Top 3 scary moments in “Jaws”
“Jaws” turns 50 this summer, and USA Today film critic Brian Truitt celebrates with his favorite bloody moment.
Name of the theme song: Dundan. Dundan.
Dun-Dun Dun-Dun Dun-Dun.
Who are we kidding? Of course, the John Williams creation of the scary two-notes reminds me of the opening shark strike at “Jaws,” who turns 50 on June 20th.
It’s a half-century that scares bejesus from a generation of film and beach fans. We’ve been scanning the Finn horizon for 50 years, but Hollywood is about to replicate Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster, from “Shark Week” to “Meg.”
Complete Confession: Looking at the “chin” I have for years kept me out of the ocean as well as the pool. I’ve heard of people who are afraid to enter the bathtub.
unreasonable? of course. rare? not much. It was a revelation offered by diving deep into the realm of “jaws” fanatics, many of which have long traded it for enthusiasts who survived the horrors of open water and roared it for films.
This summer, the Terrorist attacks will air “Jaws” and its three (obviously few) sequels on Peacock starting June 15th, featuring an introduction from Spielberg on June 20th in a three-hour presentation of the original NBC film. There will also be a re-release of the big screen on August 29th.
Is “Jaw” the scariest movie ever?
Dawn Keatley, editor of the English Department and film at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, says that after watching it hundreds of times, it looks scary every time.
“Spielberg presents this shark as the power of the pure animal we are at risk,” Keatley says. She turns “Jaws” into a film of a dangerous and tense partner as the three main characters set out for the boat in search of the beasts that are bothering them.
“Sharks stand perfectly for the wild nature at the edge of places humans can go, and as humans, we are constantly pushing the border,” she says. “Sharks mark places that we don’t get very easily. Maybe not to go. For those who are dangerous and forbidden.”
Don’t be scared of sharks – “More people die from taking selfies”
Among the first movie fans who were scared of “Jaws,” Robert Shaw’s nephew Christopher Shaw Myers remembered the fateful Shark Hunter Quint. “I’m reading a book (by Peter Benchley) and oh my god, that was horrifying,” he says.
When Myers joined Show’s sister Joanna, a senior high school student, Myers was packed with theatre owners considering showing the film at a film home in Philadelphia. What part he likes? An unforgettable monologue by his uncle explains his hatred of the shark after toreting fellow soldiers on a sinking navy ship.
To protect Carcharodon Carcharias (aka the Great White), sharks are not looking for humans. “We’ve been working hard to get the most out of our lives,” said Taylor Chapple, co-director of Oregon State’s Big Fish Lab. “But that’s the uncertainty of it. An unknown fear. I think there’s probably a shark there.”
The “Jaw” smacked a very primitive fear. This is calmly encapsulated by Quint’s famous USS Indianapolis speech. “So 1,100 men went into the water.
“The story is, the speech is very long, and Robert asked Stephen if he could cut it back,” says Myers, author of “The Life of an Actor, like Robert Shaw: The Joe’s.” When the actor delivered his version, “There was a dead silence in the room and Stephen said, ‘We have a photo.’ ”
For Steven Spielberg, “Jaws” was his “story of origin” and was almost both his career killer
That moment was rare for Spielberg, who at age 27, was at the helm of a film based on bestselling novels. Studio executives not only wanted a hit, they wanted it fast.
Spielberg, who created “Duel” and “Sugar Land Express,” feared the quick end of a promising career. He was dealing with a mechanical shark called Bruce (after his lawyer), who had shot open water and continued to malfunction. (Show’s son, Ian, played his father on a Broadway show where he co-written about the “Jaws” blunder called “The Shark is Broken.”)
The extent to which “Jaw” hurts the young director is evident in “Jaws @50: The Definitive Inside Story,” a National Geographic documentary airing on July 11th on Hulu and Disney+. Spielberg sat down with director and friend Laurent Bouzero and said, “There was nothing interesting about making ‘Jaws’. ”
In the documentary, Spielberg states that the 1975 film was a box office attack, and that he had nightmares about the experience, much after the troubled filming in 1974. He sneaks into the Universal Studios theme park and finds a rounded comfort on a leather bench inside Orca.
“I underestimated how traumatic it was for Stephen, but he didn’t want to give up. That’s one lesson from “Jaws.” Don’t give up,” Boozero says. “Jaws is a story of his origins. However, in our interviews, the weight of the experience was still felt as though I was sitting with him. ”
Most of the “Jaw” cast members were locals at Martha’s vineyards.
Due to all the hardships of making a film, “the jaw” bites culture hard and never lets go. I was helped by the PG rating, which recognized many young people who didn’t know the fears of the store.
Matt Taylor spent the summers at Martha’s vineyard as a child, and at the age of seven in 1979 he was considered old enough to see the “chin.” Four years later, the film’s lines were still meandering around the block.
“It was probably one of the most exciting film events of my life. My heart was being pounded from my heart,” he says. “I love water, but when I enter I still have to face the horizon.”
Taylor’s love for “Jaws” eventually led him to edit photos and memorabilia collected by locals while he was filming, and edited into the book “Jaws: Memories from Martha’s Vineyard.”
One of the key elements of “Jaws” was the predominance of the islanders who had parts in the film, featuring fewer than 10 Hollywood actors, including Roy Scheider as police chief Martin Brody and Richard Dreyfus as shark expert Matt Hooper. These non-actors lend out the realism that they can’t film on a veteran star and a Hollywood lot. Many of them still take part in the “Jaw” encounter and Mingle events.
For a long time, the islanders retained their “jaw” memories, but “it seems like the vineyard has responded to their fame over the past decade or so,” says his own Taylor. “Now every store has “jaw” products, “Jaws” themed dishes, “Jaws” tours, and of course, locals who share stories. ”
From the fest to the homemade “Jaws” remake, fans won’t get enough of their favorite movies
Stephen Duncan trekked to Martha’s vineyards from Los Angeles for the first Jaws Fest in 2005, but it’s not clear if he’ll be back this year and will likely be able to film “Jaws: Exhibition” at the Film Museum at the Academy Museum in LA.
“They’ve become wise and expensive,” says Duncan, who works in the title insurance business but also runs jawsfan.com, a website dedicated to their passion for “Jaws.”
“I’ve seen the movie 300 times, so if you say the line, you can say the following,” he says.
Well, here’s a simple one: “It’s 20 footers.” Hooper gets breathless as the great white swam past Orca. “He tons of 25 tons,” Quint adds.
You know what – since 1975, catchphrases are reused infinitely. Shell-shocked Brody said, “You’ll need a bigger boat.”
This inspired dialogue (Cedar improvised the line). Coupled with Spielberg’s use of Hitchcock’s perspective – when you open a shark attack, you don’t see a shark – “Jaws” maintains a fresh half-century, says Ross Williams, who started the British site.
“I watched it with my mother when I was five. It’s been my favorite movie ever since,” he says.
In 2020, as the Covid-19 pandemic took hold, Williams invited fans to co-create a “Jaws” tribute, a “Jaws” tribute featuring animation, Lego figures and home movie shoots of classic scenes. Fans from over 200 countries contributed.
“In 1975, people thought they were watching ‘shark movies,’ and that was the case,” he says. “But fifty years later, we realize that the “chin” is about family, home, obligations, politics, class systems, past, healing from trauma and more. ”
For Williams, all life appears to be captured by the oversized jaw of Spielberg’s enduring cinema masterpiece.
“Like every classic,” he says, “Jaws is a film that keeps giving. ”
