When I was a child, there was a medium sized video shelf in the corner of our living room, home to around 50 or 60 different cassette tapes of many different genres and age ratings. Numerous titles had intrigued me immensely such as ‘The Silence of the Lambs’, 'Alien' and ‘The Colour Purple’ but no title stirred my imagination as much as ‘Jaws’. I didn't know anything about the film whatsoever but I certainly remember the video cover having an immediate effect on me; the silver, holographic capital lettering over an image of a terrifying great white shark set against a sea of darkest ultramarine.
One windy night, my parents were watching a movie and I could hear the ominous two-tone ostinato of the 'Jaws' theme tune thundering from below me. Not being able to sleep due to the noise, I came downstairs for a bit of company and solace. I walked into the living room and sat down on my father’s knee to watch the movie along with them. I was very much enjoying the film until one unexpected scene terrified me beyond all belief, the bloody and horrific death of the young Alex Kintner. As soon as the shark attacked and a fountain of blood turned the blue ocean red, I hid behind the arm of the sofa and refused to watch any more whilst wiping away tears from eyes and shaking with uncontrollable fright.
Around 5 years later, I had joined a boarding school in the beautiful cathedral city of Lichfield and every Saturday, I was able to go into the centre on a weekend and explore the numerous shops for a few hours. One day, I walked into the local branch of Woolworths and just as I always did, I went straight to the hallowed DVD aisle to check out the new releases. It was on that life-changing day that I saw a copy of 'Jaws' on sale for £3. I had gone with a group of older boys as I was too young to go into the city on my own and they noticed the dreaded DVD at the same I did. Being of an appropriate age, they purchased the 12 rated feature and took it straight back to the boarding school common room to watch. I hadn’t seen 'Jaws' since the incident 5 years earlier and I had forgotten many of the parts that had scared me so much as a young boy. However, I braved it. I naively sat down and watched the movie with the older boys and, just like before, the exact same moment of unflinchingly realistic death scared the living daylights out of me once again.
This time however, instead of averting my eyes from the bloodshed, I was awestruck by it's perverse beauty and I watched the rest of the film in a hypnotic, open-mouthed daze. Upon reaching the end credits, I came to the realisation that I had watched the first true masterpiece of my life and that I had also acquired a new favourite movie. The following weekend I gave my friend the money to buy me a copy of 'Jaws'; a treasured DVD I still own to this day and from that day forward, I would watch 'Jaws' at least twice a month and quickly learn how recite the film word for word.
But why did 'Jaws' become such a cultural phenomenon whilst other high budgeted 'B' movies of the day fell by the wayside? After all, it is the simple story of a group of three men who venture into the ocean to destroy a shark that is killing the inhabitants of a small American island. How exciting and how cinematic could that possibly be? The horror landscape at that time was practically dominated by the embryonic and increasingly grotesque slasher sub-genre while America itself was recovering from the aftermath of the recently ended and hugely unpopular Vietnam war. Surely the public wasn't ready for such a nihilistic tale being pumped into nationwide cinemas after they had already had their fair share of bloodshed. In the midst of such variables, 'Jaws' was destined to be a flop. In fact, if the testimonies from the existing cast and crew are anything to go by, everyone involved in the making of the damn picture thought it was going to tank too. Not only were there major production problems throughout such as a soon to finish SAG contract, a very demanding distribution company throwing orders around left, right and centre, a $3.5m budget that was spiraling madly out of control and the eye of a then amateur director pulling the strings. But worst of all, encapsulating the calamity that was the making of 'Jaws' there was Bruce, a giant robotic shark that just would not work. No shark meant no movie!
'Jaws' was only Steven Spielberg’s second commercial motion picture, the first being the wonderful 1974 neo-noir drama 'Sugarland Express' which starred Goldie Hawn and Ben Johnson. Made for Universal for a relatively small budget, 'Sugarland' would prove to studio executives that Spielberg had a knack for money making, with the movie quadrupling its costs at the box office. But while 'Sugarland' certainly proved to be a critical success and a minor financial boom for the company, it was still a very risky move on the part of Universal to hire the 21 year old Spielberg to direct their first truly mega budget bonanza. The most profitable films at that time were being made by older and more reputable directors such as William Friedkin, Francis Ford Coppola and Robert Wise; filmmakers who has garnered both critical and commercial acclaim thanks to their innovation and cinematic prowess. So it was a great gamble for the world famous production behemoth to allow such an inexperienced filmmaker to take the reins of one of their most expensive projects ever. Of course with it's major on and off screen catastrophes, Universal would quickly discover that 'Jaws' would be their most problematic production to date and is it would inevitably turn out, the film ended up being finished 120 days over it's intended schedule, $6m over budget and Spielberg would be constantly tiptoeing around unemployment time and time and time again.
So why is it that despite all of it's major flaws and almost fatal production disasters, 'Jaws' still remains one of the most highly respected motion pictures ever made? Well, the answer lies in it's acting, it's screenplay and it's impeccable execution. Set on the fictional island of Amity, the film tells the story of a giant great white shark hunting beachgoers and the efforts of it's townsfolk to kill it. In this sense, 'Jaws' is a very typical monster movie, going through the same motions as other classic 'B' movies such as 'Creature From The Black Lagoon', 'Them!' and 'Tarantula'. But where 'Jaws' succeeds while others so miserably failed is in it's unprecedented levels of realism and character.
A large majority of the creature features of the age spent their running times showing their respective monsters far too much while putting performance, character, setting, atmosphere and general common sense second. They also lacked any air of horror whatsoever, reverting to very typical scares techniques such as jump scares, slow build up and a woman screaming at every single possible opportunity. 'Jaws' on the other hand still terrifies to this day because it takes its horror deadly seriously. While many remember the bloodless death of Chrissie Watkins or the shocking demise of the young boy on the raft, people forget that 'Jaws' is actually a very visceral movie with numerous scenes showing a surprising level of gore. Children are dragged underwater accompanied by a scarlet plume of blood, a mangled corpse is seen at an autopsy and a severed leg is seen to float to the bottom of the sea complete with bone and distended viscera - strong images for a so called 'PG' rated film! At the time I watched 'Jaws' in its entirety for the first time, I was something of a wuss and I remember being very proud of myself as a young adolescent that I had subjected myself to such horrifying sequences and unabashed violence. Being bought up on Disney animations, I was never subjected to true horror movies except for the classic Hammer films which my Dad and I would watch religiously whenever they aired on TV. 'Jaws' was the first true shocker I had ever voluntarily watched and the indelible effect that it had me would set me down a path towards an undying love of the entire horror genre.
While 'Jaws' is remembered fondly as a full blooded horror movie, it is also recognised for it's talent in front of and behind the camera - and for good reason. It's cast is easily one of the most accomplished ever to feature in a blockbuster. At the heart of picture is Roy Scheider's Martin Brody, an aquaphobic police chief whose determination to seek redemption and prove his masculinity leads him to face his fears with unabated courage and forcefulness. Best known for his role in Friedkins 1971 Best Picture winner 'The French Connection', Scheider was an actor of indeterminable talent and while the shark may steal the show, it is his pivotal central performance that anchors us into the reality of the narrative.
Alongside Scheider, we have Richard Dreyfuss as oceanographer Matt Hooper, a knowledgeable shark expert who shares a psychological kinship with all of the creatures of the deep and completing the trio we have Robert Shaw as Quint, the obsessive and compulsive shark hunter who is hired by the island of Amity to kill it's carnivorous assailant. Both Scheider and Dreyfuss deliver astonishingly good performances but as much as I enjoy their roles, it is Shaw's Ahab-like Quint who is the true star of 'Jaws'. A maelstrom of gruffness, anger and unfathomable relentlessness, Quint is the perfect antithesis to Hooper's naive optimism and Scheider's understandable fear. His USS Indianapolis speech is easily one of the most emotive ever to be said in a mainstream blockbuster and while he may have been a cauldron of passion and rage, he was also a deeply damaged man whose past has shaped the way he leads his life. To this day, I am still shocked and quite disgusted that Robert Shaw didn't even get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor as he gives a performance which is not only the best of his illustrious career but one of the best ever delivered by any actor ever.
Behind the camera was an expert team of writers, set designers and cinematographers who all helped to make 'Jaws' as realistic as is humanly possible. Utilising the beautiful settings of Martha's Vineyard to wonderful effect, director of photography Bill Butler shrouds Amity Island in air of middle class ethics and suburban normality. The blues and whites of its architecture perfectly encapsulates the essence and feeling of a typical seaside town and while it is set in the United States, the atmosphere and ambience is reminscent of the Great British coast with brass bands a plenty, sea gulls swamping scraps of food left carelessly on the ground and holidaymakers flocking to the sand and the sea whenever the sun rears it's head.
Written by Carl Gottlieb, the screenplay to 'Jaws' is incredibly smart - dispensing with wit or soliloquy and replacing it with true to life conversation and realistic banter. Many horror movies made today try to make their characters hip and cool in an attempt to relate to a modern audience and therefore destroying any sense of realism whatsoever. But Gottlieb goes for a much more simple approach, writing dialogue that people would actually say on a day to day basis and this leads to some of the most quotable and memorable in cinema history. It is then somehow ironic that ''You're gonna need a bigger boat!'', the most famous line from the whole movie was in fact an on set ad-lib from Roy Scheider rather than a methodically thought out piece of screenwriting genius like the rest of 'Jaws'.
A prolific cast and accomplished crew is all well and good but at the end of the day, a monster movie is only as good as its monster. When I mention 'Jaws' to people today, they say to me ''It’s good but the shark is so fake looking!'' which really does annoy me, but I can also see where they are coming from. On the one hand it was 1975, how the hell were they supposed to make a completely convincing robot shark? The technology just didn't exist. But in reality, the rubber shark designed by animatronic legend Bob Mattey did give a pretty good performance when it was seen on screen, even if wasn't as successful off screen. However in this age of high tech CGI, a giant rubber fish chomping down on someones torso isn't going to convince anyone but I do have to say that even after 250 watches, the scenes of bloodshed and death are still very affecting to me. Not only does Spielberg shoot these individual moments with a surprising level of unflinching realism but John William's indelible soundtrack really helps to ratchet up the paralysing fear and unstoppable onslaught of terror. We all know the trademark dum-dum-dum-dum of the 'Jaws' theme but many forget the other truly brilliant musical accompaniments such as 'One Barrel Chase' and 'Hand To Hand Combat' - compositions which are both immensely affecting and incredibly listenable. By masterfully combining both sound and vision, Spielberg creates many set pieces which are among some of the scariest in all of cinema. Not bad for a model shark that spent most of it's time sinking to the bottom of the sea!
Famously of course, most of the shark is never seen in full - replaced instead with ominous yellow barrels designed to prevent the giant fish from diving under the water and therefore drowning it. This idea in reality was actually put forward due to the fact that the robotic shark just wouldn't function properly in the salty waters of Chappaquiddick island and Spielberg and his designers had to come up with a quick and cheap solution to signify the relentless approach of the predator without actually showing it. While unconvincing on paper, this simple answer was a brilliant way of replacing the sight of the giant fish without losing any of it's true menace or power - not to mention Williams' accompanying score which drives itself into our unconsciousness like a pneumatic drill, completing the illusion. In fact, the floating yellow barrels have now become just as iconic as the titular sharks dorsal fin and it just goes to prove that cinema goers will go along with absolutely anything you put in front of them as long as it's executed with a certain level of realism and dedication, something of which Spielberg is a true master. Sadly, this is an element that was missing from the subsequent 'Jaws' sequels.
Despite it's immeasurable shopping list of problems and an almost undying ideology that the film was bound to sink just as much as his useless mechanical fish, Steven Spielberg had the last laugh. A combination of nail biting thrills, beautifully executed horror and wonderfully rounded characters was far too good to turn down and boy, did the general public thirst for more. Making $400m at the worldwide box office, 'Jaws' became the highest grossing movie on the planet and earned four Academy Award nominations including Best Picture. It created the template for the modern blockbuster and thanks to an ingenious marketing campaign, the film became a global phenomenon. While they may have had unfounded doubts about the directors talent beforehand, Universal would go on to hire Spielberg for many more productions in the future including 'E.T : The Extra Terrestrial' and 'Jurassic Park'; both of which would become the most profitable movies of all time upon their respective releases.
With heart pumping tension, nerve jangling horror and the greatest trio of actors ever to grace a silver screen together, ‘Jaws’ is a movie that will last forever. It is an extraordinary melding of a fantastic book, a growing director who would soon be known as one the greatest, one of the most iconic soundtracks ever written and the undying power of self belief. Spawning three sequels and a merchandising empire rivalling that of George Lucas himself, 'Jaws' continues to make millions of dollars a year and scare thousands of new fans young and old every day. But 'Jaws' was never about money in the first place. It is, in the words of Spielberg himself, ''courage and stupidity existing underwater!'' and my favourite movie of all time.
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