Jaws turns 45: 10 Non-Shark Reasons You’re Missing Out By Not Seeing This All-Time Flick

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4 years ago

It’s come to my attention that some of you haven’t seen Jaws. Look, I get it, sometimes it’s weird to watch a movie that came out before you were born, but you are really missing out here. Hell, it came out a few years before I was born and it’s still one of my “all time top X movies.” I have a hard time with declaring favorites.

Jaws was released 45 years ago today and it remains one of the best movies ever put on film. And I watch pretty much everything, so you can trust me when I say that. Watch Jaws this weekend, thank me on Monday. It’s not like there’s anything else to do, why not finally check out one of the best movies ever made?

This is a stone-cold lock of a great way to spend two hours and ten minutes of your time. Plus, if the world really ends tomorrow, do you really want to go out not having seen Jaws? That would be about as bad as my buddy Lou, who would be going out not having seen Ghostbusters.

Not the Movie You’re Expecting

If you’ve never seen it, I can pretty much promise you this isn’t the movie you think it is. Everyone expects that this is a big thriller or a monster movie about a giant shark terrorizing a summer town. It’s not that movie by a long-shot. It’s also not some classic relic from the 1940s, we’re talking about a Spielberg flick here. Sure it was one of his first, but it’s quite possibly also still his best, and every moment holds up to modern viewing. This is a film with an enormous difference on modern high-definition widescreen televisions as well, so if the last time you saw it was on an old “tube” T.V. you should re-visit this gorgeously shot flick in it’s intended scale and quality.

Steven Spielberg lying in the mouth of Bruce the Shark on the set of Jaws. https://t.co/lm73I6vngR pic.twitter.com/3TRpUnlMAN

— This Is Not Porn (@Thisisnotporn) May 25, 2018

Not only do we have a young Spielberg just starting to flex his cinematic muscles and literally inventing techniques on the fly, the movie itself is a pitch-perfect character journey and very much a dialogue-driven film. There’s just not that much shark, which is the biggest misconception about Jaws.

Would it surprise you to hear that the shark is on screen for a total of four minutes in the entire movie? And that we don’t even actually see a shark for more than the first half of the movie? The shark is presented instead as a sense of creeping dread, lurking unseen just beneath the waves, terrorizing the community. If you have to categorize Jaws as a horror film – which is a mistake – it has more in common with slasher films like Halloween than anything else in the genre.

It’s just not a monster movie the way people expect. Whether it would have been that monster movie if Spielberg had gotten everything he wanted from Bruce, the uncooperative mechanical special effects shark, is debatable; sometimes fate intervenes in just the right ways. Bruce the fake shark failed in every way during filming, even sinking to the bottom of the ocean at one point. This forced Spielberg to abandon the creature-feature he was planning, focusing instead on the characters and their interactions. Sometimes a part of true genius is the ability to stumble ass-backward into it.

Remember like 10 or so years ago when paper books were still a thing and it seemed like every commuter and everyone on the beach was reading one of those “The Girl in the…” novels? In the summer of 1974 author Peter Benchley’s Jaws was that book.

Benchley’s novel – and his subsequent screenplay which was later polished by Carl Gottleib – drew inspiration from stories he’d heard of New England shark fishermen, as well as from the real-life Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916, where four people were killed and one critically injured along the Jersey Shore over the first two weeks of July, peak season in the tourist towns. The attacks and subsequent panic eventually resulted in the U.S. Congress offering a cash reward for the eradication of the shark threat, and president Woodrow Wilson convening a cabinet meeting to discuss the issue. The reliance of shore towns on the tourist dollars for their existence, and the desperate lengths to which local officials are sometimes willing to go is a big theme in the first half of the story.

The book came in different covers with hilariously different looking sharks. One of these guys definitely wants to eat that swimmer, the other one might just be here to… make friends. I’m not even sure that is a shark.

The rights to the massive breakout hit had been purchased prior to publication, and the film was made and released on screens the very next year, catching some of the novel’s wind in its sails and becoming the first true summer blockbuster.

Citing the box office dollars looks silly after this much inflation, but Jaws set both the record for release-weekend box office ($7 million) and 10-day box office ($21 million) which would be broken two years later by Star Wars. The film was one of the first to be aggressively marketed in a national campaign and became the prototype for blockbusters as we know them today.

The movie stayed in theaters for most of the summer, ultimately selling an estimated 128 million tickets. Adjusted for inflation that’s a $1.15 billion blockbuster summer. The ticket total itself is impressive as well; considering the population of the country was 216 million at the time, Jaws may be the thing on which Americans have been the most united in our entire history.

The interesting thing about watching this movie in our current climate – it’s been on one of the movie channels in regular rotation and I will leave it on literally any time I stumble on it, I’ve probably seen parts of it 10 times during the pandemic alone – a lot of what goes on in the first hour and a half of the movie can be read as commentary on a decision scarily similar to what we’re facing in the country today.

Does Amity keep the beaches open to collect the sweet tourist dollars that nourish the beach town’s economy, or do they do the smart thing and close things down in the face of imminent death? Do we open our country up for those economic (and re-election, make no mistake) dollars, or do the smart thing and continue staying home and practicing social distancing? It’s not a huge leap to view a lot of the movie through the prism of a commentary on the failures of government.

Shark hunting on the open ocean probably also makes a solid example in the “asking the police to do too many things they’re not supposed to do” case. There’s only one type of shark our police should have to concern themselves with…

SNL’s classic “Land Shark” sketch is from 1975 and was a direct parody of Jaws. The film was an absolute sensation. It made Steven Spielberg a star director and was nominated for Best Picture at that year’s Academy Awards. Jaws would ultimately win three Oscars for Best Film Editing, Best Original Dramatic Score, and Best Sound, losing out on Best Picture to Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in an absolutely loaded field that also included Sidney Lumet’s Dog Day Afternoon, Robert Altman’s Nashville and Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. Speilberg would famously resent not getting nominated with those four peers for Best Director, losing the spot to legendary Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini, in something of a lifetime achievement nod.

Jaws is a cultural touchstone and a triumph of film-making. It deserves your attention and two-hours of your time. This isn’t a silly Sharknado with a barely coherent plot, it isn’t Deep Blue Sea and it’s re-watchable pulp either. And the last thing it is would be anything like any of its atrocious sequels. Those are the garbage blockbuster popcorn movies that you’re mistaken in thinking the original Jaws is.

Jaws is a quiet, pensive, meaningful movie with expertly drawn characters, bold original execution and, at times, a killer shark. It is perfectly plotted, paced and acted, everyone in this film is at the absolute peak of their powers. You should watch it as soon as possible.

The “Mayor of Shark City” and His Incredible Blazer

Mayor Vaughn is one of the movie’s superstar role players. He comes into every scene throwing 100 MPH heat, but perhaps no more so than when he’s staunchly defending his decision to keep the town’s beaches open. Based on his famous choice of suits, this is a man comfortable with all of his decisions in life, not just those that lead to tourists violently entering the food chain. How can you ignore the input of a man who chooses to wear a wool blazer and an overcoat on Memorial Day Weekend?

The Unsolved Roving Local Karate Gang Subplot

What if I told you there was an unresolved subplot in Jaws involving the police trying to capture a roving band of karate enthusiasts? In an early scene in the film we hear the Chief get information that the gang (of child karate students) has been “karate-ing” the town’s fences. In a later scene we witness some of the destruction first hand. With the Chief’s focus on the sea, no one is watching the land. That’s when the karate gangs strike.

That John Williams Score

You can hear it in your head right now whether you’ve seen this movie or not. After you see the movie you’ll also hear it in your head every time you go in the ocean. Enjoy.

Pipit

Steven Spielberg is a ballsy filmmaker, but there are some things that we all know just don’t happen to dogs in movies…

… right? “Pipit? Pipit?!”

Brody’s Epic Glass of Wine

Jaws is subtly one of the best drinking scene movies of all time. Between this kitchen table chat at the Brody house where the Chief pours himself a pint-glass full of wine, the guys trying to catch the shark from a dock with a roast on a chain, and an all-time scene we’ll get to in a minute, either Peter Benchley or screenwriter Carl Gottlieb sure knew his drunk talk.

The Orca and the Protagonist’s Boat Decision Making

About halfway through the movie we see Hooper’s boat (the one with the lights). The rich kid shark expert has all the bells and whistles as well as what looks like a nice cabin area on his fancy modern fiberglass boat.

When they set out after the shark, they choose the old wooden Orca over Hooper’s boat, because hunting a 25-foot man-eating shark isn’t challenging if your boat isn’t made of Popsicle sticks. This becomes important as the third act goes on, and the Orca is as much a character in Jaws as the shark or any of the humans. I’ve always considered the Orca and the Millennium Falcon to be kindred spirits in a way.

Robert Shaw Was a Hard Living Madman

The film’s three central protagonists each bring something different to the table. Chief Brody is the cautious fearful character who is our primary point of view. Hooper is young, brash and somewhat cocky, but also smart and capable. And Quint is the obsessed Captain Ahab-inspired lunatic driven to the brink. Despite not being among the first choices for the role, Robert Shaw delivered an all-time performance, and it’s impossible to picture anyone but the hard-living Englishman in the part.

For the first takes of the iconic cabin drinking scene Shaw decided that if the characters were supposed to be drunk it would only make sense that he should be blind drunk filming the scene. They would re-shoot the next day with a sober Shaw absolutely nailing one of the greatest monologues in movie history. A monologue to which the part-time novelist and playwright contributed a critical uncredited re-write.

The actor would tragically die only three years after the release of the film. His son, actor Ian Shaw, told The Guardian that “Our family tends to view my father’s performance as being in some ways the most like him in real life, especially when he’s being cheeky or funny.”

This man was 47 when they filmed Jaws in 1974. It’s ludicrous how differently people age today, hard living or no.

Quint’s toasts in the drinking scenes: “Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women” and “Here’s to Mary-Lee, died at the age of a hundred and three, for sixteen years she kept her virginity, not a bad record for this vicinity.” are bawdy classics. And you can’t help but love the crazy old salt when he leads the group in a chorus of Spanish Ladies an old British sailor song.

“Hoooooopahhh”

The way Robert Shaw’s Quint and Richard Dreyfuss’ relationship is depicted in this movie is perfect. Quint’s journey from disdain to esteem and begrudging respect for the younger character can be heard in how long he spends stretching the name Hooper out for three or four extra beats and adding the New England to the end. From the beverage crushing showdown to some face making to Hooper’s “Aye, aye, cap’n, Arrrr!” open mockery, a good chunk of the humor and heart in the movie’s second act comes out of this relationship.

Stories go around about Dreyfuss and Shaw feuding during the filming of Jaws, but as Dreyfuss himself put it at last year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival

“It’s clearly not true, and where that started I don’t know, but trust me, Robert Shaw wouldn’t countenance that idea of a feud, forget it. I don’t know how to hold a grudge. I lost my sense of humor for one afternoon, that’s not a feud, it was very simply he had my number.

“He was walking down the gangplank holding a drink in his hand and said, ‘Richard, help me out here.’ I said, ‘Do you really want my help?’ He said he did and I took his drink and I threw it in the water.

“Every drinker on that crew went ‘ooooh’ and then he got his revenge by taking the fire hose and pointing it at my face. I lost my sense of humor and that lasted about an hour.”

Dreyfuss would go on to tell the crowd that he and Shaw were actually tight, recounting a story of the first day on set when he knocked on the veteran actor’s door “He opened and I said, ‘Your Claudius was the greatest Claudius ever, it justified the entire play.’ And he said, ‘C’mon in here and have a drink.’ We bonded like crazy.”

Seriously every story about this movie getting made seems to involve drinking.

“I’ll Drink to Your Leg” One of the Greatest Scenes Ever Filmed

The iconic overnight cabin scene is possibly my favorite segment of any movie. The bonding between our three protagonists, Hooper and Quint sharing scars, Brody’s quiet reserve and Quint’s untouchable U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue; it’s just difficult to find a better ten minutes of movie anywhere.

Outside of minor quibbles with some date accuracy, the scene is unassailable in its cinematic perfection and is a masterful lead-in to the film’s third act and ultimate showdown. I’m not giving you the link to the scene so you can cheat and just watch that one part. Here’s some history about the real U.S.S. Indianapolis and her brave crew from someone who was there.

The Brilliant Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody

Chief Brody is the central figure in Jaws, the cautious middle ground between Hooper and Quint, and the primary point of view character for the audience. Brody is a New York cop who just wanted to get out of the big city and to a place “where one man can make a difference.” In explaining that “It’s only an island if you look at it from the water” for why he would choose Amity – a fictional island town essentially standing in for New England’s Nantucket – the chief who is famously afraid of the water shows us the positive “glass-half-full” kind of guy he is. Unless it’s wine, then as we know he’s a “glass full” kind of guy.

A lot of people will say that the central struggle in the movie is Brody facing his fear of the water; others argue it’s his journey of his learning to accept personal responsibility, instead of advising others not to do things as we see him do through the first half of the movie, he eventually takes on the shark directly; and some people just see man vs. shark. None of these are wrong, but they all speak to the depth of what Scheider was able to put into his portrayal of the character.

Scheider puts it all on display in a quiet scene between Brody and his son that is one of my favorites in the movie.

These are the types of scenes that bring me back to Jaws again and again. The movie is a classic that belongs with the very best of film history and more than rivals anything coming out today.

So, stop thinking of Jaws as a big dumb monster movie that you don’t need to see. This is masterful film-making, a fun and fast paced ride of a movie, and absolutely mandatory viewing just as much as The Godfather, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas, Shawshank, or whatever else might be on your personal list of all-time great films. I guarantee you’ll be adding Jaws to that list when you’re done watching it.

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