30 Films That Made Me Who I Am - #8

Jaws

     I both love and hate the ocean.  I love its power and beauty....  I don't love it's nastiness and the fact that I don't know what's within a 100 yard radius swimming in there with me.  I have great respect for it.  Oddly enough, that's not totally because of this film.  No, I would be afraid of the ocean anyway.  Even if I was just close to a whale or something.  Something that big swimming around me would really freak me out almost as much as a shark would.  Heck, the shark's smaller!  

     Jaws was made in 1975 by a director that had done a TV movie that did quite well, and a smaller film that the critics liked, but most people today don't even know about called The Sugarland Express, which starred Goldie Hawn.  It was based on a not-too-great book by Peter Benchley, who actually is in the film as a news reporter in one scene.  The book was stripped down to just the bones and that's what's in the movie.  None of the stuff about Mrs. Brody having an affair, nothing about the mafia running the town through the mayor, or illegal fishing methods. (Thank God)  The story is instead a simple one about a shark coming to feed off the waters of Amity Island, the town not closing the beaches so attacks still happen, another attack happens on July 4, the beaches are closed and Chief Brody, Quint, and Hooper go out to catch them a killer shark.  Deceptively simple.  What sets the movie apart from crap environmental terror films like Food of The Gods, Frogs, Tentacles, or The Swarm is that besides being much more believable, the acting is great and it's more of a suspense film than simply a carnage film.  

     Spielberg made a very suspenseful film partially out of necessity.  He originally wanted to show the shark more, but the damned thing never worked right.  He got just enough footage of the shark to make the film work, he says, and due to this fact, he's been called a genius.  Well, he is great, but come one, he didn't show the shark because he couldn't.  That's why we have the barrels signifying where the shark is late in the movie and why we have shark POV for quite a bit of the film.  But man, when you first see that shark, it's haunting.  And no, unlike what everyone seems to remember, it's not when Brody is feeding chum into the water.  Why does everyone forget the scarier view of the shark that we get a full 30 minutes earlier?!  I couldn't find the footage on youtube, but a man on a rowboat is talking to Brody's kid and his two friends as they try to get the sail ready on his sailboat.  The man's rowboat is knocked by the shark, and the boys fall off their boat as well.  The man tried to get on his capsized rowboat, but the shark comes from behind, (you see this from an above view as the shark comes at him under the water), and bites his leg off. 

The scene was actually supposed to be longer and include this...

Now that's a much more frightening introduction to the shark than the chum scene later on, which for some reason everyone thinks is the first time you see the shark.  That's also some heavy stuff for a PG rated film.  Still, PG-13 was not around back then, and the way the producers got the PG rating was by saying that it happens in nature, and that it's not something that someone can do to someone else.  True brilliance on their part, but I am so glad I didn't see the whole movie until I was 11 or so.  I'd have been traumatized.  Jaws is a pretty darn brutal film, but then again so is nature.

     The scene that sticks with me after all these years goes to something you rarely see in any movies.  The death of a child in a horror film, especially done so graphically, is so surprising...  The Steven Spielberg of today would never shoot this.   The Alex Kintner death still kind of disturbs me, actually and its partially due to the way it's shot.  You see it from Brody's point of view on the beach, and it's hard to tell what's really going on.  You just see a geyser of blood, a kid flailing, and something else over there doing something to him.  Start this clip at 3:20. 

 Also gotta love that dolly in with a zoom out as Brody sees what's happening in the water.  Hitchcock had used it before in Vertigo, but perhaps this is the best known use of it.  There's just something about seeing the attack as you would from the beach that's chilling to me.  I guess because that's how you'd probably really see such an attack (unless you're the one being attacked of course).  So yes, the film has some great shark attack sequences.  And who could forget the first attack scene right before dawn, so beautiful but so frightening, or Quint's death near the end, which is very graphic and ironic.  

    However, when I view Jaws, I feel like I'm watching two films... Not to it's detriment mind you.  The first 2/3 of the film is a pure terror film.  The last third is a seafaring adventure.  One that's very exciting; it even has pirate music!  Speaking of music, the score is so important as it is to most horror films.  Like Halloween or Psycho, Jaws has a very simple theme that works on a primal level.  Just a few deep notes done at different speeds in different combinations, and it won Best Score at the Academy Awards that year.  With this movie, it's done on Oboe, on Halloween it was piano, on Psycho it was violins.  Fantastic just what a chillingly simple score can do to create feelings of dread and heighten suspense.

    I had seen the last third of the film a few times, mostly on 4th of July on TBS.  I knew that part of the movie had the least gore and was least scary.  My dad had told me so.  However, one day I decided to conquer my fears and watch the movie from beginning to end.  A love affair was born for this craftfully made film.  One that's given us so many memorable quotes, nightmares, fears of the ocean, and a hell of a film to study.  Seriously, next time you sit down to watch Jaws, make sure to notice how much effort went into it.  Notice how the red herrings of the shark being around never have the theme music.  They never cheat you in that way.  Notice how a lot of the time when on the water, things are filmed from water level which heightens the tension.  Marvel at the hideousness of mayor's outfits!