Steven Spielberg made Jaws when he was in his mid-twenties and, in my opinion, he’s never eclipsed the raw tension and terror since. The movie also started the trend of the summer blockbuster, some say, and is considered one of the best films of all time by the AFI. It is truly a picture that works its elements efficiently, utilizing a haunting John Williams score and Bill Butler’s tremendous sea level cinematography to tell its tale to great effect.
Based on Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name, Jaws became Spielberg’s fifth motion picture and marked a turning point in his early career by transforming him into one of America’s greatest thriller/adventure storyteller filmmakers. From the success of Jaws, Spielberg was able to seamlessly transition to the ambitious Close Encounters of the Third Kind and eventually to Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Jaws takes place at the small resort town of Amity Island. There’s a new police chief, Martin Brody (Roy Schneider), and he is notified that a woman is missing. Upon discovering the body, it appears that she had been attacked by a shark. Not wanting to scare the locals or thwart any success for the upcoming tourist season, Amity’s mayor (Murray Hamilton) ensures that Brody can’t close the beach while they look for the shark.
After another attack, the town grows tense and Brody is blamed for not closing the beach. He calls ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) to help investigate the shark problem. The pair form a close bond while battling the stubborn mayor and the shark, eventually turning to Quint (Robert Shaw), a gruff shark hunter, to help bring in the giant beast before it does further harm.
The performances in Jaws are surprisingly good, especially for this type of genre picture, and they help elevate the movie to its legendary status. The chemistry between Dreyfuss, Shaw and Schneider as the film draws to its climax is especially compelling, as the differences between the characters really get drawn out with subtle shifts in the action. Each man has his method for catching the shark based on his life experience and it’s interesting to watch them go about their work.
Jaws required three mechanical sharks to be made for production. In today’s day and age of CGI, the shark does look a little dated in some scenes, but there’s also something truly cool about how the whole thing came together. Spielberg’s direction makes the shark, strange as it looks sometimes, into a truly menacing force in the picture and it becomes more about the tension and less about what the shark looks like.
Of course, we can’t talk about Jaws without talking about the great John Williams score. Everyone knows the eerie suggestive music when the shark is approaching, as it has become among the most famous few notes in film score history. But Williams also does remarkably well when he’s fleshing out the movie’s smaller moments and driving some of the characters into heroism (or stupidity). It really is one of the greatest scores in the movies and helps drive this picture into greatness.
Spielberg really shows his stuff handling the whole project, as it was a stormy one from the first day. Shooting on water is no easy task, especially with the constant threat of movement, so Jaws stands as a testimony to the stick-to-itiveness and moxie of the director in his younger days. Whenever I need to remember how great Spielberg can truly be when he’s telling pure stories and using natural tension to go places, Jaws is the movie I reach for.
9.2/10
Trailer:
