Jaws

It's totally perfect. I watched this with my 11-year old daughter last week and she loved it. So then we watched Alien, and she liked it fine, but thought Jaws was so much scarier/grosser.

Alien at 11?! Your child may be superhuman, to tolerate something that boring.

Slow film, sure, but still striking. We started 2001 yesterday, and the monkeys meet monolith stuff had her asking so many questions I'm worried what I'm in for.

pic.twitter.com/Dfh1slnJva

— Peter Labuza (@labuzamovies) July 29, 2018

all of those readings can be said to be wrong or aberrant

Saw it for the umpteenth time in a pretty packed rep theatre last night. I always felt that was the ideal way to see Jaws, but now that it seems to have turned into The Rocky Horror Picture Show, with people wildly cheering various lines and moments (Shaw's fingernails a big favourite), I'll have to rethink that. Couldn't find one of my favourite images online--the close-up of Scheider as he flips through the shark book.

I was 10 years old and on Martha's Vineyard for a week in the summer of 1974. My family was driving back from Edgartown to Menemsha, where we had our boat. We saw these cabanas erected at State Beach, which we'd never seen before, along with all these other strange-looking vehicles. We pulled over and asked some people what was going on. They said a movie was being filmed and they were looking for extras to be in the Fourth of July scene — $20 each. We asked the name of the movie and someone replied "Jaws." We thought that was the dumbest name for a movie ever, and we drove on.

Wow, this revive comes right after I made a "Jaws" joke on a different thread. Eerie. Anyway, this movie is perfect.

Bizarre thing that crossed my mind last night (won't make sense unless you've seen the film and are also a big baseball fan): Hooper is a sabermetrician, Quint is a curmudgeonly old-school scout.

"What have you got here?"

"A laptop."

"A laptop? You enter data into the laptop? Data tells you whether the player’s good or not? You don’t have to actually see the player play? Our player? Farewell and adieu to you, fair Spanish ladies..."

Seen "Jaws" a hell of a lot, but we watched it as a family again last night. Imagine being Steven Spielberg and always knowing, somewhere in the back of your mind, that you were the one who made "Jaws." How cool is that.

Anyway, every time I've seen it I've noticed something else. This time I not only focused on how perfect every shot is as a storytelling device (the way each shot is framed to deliver vital information, and so on) but for the first time ever recognized that the reason Quint rides the engine into the red going back to the shore is not simply hubris and carelessness but because for the first time this tough guy is actually *scared*. The scene is preceded by him and Hooper (both shaken, now more or less peers of a sort) commenting ominously about how this shark is behaving differently from any shark they've ever seen. You can see Quint do the math, and that's when he floors it, muttering about luring the shark closer to shore, but you can tell he's desperate, almost as an excuse to get back himself. Of course they don't make it, and that's when Quint, formerly all macho bluster, turns to Hooper, as chastened as he'll ever be, and asks, just curious, that fancy poison you brought, do you maaaaybe think *that* will do the trick?

Still not entirely sure why Quint destroys the radio earlier. Macho, sure, or maybe out of frustration. Perhaps that's just his last chance to catch the shark on his own terms, because after that the tide (so to speak) really starts to turn against them.

We'd all seen the movie except my 12-year old, who thought it was OK though astutely recognized on her own that it's not *quite* a horror movie, because it's too much fun (adventure). Both kids kept commenting on how old everybody looked. Scheider was 43 and Lorraine Gray was I think around *38* but they both could have passed for (or been cast as!) much older parents if not grandparents today. And of course a lot of the other parents look really old too. The actress who played the mother of the boy who is eaten, Lee Fierro, was 46, about my age, but she looks like one of my mom's friends. I dunno, just another example of people looking old in the '70s, I guess.

Oh, another thing: never occurred to me that this is one of the rare movies that kills a kid *and* a dog, in the same scene!

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/world/europe/coronavirus-britain-boris-johnson.html

LONDON — Prime Minister Boris Johnson of Britain once said his political hero was the mayor in the film “Jaws,” praising him for defying mass hysteria to keep the beaches open after a constituent is eaten by a shark.

Spielberg’s probably the best suspense director this side of Hitchcock, with how he takes time to build tension not just within individual scenes but throughout the whole film. Just by withholding and hinting. I think the whole “the shark looked terrible so they had to compensate” aspect is probably only a bit true in terms of the film’s effectiveness; the creativity he shows throughout is astonishing. His ability there is also what raises something like Raiders of the Lost Ark to something beyond what its storyline might suggest.

The mayor is someone who seems like a caricature but he’s not an asshole, just a denialist. Unlike other authority figures who are roadblocks he makes sense: he likes Brody but he’s also not native to the island so he thinks he knows better. He’s got one of my favorite lines in this too: “we caught and killed a large predator that supposedly injured some bathers.”

I always like how the mayor drives his entourage onto the ferry just to nag Brody, then when they reach the other side, he tells the ferry guy "OK, you can go back now," and you can see the ferry guy just shake his head in annoyance.

Re: withholding and hinting, it's quite striking how quickly everything starts happening. First shark attack happens literally 4 minutes in. But the second one, with the kid, is around minute 17. That one is one of the most frightening shots of the shark, just this blur coming into focus below the water that pulls him under. And then, from a distance, you just see this mass of splashing, thrashing and indistinct fins.

There's also the horrifying moment when they bring Hooper back to see the body, and they basically bring out a small drawer.

I've probably said this before, but I saw or read something once about the famous dolly/zoom shot of Brady during the second attack that pointed out how Hitchcock required x amount of days and x amount of dollars for a similar shot (more than one I think) in Vertigo, and Spielberg just tosses it out there nonchalantly. (Yes, I realize Hitchcock got there first, and that Spielberg's got a 17-year technological advantage.)

http://nofilmschool.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_wide/public/jaws-jaws-jaws.jpg?itok=eYNM5jBw

At the same time, this by today's standards modest movie took significantly longer to shoot than, say, Black Panther, which shows how many problems they had.

See, that shot is a great example of what we were talking about. Scheider there is a movie star, professionally lit and made up. He's two years younger than I am now, but he looks at least 10 years older than me and my friends.

You should read this--thought I posted about it in this thread, but I guess not.

http://i.harperapps.com/covers/9780062229281/x300.jpg

That looks awesome!

Weird to think vertigo was only 17 years old when jaws was released

I feel like there's a Woody Allen joke there somewhere.

That book was pretty good, thanks for the recommendation. Interesting that they even released a contemporaneous account. Usually these sorts of books only appear after a movie flops, a la The Devil's Candy or Final Cut.

Watched this with the family tonight — my wife and kids had never seen it and I hadn’t in years — and everybody was super tense the whole time. This Spielberg kid has potential.

never lets me down, i will never not love this movie

I think Jaws is a stealthy Holocaust movie but I can’t really explain, y/n?

n

n

Nah I’m right sorry

Stevie Spiels wishing for east coast WASPs to have a holocaust of their own, to spread empathic understanding without polemic?

idk

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now you're doing that shit when the url doesn't even show in the thread?

Watched this again last night. They truly don't make em like they used to. I swear Quint's demise goes on longer and grislier every time; the edit from the shark crunching down and him spitting up blood is proper filmmaking.

Scheider is vv good here, funny, smartly ahead of the game, flawed in his being pressured into second guessing, but heroic despite his deep fear, and a great example of a lead character who is also an audience surrogate.

Really like how the Williams score will periodically turn thrilling and glorious when they're chasing down the shark, echoing the overconfidence of the hunting party.

I find it p funny (not a detriment to the film btw) that the Mayor gets shook enough to hire Quint after that fella in the rowboat gets feasted on off in the side pond, but the kid turning into a blood fountain in full view of hundreds of beachgoers has him all, "now let's not be hasty here."

There's a screening at a rep theatre here in a few weeks, Friday night @ 9:30; hope it's as jam-packed as can be.

Hold up, apparently there is an imminent Broadway production about the making of the movie, called "The Shark is Broken"? Starring Robert Shaw's son as Chief Brody?

I think that's played London before

For maximum insanity, a musical I can only hope.

Couldn't make a Friday night screening--about 100 people I was told--but saw this at a rep tonight. The promise of "35mm print" is losing its allure: this one wasn't great.

Besides all the stuff it's actually famous for, I'd rank this as one of funniest films of the '70s. There are at least a half-dozen moments I'd point to to support that.

Not sure if I knew this or not, but I noticed Michael Chapman served as camera operator, a year before he shot Taxi Driver. (Reading up, he did the same on The Godfather.

Zen poetry:

A cloud
in the shape
of a killer shark

[1]I find it p funny (not a detriment to the film btw) that the Mayor gets shook enough to hire Quint after that fella in the rowboat gets feasted on off in the side pond, but the kid turning into a blood fountain in full view of hundreds of beachgoers has him all, "now let's not be hasty here."[/1]

Wasn't it because his own son was in the side pool? Or something like that.

king of the formatting

It's partly that, but the big difference is that after the kid, they think they they've caught the shark; the guy in the rowboat confirms Hooper's contention that they've caught a shark, not the shark.

I wonder if Spielberg had to fight the studio to kill the kid (and presumably remain faithful to the novel)? A lot of blood for a kid dying on screen.

I think when I sort of meant to say was clearly the mayor is deeply shaken and guilt-ridden after the boater is killed, but doesn't seem too guilt-ridden about pushing to keep the beaches open earlier, which leads to the kid being killed. I don't think it's a story flaw or anything, I was going to say that Brody taking all of the blame willingly when the kid's mom confronts him feels a bit off, but in thinking about it he definitely took that blame because he certainly didn't push back hard enough on the mayor, and later he certainly gives the mayor the disrespectful, shoving him around treatment he deserves when making him sign the contract with quint.

This movie has more blood than John Wick 4.

Was curious if either Brody kid had ever gone on to do anything--Jaws is literally the only screen credit for both of them. (They really young kid is so great when he mimics Scheider at the dinner table.) Also, the TV guy who delivers the "A cloud in the shape of a killer shark" line is Peter Benchley!

"The," not "They"

One more: in the IMDB full cast credits, Spielberg is listed as "Amity Point Lifestation Worker (voice)." Will have to listen carefully for that next time. (If there is one...I think I've reached my limit.)

the older Brody kid passed away pretty young, a heart attack. late thirties iirc.

My mother took me on my 10th birthday to see this film during its first run. It still holds up extremely well, thanks mostly to the script and the acting--and the shark's not working for most of the shots.