Deconstructing Jaws: A Screenwriter's Reflections
How many times have I watched Jaws? I suppose that if I calculated based on the first time I saw it, way back in 1984/85, then rounded up, say, 5 watches a year ever since, and given that I’m now 38 years old, that would factor out at about 170 times. That’s about 400 hours of my life dedicated to that Great White.
That’s a lot of shark.
There are multitude reasons as to why a person would inflict this upon themselves. They could be cineastes, they could be members of the Roy Scheider fan club (and who isn’t?), they could be mentally ill.
For myself? It’s a combination of all three.
But the easy answer to such a question is that in a little over 100 years of cinematic history, no other film has quite managed to balance itself on the scales of the audience, in quite the same way that Steven Spielberg’s Jaws has.
Now the scales of the audience isn’t a thing before you ask. It’s something I just came up with to sound clever. But, I’m referring to that split that occurs amongst film lovers. Those that watch “movies” and those that watch “films.” They are, for some, two very different things. Film is art, a dissection of the human condition through visual storytelling. Movies are popcorn fodder. Escapism of the highest order. Pure entertainment.
Jaws is the only picture that is both.
If you were to break it down, the picture succeeds through a unique blend of collaboration and sheer determination.
The film is the perfect storm of crisis. A mechanical shark that, ironically, didn’t like water, forces Spielberg to channel his inner Hitchcock, utilising pure visual storytelling to create suspense. The combination of Spielberg’s keen sense and John Williams’ minimalist score ensure that even if you never see the shark, you know it’s there, waiting to strike.
It’s a deceptively simple story, and yet so multi-layered. The concept is pure B-movie (killer shark bothers seaside residents) and yet it takes itself seriously, allowing for a sense of realism that sells the suspense and the horror. A lot of the success of this technique leans on the pedigree behind the scenes, a crew that consisted of some of the biggest names in Hollywood, including a director who was about to become a legend.
The cast is a treasure trove of character actors and all of them bring their A-game, and yet, it’s in the supporting players that the real joy lies. Harry and his bad hat, Mrs. Kitner and her right hook, Tiger Shark guy, and of course, Pippet.
Details always play a part in building a believable world on film, and Jaws is nothing if not rife with such details: Mayor Vaughn’s anchor patterned blazer, Brody’s utter disregard for drinking in moderation, Hooper’s plastic coffee cup, the ship named Orca that is the first of many nods to Moby Dick.
Most importantly, we care about the characters. Brody is the everyman, our eyes and conscience, a way into the story. Brody is a city cop in a small island community, terrified of the water, which makes his final decision to head out to sea incredibly powerful.
Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) is the exposition giver, yet never feels forced. He’s a shark expert, so it makes sense that he would explain what’s going on, and his neurosis makes him utterly beguiling, as if he wandered in from a Woody Allen movie, a perfect counterpoint to Brody’s family man.
Then there’s Quint (Robert Shaw), the Ahab of the tale, part hero, part maniac, armed with a ferocious temper and a penchant for sing song, he saw a shark eat a rocking chair once, although we’re never given the context as to how. (Was he fly tipping in the ocean, or something?)
Meanwhile Murray Hamilton’s Mayor Larry Vaughn provided the template for every bureaucratic villain in every blockbuster for years to come, and yet, his motivations are solid. Amity is a tourist trap, dependent on the money that comes from the Summer months. Under pressure to keep beaches open, his flaws are many, but are also rational, if ultimately foolish.
The script streamlines many of author Peter Benchley’s sub plots (in the novel the Mayor has ties with local mafia, and Hooper has an affair with Brody’s wife). Smartly, Spielberg and his collaborators saw the film as almost a buddy picture, and indeed the film truly takes off once the three men are out on the ocean fighting the 25 foot, 3 tonne colossus.
The ingenuity extends to visual icons: Ben Gardener’s head popping out of the hull of his wrecked ship was an addition, suggested by editor Verna Fields, the true hero of the film, whose instinctive cutting gave the audience the impression that they saw more than they actually did. Had the mechanical shark worked, the fin skimming on the surface wouldn’t seem nearly as iconic, and it’s the very absence of the shark that crafts many of the film’s most memorable motifs, including the yellow barrels, which give the audience some sense of the strength and size of the shark (even with 3 barrels on it, the fish manages to evade the men) but also a reminder that it is always present, if not seen.
There’s very little blood, but when it comes it’s a shocker (that gush as Alex Kitner is devoured is genuinely horrible, while that poor bugger in the rowing boat’s screams still haunt my dreams). It takes real restraint to hold back as much as Spielberg does, but the film is all the better for it. A look at later shark pictures, such as Deep Blue Sea or the so bad it gives shit a new colour The Meg, prove the rule that less is more.
They show too much, and risk too little.
But above all, Jaws succeeds because its art married to entertainment. Only a truly gifted film maker could craft such suspense and terror from the power of suggestion. It’s shot matter-of-factly, and yet what flourishes it takes are based on both the emotion of the characters and the power of the scenario (take a bow that contra-zoom into Brody’s horrified face as the shark attacks the Kitner boy).
Jaws accomplishes that rarest of things: perfection, almost in spite of itself. Indeed, the later sequels prove just how formidable a talent Spielberg was, when you consider that they basically just rehash the same story over, and over again, but seemingly without paying much attention to what made the original tick.
Like Brody’s son mimicking his father’s movements at the dinner table, but without the charm or character development.
In many ways, the sequels only serve to confirm that Jaws is a seminal work, arguably Spielberg’s finest hour, in which his artistic capabilities married to his storytelling bravado and penchant for the spectacular.
Jaws ends with a shark being blown up by a rogue compressed air tank, the least plausible moment in the whole film. And yet, as Spielberg himself has stated, by this point he had the audience in the palm of his hand, and they would accept whatever he gave them. It smacks of manipulation, and it is, but then, all great cinema uses the same trick. It grabs us and pulls us under the waves, deep below the surface and dares us to keep our eyes open. It’s an art that sorely lacks in the contemporary blockbuster, which tosses out generic photocopies of the same format, over and over again, with as much regard for the audience as Charlie had for his wife’s holiday roast.
So, Film. Movie. Call it what you will. Jaws delivers on all fronts. It has a lot of heart and just as much charm, surprising for a film that kills a child AND a dog in the space of three minutes. But it also has an art and skill at work that goes directly against its B-Movie origins. It’s one of the great cinematic gambles and it works completely.
And if you don’t agree, I’ll throw your ass out the little round window in the side.
By Chris Watt
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Universal Studios' JAWS is one of the most compelling and enduring movies ever made. Thrilling generations of audiences worldwide with its tight plot, memorable characters, and ground-breaking special effects - those that brought the great white shark to terrifying life even after many said it couldn't be done.