Director: Steven Spielberg
"Slow ahead." I can go slow ahead, come on down here and chum some of this shit! - Chief Brody
Synopsis: A large great white shark terrorises a small island holiday community. The chief of police enlists the help of a marine biologist and experienced fisherman to catch and kill the shark.
Although maybe a little dated now, and other films have come out with more realistic sharks (Deep Blue Sea), no shark film has brought back the terror of not wanting to swim in the ocean since the original Jaws. Deep Blue Sea also revolved around dangerous great white sharks, but it was set in a remote research facility in the middle of the ocean. Jaws brought the action, and terror, right to the beach. Young children running and playing on the sand, families playing in the water, young boys tossing a football back and forth. Little do these people know that just below the surface of the water, a 20 footer (no, 25 footer) is lurking, waiting for an unsuspecting bather to wade too close. Unfortunately, that bather turns out to be Alex Kitner, and the rubber raft he was floating on washes up on the shore a few moments later, a large section of the raft bitten off.
I first saw Jaws when I was about seven years old. I still enjoy watching it today, and can quote most of the lines from the film. I recently found the clip on Youtube of Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) chumming the water behind Captain Quint's (Robert Shaw) boat the Orca. That scene still brings the hairs up on the back of my neck! Scheiders' reaction makes me wonder if Steven Spielberg told him that the shark would burst out of the water like that - if not, he was a very good actor! His famous comment "You're gonna need a bigger boat..." has gone on through generations, not only relating to this film, but also in most cases of daily life where someone has an insurmountable problem.
I bought the 25th anniversary edition on DVD a few years ago, and was pleased to see quite a lot of interviews with some of the cast members and Steven Spielberg. The shark used in the film was mechanical, covered with foam rubber, painted to look like a great white. A filming technique I really liked was that even though the Orca was never more than a few miles off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, where filming took place, the shots were always filmed with the cameras pointing out to sea, to make us believe they were in the middle of nowhere. The intensity of the drama never really lets up either. Quint's eerie retelling of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis adds additional suspense to the after dinner scene, and just as you think things are about to quiet down, the shark rams the boat, causing a breach in the hull, which in turn starts the problems they experience in trying to get back to shore.
Richard Dreyfuss plays the part of Matt Hooper, the plucky marine biologist who tries to analyse and photographs the shark as it circles the boat. In trying to take photographs of the shark, he asks Chief Brody to go to the end of the gangplank on the front of the Orca - "Will you go to the end of the pulpit please? I need something in the foreground to give it some scale!"
"Foreground, my ass!" replies Chief Brody, as he doesn't want to fall off the cramped deck.
Matt Hooper's attempt to poison the shark with a shark dart from an aluminium divers cage does not end well, the cage in which he is lowered over the side of the boat taking the majority of the brunt of the shark's attack, and luckily, Hooper manages to escape and hide, while the shark continues its attack on the boat.
Adding to all this action and suspense is the brilliant musical score composed by John Williams; a haunting main overture indicating the shark's arrival, and a spectacular chase and action theme overlaying the intense and suspenseful parts of the movie.
In my opinion, definitely a film to watch over again, and if you haven't seen it, I recommend either renting the DVD or checking your local TV listings to see if its showing. Overall rating 7/10.
Jaws should be available from most good DVD retailers.
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