Jaws
Jaws is Steven Spielberg's first huge hit in a brilliant career that has spawn all time great popcorn flicks such as ET: The Extra Terrestrial,
Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Jurassic Park. At a time when movie studies were fearful of the summer months, Jaws came to life as film first real blockbuster as it was the highest grossing film at that time. A young Steven Spielberg who was know at the time for films such as Duel and The
Sugar land Express brought to life Peter Benchley's best selling novel in such a way that it still scares me even after I have watched it numerous times.
For aspiring film students, Jaws should be watch over and over again and studied for everything that it is worth. The story revolves around a police chief who fears that there is a giant man eating "great white" shark lurking in the waters of the small coastal town of Amity. The police chief Brody played by Roy Scheider (2010) what the beach closed while the
mayor will stop at nothing but to keep the beach open as it is Amity's main source of revenue during the Fourth of July Weekend. Spielberg a couple of techniques that work so well that we actually believe what we are seeing on the screen. First off, the shark is rarely seen, in fact the shark is not seen for the first hour of the film and Spielberg uses techniques such as John Williams score to acknowledge the presence of the shark. Second, he uses factual documentation and the character Hooper a oceanographer played by Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss (The Goodbye Girl) to fill in the details about what sharks are all about. There is a scene where Brody is searching through a shark book that gives credit to how sharks seek of their prey.
It is not until the final forty minutes of the film until we finally see what the shark is all about. Robert Shaw is Quint (The Deep) who leads for the most part Spielberg uses special floating barrels that are designed to tire the shark and bring it to the surface. When we see the shark, it is only for very brief moments as this creates the suspense. The final aspect of Jaws that should be studied by film students is the editing. Jaws was edited by Verna Fields who won an Oscar for her work uses many transitions and editing techniques to keep the action well paced. There was scene early in the film where Chief Brody is watching the events in the water from the safety of the beach. Fields
edits the film so that every time a person walks in front of Brody this action serves as a cut to what is happening in the water, when the camera then comes back to Brody, the shot is now a medium close up where we have another person walking by which acts as another cut where we again se the events in the water, then when the camera returns again, their is not a close up of Chief Brody as another victim in the water gets attacked by the shark.
Steven Spielberg also does not forget to create memorable characters as Spielberg takes a great length of the film to develop these characters
instead of just diving into the special effects and thrills of the movie. Just recently, a friend of mine told me that he believes that "Jaws" would not hold up in
today's cinema. Well he was right, but why it would not hold up in today's cinema is not because Jaws was made in the 70's but because the audiences of today are more concerned about digitally made effects, how many times they would see the shark and most importantly would not understand that Jaws scares because of the what "you do not see" than what you actually end up seeing.
Jaws was nominated for four Academy Awards in 1975 including Best Picture. Jaws would go on to eventually win Oscars for Best Editing, Best Sound and Best Music, Original Score. Jaws has also been recognized by the American Film Institute where it earned spot #48 on the list of the best 100 American films ever made. Jaws basically created the term "Blockbuster" and was a stepping stone for studios to realize that summer is the best time and place for popcorn and event movies. Jaws was made 30 years and still scares me even to this day. I would not consider swimming in the ocean after viewing this movie and there are good number of scene where Jaws really scared the hell out of me. For those of you who enjoy Spielberg movies, this was the first hit in a brilliant career that would
eventually make Steven Spielberg the "King of Film"
Runtime: 125 min
Aspect Ratio: 2:45.1 (Widescreen)
Universal Home Video
Rated: 14A
Read more reviews at
