My Favorite Movies: #14—Jaws

14. Jaws (1975) 

Genre: Suspense Thriller

Director: Steven Spielberg 

Writers: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottleib (screenplay); Peter Benchley (book)

Stars: Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss 

Awards: 3 Oscars—Sound, Editing, Original Musical Score

Metacritic score: 87 

IMDB Ranking: #237

This movie is great in its own right, but it's greatness is augmented by how profound its influence has been on American film culture. Jaws established Steven Spielberg as a bonafide A-list director and gave him the clout to build a legendary career that, when finished, will likely leave him considered by many to be Hollywood's greatest director. The film literally created the modern summer blockbuster, and it was the first movie that had audiences lined up around the block to see it a second, third, or fourth time. 

In addition, the movie made a musical icon out of John Williams, whose career as a film score composer goes hand-in-hand with Spielberg as well as his friend George Lucas. Is there any other film that is instantly recognizable to most people of a certain age merely by the playing of two musical bass notes...duuuuuuh-DUM? (You heard it, didn't you?)

Finally, so many of the lines from this movie have become an integral part of American culture that it's amazing to watch the movie fresh and hear so many of them: "This was not a boat accident!"; "You're gonna need a bigger boat..."; "Here's to swimmin' with bow-legged women"; and the capper of them all, "Smile, you son-of-a-bitch!" 

At its heart, Jaws is a horror film. The first half of the movie creates the threat of the monster, as Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider, in my favorite role of his career) and marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) gather evidence that a Great White Shark is eating people in the waters off the coast of Amity Island, a community that depends on summer tourism for its survival. Desperate to stop the monster, the two heroes team up with Quint (Robert Shaw), a salty old sea-dog who promises to kill the shark if the price is high enough.

This established, the second half of the movie pits the three men against the shark. The ocean stands in for the haunted house, and Quint's tiny fishing boat, the Orca, is the closet they hide in to try to save their lives. Like any good monster movie, traditional methods of destruction have no effect on the beast. Harpoons and buoys don't slow it down, and Hooper's last-ditch gambit in a shark cage end in potential disaster (in the book, Hooper is eaten, but he survives in the movie; I guess Spielberg had a soft spot for Dreyfuss).

One of the most memorable scenes in the movie is when the shark literally jumps into the end of the boat, tipping it downward and spilling Quint into the thrashing jaws of the Great White. For anyone who has seen the movie, his screams as he slides down the throat of the monster still echo through our cinematic memory, especially when juxtaposed against his chilling tale of surviving the sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis in World War Two.

The climax and conclusion of any horror movie is the last person standing facing off against the monster in a do-or-die confrontation. Chief Brody is terrified of water in the first place, and he's barely hanging on in the crow's nest as the Orca sinks, taking aim with a rifle as the shark moves in for the kill. The ending is, to say the least, explosive in both tension and relief.

I was too young to see this movie in the theater in 1975 at age seven; I first watched it on the new high-tech VHS technology a few years later, and it scared me so badly that I swore I would never swim in the ocean as long as I lived. As it turns out, I finally swam in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico in the Fall of 2016, but not at any point in water above my waist, and yeah, I kept my eye out for that ominous dorsal fin sweeping along the surface of the water.

The tale of how this movie was made is almost as harrowing as the movie itself. Spielberg, ambitious in his youth, wanted to film on location in the Atlantic, but bad weather caused a series of costly delays as well as hellish conditions for cast and crew. To make matters worse, the mechanical shark (nicknamed "Bruce") never worked as designed, causing further frustrations. To compensate, Spielberg used point-of-view shots underwater and only showed us fleeting glimpses of the shark, which only heightened the tension and suspense. 

He was almost fired at several points throughout production, and at times didn't believe himself that he could finish production sufficient to create a completed film. But Spielberg and his cast and crew persevered, and despite all the obstacles, created a timeless classic of suspense, thrills, fear, and laughter (yes, it has some very funny bits) that make Jaws simply unforgettable.