when an accident caused the Orca to sink prematurely and the sound reels were saved before them, Spielberg’s order being “f*ck the actors, save the soundman”. The “great white turd” of a mechanical shark was also notoriously unreliable. Spielberg named it “Bruce” after his lawyer and Dreyfuss was sent half crazy by the constant radio repetition, “the shark is not working”. The locals of Martha’s Vineyard were also unenthusiastic at the sight of a 25 foot shark devouring actors just offshore and understandably so; the plot of Jaws being eerily reminiscent of a serious of shark attacks that occurred in 1916 in not-so-far-away New Jersey.

when an accident caused the Orca to sink prematurely the sound reels were saved before the actors, Spielberg’s order being “f*ck the actors, save the soundman”

The similarities between Jaws and the 1916 attacks is helpful in understanding how the film works at producing its suspense. In the collective conscious of the ‘70s, the shark was an almost absent intruder and a quick look at the facts can tell you why: Sharks are responsible for around 50 deaths a year worldwide, they inhabit only 30% of the ocean and most (such as the great white) are endangered. The chances of ever meeting a shark, particularly of the coast of North East America, are astronomically slim and yet not entirely impossible. This position on the periphery of plausibility is worked up in Jaws until it inversely becomes an inevitability. Helped by John Williams’ signature “duh-dum” theme, Spielberg applies a suspenseful grip on the audience that cultivates paranoia in what is not seen. It’s a filming ethos that is incredible effective, transmuting a fear of something deadly but ultimately alien into the familiar and everyday guise of the sea. Brody’s aqauphobia is a perfect vehicle for this. Initially his fear is sketched as the paranoia of an over-bearing father, but later, when the shark begins to chow down, his fears are justified and the boundaries between real and imagined fear are completely deconstructed.

The main bulk of Jaws is dominated by pinpoint suspense; Spielberg conditions the audience, only to buck the trend and introduce a jump when you least expect it. But there is another side to Jaws. There are comic as well as touching moments throughout the film; a script that allowed much room for ad-lib, as well as the use of local people to populate the movie, gives the film a real emotional and human dimension. Schieder, Dreyfuss and Shaw, although playing extremely opposing characters, portray a convincing camaraderie throughout the film, united in their duel with the shark.

Jaws has laudably stood the test of time. It still shines out against more recent CG-enhanced creature features, particularly Deep Blue Sea and Lake Placid, purely because it substitutes visuality for pure story telling. To be a bit picky, some may find the adventurous Moby Dick-like third act a little too juxtaposing to the suspense ridden first half. There's also no getting away from the fact that Jaws introduced the concept of the “blockbuster” into the film industry (it was the first film to exceed $100M profit), arguably and ironically killing off the maverick film making tradition that Spielberg hailed from. Ultimately however, as a pure piece of cinema Jaws is undeniably great and you'll undoubtedly be feeling its effect next time you venture into the water.