ANATOMY OF A CLASSIC: REWATCHING JAWS
By: Hannah Strong
Steven Spielberg's 1975 thriller horrified contemporary audiences, and 50 years on we're still swimming in its wake
Perhaps the worst thing to ever happen to great white sharks was Steven Spielberg. In 1973, the 26-year-old filmmaker, not yet a household name and with only two directing credits under his belt, was hired to direct the film adaptation of an upcoming novel by Peter Benchley which focused on a man-eating shark menacing a tranquil American beach town. The rest was history. Jaws made almost half a billion dollars at the box office and was credited as the first-ever summer blockbuster, paving the way for classics like Star Wars, Alien, and Indiana Jones.
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“TELL THEM I’M GOING FISHING”
Although films about sharks predated Jaws, there’s no doubting the enormous scale of Spielberg’s production which was the first major motion picture to be shot on the ocean. Although this caused massive production problems and saw the budget balloon from $4 million to $9 million, the end product was genuine thriller. This classic horror set-up- humans at a disadvantage facing off against a deadly threat – is reminiscent of a film that came out a year before, namely Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. But while that movie’s villain- a chainsaw-wielding psycopath – seemed a little farfetched, sharks live in every ocean on the planet, and for the average audience memeber in 1975, seemed a more likely threat particularly for those who like a beach holiday.
One of the great tragedies of Jaws is that since its release, global oceanic shark population have declined by 70 per cent, in part due to climate change and habitat loss but also due to hunting by humans. There’s no denying that Jaws negatively influenced the public perception of great white sharks, with their reputation as a man-eating meance largely unfounded. But in the past few decades, Jaws’ enduring popularity has also led to a greater interest in learning more about the species and helping to ensure their survival.
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“YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BOAT…”
Almost as important as the titular shark are the characters who occupy the fictional beach town of Amity island (the film was actually shot in the ritzy Massachusetts beach town of Marthas’s Vineyard). Universal were keen for Spielberg to cast well-known actors to draw in audiences, but the filmmaker felt this would be distracting and he turned down Charlton Heston for Chief Brody because he felt he was too famous to play a small-town policeman. Remarkably, the other key roles of marine biologist Hooper and shark hunter Quint were cast just a week before shooting began.
Ultimately, Brody, Hooper and Quint were played by Roy Schneider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. Schneider had expressed interest after overhearing Spielberg’s friend George Lucas, and fearing his next film, The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravits, would flop, took the role of Hooper as a contingency plan. Meanwhile, Shaw was reluctant to play Quint based on his dislike of Benchley’s book but took the role at the urging of his wife and secretary.
The trio could have not been better, picked, with Brody’s everyman decency balanced by Hooper’s steadfast scientific approach and Quint’s wildcard, hypermasculine hunter instincts. Despite Brody having the film’s most iconic line (“You’re gonna need a bigger boat”, still quoted as an indication of plans gone awry), it’s Quint- the grizzled navy veteran- who has the most harrowing scene during which he recounts the true story of the sinking of the U.S.S Indianapolis during WWII. The moment subverts Quint’s positioning as a wild, almost comical character, adding an air of sadness and guilt that makes his ultimate fate more poignant.
Brody, Hooper, and Quint are a large part of what makes Jaws such a classic, giving us a group to root for while Amity Island’s greedy mayor puts commerce over safety. Many shark films have and gone since Jaws, but none have managed to deliver character as memorable.
“BAD FISH”
A remarkable thing about Jaws is that we don’t actually see the killer shark that often. The power of suggestion- ripples on the water, bobbing water barrels, the flash of a dorsal fin- is utilised to great effect, creating a sense of anxiety in never quite knowing when the shark will attack. It also means that when the audience does catch a glimpse it feels genuinely shocking. Spielberg decided to take this approach when it became clear the mechanical sharks created for the film were too unreliable to be used as planned, constantly breaking down (some of the crew were so disgruntled they nicknamed the film ‘Flaws’). But what could have tanked the film entirely became one of tis smartest decisions, taking inspiration from the Hitchcockian premise that terror is as much about what we can’t see as what we can.
Spielberg tuned to the composer John Williams, who would become one of his most frequent collaborators, for the film’s memorable score and eh more than delivered, creating a symphony of bass notes (notably E and F) to evoke a feeling of dread. When Williams first played the two-note riff for Spielberg the director laughed but quickly came around and Williams had one more trick up his sleeve. While for the majority of the film, we come to associate the two-note riff as warning of the imminent appearance of the shark, in the film’s climactic scene, the great white attacks suddenly without the musical sting- a reminder to never get too comfortable in the water.
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