Jaws: Book vs Movie
When I was 8-years-old, my family had a VHS on which we’d recorded Jaws from cable television. About 47 minutes of the 1984 Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah classic Splash was on that same tape halfway through the Jaws end credits. I had seen bits and pieces of Jaws and knew it looked stressful, so I would fast-forward and pray I didn’t stop on Ben Gardner’s decapitated head on my way to the bathtub scene in Splash. Which I tried and was sorely disappointed by.
When I finally did watch Jaws, I wasn’t just afraid to go back in the water. I was afraid to shower, swim in our above ground pool, and even imagined microscopic sharks that lived in my tap water and would eat me from the inside out.
It had to stop. I was already afraid of giants, I didn’t need to add sharks to the list. So I went to my school library and took out both books they had about sharks. I learned that sharks don’t find people appetizing and they certainly don’t seek us out heat missile style. Am I still terrified of the ocean? Yes. Is it because I’m afraid of sharks? A little. Am I still afraid of giants? 1000%.
It wasn’t until 22 years later that I read the book that became the phenomenon. Jaws, a novel by Peter Benchley, tells a story that is almost soap-operatic. While there are key similarities between the book and the movie, they are quite different. For example, Amity in the movie is an island, while Amity in the book is a municipality on Long Island, NY. This geographical change afforded us Roy Scheider’s line, “it’s only an island if you look at it from the water.”
Most notably missing from the pages of the book is Quint’s Indianapolis speech. There’s been a real tussle over the years regarding who wrote the speech and, as it turns out, it wasn’t just one person. According to Spielberg himself, it was Howard Sackler’s idea, but screenwriter Carl Gottlieb and John Milius – a friend of Steven’s – both had a hand in its berth.
The speech was then given to Robert Shaw who doctored it a bit himself. He performed it, from what I can discern, nearly blackout drunk the first time. He later called Spielberg, remorseful over how it went and asked to do it again, and that’s the one we see on-screen.
What a roller coaster! To see it performed so expertly by Shaw leaves me emotionally at sea.
From there, the discrepancies of book-to-film amble ever on:
- Martin Brody on film is from the rough and tumble mainland streets of NYC and Martin Brody on paper is an Amity Native
- the well-intentioned Mayor Vaughn of the movie who smokes in a hospital was acting in the town’s best interest, but the book Mayor is in deep with the mob and needs those beaches open or they’ll bust his kneecaps
- movie Mrs. Kintner (R.I.P Lee Fierro) gives Brody a hearty slap across the face after her boy falls victim to the shark whereas book Mrs. Kintner grills Brody rather scrutinously regarding the attack
Generally speaking, so far, I’m okay with all of the changes Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb made when adapting the screenplay. This has been pretty painless, but strap in, because here come, perhaps, my most polarizing thoughts and feelings on the most influential variations.
What is conceivably my least favorite part of the novel – and if you haven’t read it you’d better sit down – is Ellen Brody’s affair with Hooper. That’s right, Ellen and Hooper knock boots! He doesn’t just pop over to the Brody household with wine in hand, Ellen plans out a whole dinner party for him. Then, later, she meets him at a motel and they do way more than talk about sharks if you catch my drift.
Never mind the fact that this doesn’t lend anything to the story, Lorraine Gary – who portrayed Ellen in the movie – was upset at its upheaval during adaptation because it would massively cut down on her screen time. To that, I say, what’s good or the goose, Gary. I don’t care for it. Jaws runtime is 2 hours and 10 minutes which sounds long, but the beauty part is that it doesn’t feel long; every frame is carefully and masterfully placed to cultivate a seamless viewing experience. Not a moment wasted. A fling that is ultimately wildly lackluster has no place amongst the godliness of the rest.
If you’re still with me, you’ve arrived at my penultimate point of contention, however, unlike Ellen and Hooper’s rendezvous, this one I would have preferred made the theatrical cut.
“You go in the cage, cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark’s in the water. Our shark.”
When good-old-boy Matt Hooper goes down in that shark cage in the shark cage, the behemoth shark easily breaks through the bars and Matt is able to swim down to the bottom of the ocean and hid behind a rock. Later he rejoins Chief Brody at the surface.
Delightfully and rightfully, within the pages of the prose, he takes a quiet, submerged moment before mammoth teeth tear him to shreds, killing him.
I get it. If the water had gone red while Quint and Brody frantically reeled in the cage after presenting us with this charismatic yet pragmatic, curly-haired shark-lover for 2 hours, audiences would have set their seats ablaze in protest. Suspend your disbelief and let this man live, they’d shout.
The importance – to me at least – of Hooper dying leads me to my final hot take.
The whole movie ending is wrong.
Listen, it’s fun to see stuff get blown up. My mother and her sisters were waiting in line at the movie theater in downtown Lake Geneva, WI to see Jaws in the Summer of 1975 when a car full of punks ripped around the corner and one shouted, “THE SHARK GETS BLOWN UP!”
Even though those guys – who are hopefully all in prison now – spoiled the surprise, mom said it was still such a standing ovation moment. Realistically, Jaws would not have become the very first Summer Blockbuster had Brucey not gone sky high.
I’m aware of all of that, but…
BUT, the end of the book is, well, more literary. It completes each character’s arc so eloquently. We’ve already established that Hooper’s become chum. Now, it’s crazy Quint and Martin aboard the sinking Orca, Quint piling harpoons into the great fish. Clinging to a floating seat cushion, the shark swims toward Brody before succumbing to its injuries.
This gives way for Quint’s departure which, in the movie, is rather undignified. I just imagine Robert reading the script, taking a pull from his flask, and saying gravely, “I get et.”
The book offers a deeply unsettling finale for Quint when his foot is caught in the rope attached that is attached to a harpoon which is attached to this now deceased at-least-20-foot maneater. He is pulled into the unknown darkness with his foe, leaving Brody and his seat cushion alone in the water.
He’s alone! In the water! His greatest fear! And that’s why Hooper needed to die. But nothing explodes, and tickets don’t sell for that sad Moby Dick stuff.
I visited Martha’s Vineyard AKA Amity last summer to bike the island’s filming locations. I walked the same path through town that Chief Brody walked when he heard that dog bark but never saw it. I hightailed it down Jaws bridge as though a shark was swimming into the pond. I rode past the Brody household and shouted, “I want my cup back!”
Jaws has meant so much to me. I’ve committed it to my body in ink. Regardless of their differences, we wouldn’t have the movie without the book, and we wouldn’t get to see all of the little intricacies brought to life: Chief Brody and his son at the dinner table, Hooper’s mouthful of pretzel, or Quint’s knowing look when his reel starts to click. So go ahead! Blow that shark to smithereens! I’ll drink to your leg every time.
Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women!
By Katie Baker
