Jaws (1975)

4 out of 4

Starring: Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Jeffrey Kramer

Director: Steven Spielberg

Time: 124 mins

It's hard to view one of your favourite films after a long while and not be caught up in the thrill and excitement of watching it again. Jaws was a phenomenon in the summer of 1975, smashing all box office records up to that time. Made for a then astronomical $8m, it eventually grossed $260m in North America alone. It also ushered in the era of the blockbuster, by being the first film to rake in more than $100m in its initial theatrical run, and launched the career of director Steven Spielberg. It would become - with Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho - one of the few films that would leave an indelible mark on people's psyches. A mundane event like going for a swim at the beach just wasn't the same again after watching Jaws, just like many people stopped taking showers after seeing Psycho. It also gave me my first nightmare in memory - when I was all of six years old (yes, I know - a bit young, perhaps, but one has to start their film-viewing odyssey somewhere). Jaws is a classic - an almost perfect mix of story, characterisation, pacing, thrills, chills, and, yes (need I say it?), music.

This review must be prefaced with the fact that I've seen Jaws many, many times. A few scenes may be hazy, but most are like old friends. Watching it again for the first time in three years, the plethora of memorable lines leapt steadily into my head, like the tensely funny "You're gonna need a bigger boat." The brilliant editing of Oscar winner Verna Fields slices through many scenes, including my favourite - Richard Dreyfuss washing his face, and then turning to Scheider to say, "It was a shark." Cut. Fellow Oscar-winner John Williams' score (like Bernard Herrmann's Psycho one of the most effective and instantly recognisable of all time) is both menacing and refreshing, and, of course, Spielberg's masterful direction something to savour. The youthful auteur's use of point-of-view heightens the suspense of many underwater shots, drawing out the thrills like a taut string. Jaws is not just an exciting man-against-nature story - it contains some of the most horrific scenes and deaths depicted on film. Who wouldn't have jumped when Dreyfuss explores the hole in Ben Gardner's boat?

While based on the bestseller novel by Peter Benchley, the movie is actually an improvement over the book. There were many pulp elements present in the novel that were cut from the film, such as a subplot about an affair between Chief Brody's wife (played by Lorraine Gary) and shark expert Matt Hooper (Dreyfuss). The film's script wisely eschews such extraneous page-fillers and went for the main drama - that of the town against a giant, great white shark. The book's climax was also fairly lacklustre, with the shark seemingly dying after being repeatedly jabbed by a harpoon (if I remember correctly). The movie's finale, however, is more explosive, and in keeping with the tension built throughout the exhilarating second hour.

The story, like most classics, is simple: a great white shark makes the New England seaside town of Amity its home and feeding ground. The police chief, Brody (Scheider), shark expert Hooper (Dreyfuss), and rough, gruff, fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw) head out into the ocean to hunt it down. What makes the story so involving (more so than Spielberg's other monster thriller, Jurassic Park) are the characters and the actors playing them. Each is fully fleshed out, with Dreyfuss particularly sparkling as the enthusiastic rich kid with a passion for sharks. While Scheider, Lorraine Gary, and Murray Hamilton (as the mayor) are no slouches in their roles, it is noticeable that the energy picks up when Dreyfuss arrives on the scene. Robert Shaw also delivers a fine performance as Quint, the no-nonsense fisherman who is too proud to admit defeat, and, indeed, has a Captain Ahab-like obsession with killing the shark. It is rare that a summer movie (in this day and age of loud, soulless, special effects-laden behemoths like Armageddon and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) has such depth of characters to go with its story, pacing, and action.

Talking about pacing, one of the scenes that I long thought was a slight detriment to the movie was the overlong scene on the boat, at night, where 1. Quint and Hopper compare scars (a device imitated in Lethal Weapon 3 and Chasing Amy); 2. Quint describes his shark ordeal in World War 2; and 3. Quint, Hooper and Brody join in a sing-a-long. This occurred straight after the first real sighting of the shark and the first pursuit. I thought the Quint soliloquy, especially, brought the film to a complete halt just when the pace had hit full throttle. Oddly enough, many fans consider the soliloquy to be the best part of the film. Watching it again, it is, indeed, chilling, and not as big a drag as on some of my previous viewings.

It is well-known that the shoot for Jaws was a drawn-out nightmare (as are pretty much all water-based movies - look at Titanic and Waterworld), going over budget and with the temperamental mechanical sharks (affectionately called Bruce) breaking down now and again. This led to Spielberg showing less of the shark in the first half of the film - an inspired choice, as it turned out, for it made the man-eater's first appearance all the more memorable and terrifying. Overall, the shark is adequate as far as realism goes, with only its lack of side-to-side swimming motion and the final leap onto the boat looking unconvincing. Still, the mechanical models are heaps better than the phony computer-generated killers in Renny Harlin's recent homage, Deep Blue Sea.

It's hard to believe that Spielberg was only in his 20s when he made Jaws. While many have accused several of his later movies as being overly sentimental, Jaws is a thoroughly accomplished white-knuckle ride into terror and heart-stopping suspense. While a couple of his more mature films, like Saving Private Ryan, are more powerful, I still consider Jaws to be his most perfect composition. If you haven't seen it before, get ready for one of the greatest movies ever made. If you have seen it before, watch it again anyway.

(c) Joe Wong (20 July 2000)