Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Knowing Jaws' big 40th birthday was fast approaching my mind reeled at what I could possibly write about the movie that either I or people vastly smarter than me hadn't written already. I knew I had to mark the occasion, though, so I hit upon the thought that I could ask some filmmaker friends and acquaintances to do my work for me.
Like Star Wars, which would follow only two years later, Jaws grabbed the imaginations of a whole generation of cinephiles, many of whom would end up inspiring others with their work on films and television.
So, I opened up my address book and spammed people I knew loved Jaws as much as I did and asked them to answer the simple question: What is your favorite scene or moment in Jaws and why?
I thought it would make a nice, simple break down article, but I didn't take into consideration one thing: the movie's so filled with amazing moments that very few people actually responded with just one moment. In fact, most of the responses came with mini-essays that delved into just how deeply the film hit them when they first saw it.
This is something I should have anticipated because if I asked myself the same question I couldn't just pick one thing and I can't ever talk about this movie without getting personal about it.
So instead my original grand idea to highlight certain scenes with special guest commentary, let's instead gather around an imaginary internet campfire and take turns geeking out about one of the best films ever made, shall we?
First up is Robert Rodriguez, who actually shares a birthday with Jaws' release!
Since I was only a kid when I saw Jaws for the first time in the theater it didn't change cinema for me, it defined it. It was released on my 7th birthday, June 20,1975, and my birthday present was getting to see Jaws with my brother.
Understand that for us young movie fans, before there was Star Wars there was JAWS. I collected everything shark and Jaws related after that. I had the Jaws Log, the Jaws novel, the “Jaws Jokes” joke book, I got the Game of Jaws fishing toy for Xmas, I wanted to be an oceanographer when I grew up.
That was our pre-Star Wars movie experience, and it made you an obsessed and rabid movie fan for the very first time.
I remember one of the things that stood out for me most from that first screening was seeing the severed leg hit the sea bottom still wearing a tennis shoe. I looked over at my older brother, who was 10 at the time, and saw that he was alternating between laughing and crying.
We didn’t know how to process it. The film was truly shocking and (until we all learned more about sharks) it felt completely plausible and realistic and yet adventurous in a grand way. We went back and saw it again and again and again.
It was absolutely addictive hearing an audience scream their heads off, then cheer wildly and then laugh uncontrollably. You would go back to watch the unsuspecting audience as much as watch the film. It defined the movie going experience for me because it was a rollercoaster of emotions and a mash up of genres.
I remember my dad was a total non-reactor to scary movies so we eagerly took him to see it at the old Aztec theater in San Antonio, and I remember sitting there not even watching the movie at all, I knew it so well at that point, I was just watching my dad - waiting for him to react to all the scary parts. He sat crouched in his seat.
It was a huge triumph for us that when the head popped out of the boat, my stoic dad actually gripped his armrest tensely. That confirmed for us it was a masterpiece of horror, cause it even made my dad twitch.
I became obsessed with it to the point that I still have a full size Jaw’s head taken from the original mold sitting by my pool and I even took Greg Nicotero with me on the ultimate Jaws experience: a great white shark dive in a cage with NO BARS on any of it’s sides for his 40th bday.
But that’s what a great film at a young impressionable age does for you. It makes you a lifelong obsessed fan. I saw it multiple times on the big screen back then, and in all its re-releases and it’s still my favorite film.
When I was 12 I saved up my money and rented an extra VCR and a VHS copy of Jaws, then hooked up my the family VCR to the rented one and was so happy to discover that Jaws wasn't copy guarded! (They only issued rental copies back then, so you'd have to pay 80 Bucks if you wanted to buy it.)
So I rented it, copied it, and studied it endlessly from age 12 on.
Still the most exciting finale in movies has to be Brody sinking into the water as he shoots his last bullet and blows up the shark. That will never be topped, and it's just as exciting and wondrous 40 years later.
The death of Quint has to be the most tragic and gruesome onscreen deaths ever. I love that it was a true horror film AND a fantastic adventure film. Spielberg later gave us a Poltergeist and a Raiders but he put it all together in Jaws.
Perfect cast, perfect score, flawless direction, still AMAZING effects. With all the different ways it entertained, Jaws will simply never be equaled.
I met Greg Nicotero in the late '90s at an event at the Alamo Drafthouse celebrating his buddy Tom Savini's movies and from our very first conversation in the lobby of the original Alamo we connected over our mutual adoration of this film. Naturally Greg was one of the first people I reached out to for this and his response is below:
Ok so I hate to admit it but it took me nearly 10 viewings to get to the point where I actually opened my eyes when Brody finds the remains of Chrissy on the beach. I had read the book and the description freaked me out so much that I covered my eyes during my first dozen viewings. When I finally had the nerve to watch I realized that I had imagined a very different angle that actually showed everything.....damn!
I always loved the down angle of Teddy Grossman being pulled under and bitten. The shape of the shark underwater was terrifying cause the shark was so damn huge! The to cut almost immediately to Teddy in the jaws as the shark on it's side clamps down half in and half out of the water......holy shit!
I'll never forget standing in the lobby of the Gateway Theater downtown Pittsburgh (where I later watched DAWN OF THE DEAD.....the film that often runs neck and neck with JAWS) and studying the lobby cards while waiting in line and seeing the card of Hooper in the cage with the hint of the shark in the background and that moment....one of many that had me asking "How the hell did they do that?" It continued throughout he TIME magazine coverage and further cemented my fascination with special effects which lead me to where I am today.
Nicotero and I are on the same page (not surprisingly) here. That leg-chomping shot is what I always point to when I hear dumbasses repeat the bullshit line that the shark looked fake in Jaws (thanks, Back to the Future II).
I still get chills at that reveal... first the murky glimpse of the shark gliding under the water and then seeing that head out of the water biting down on that screaming victim.
Though we see the shark pretty well in the July 4th attack scene most people think the chumming/”You're going to need a bigger boat” scene is the first real reveal of the shark. In fact, let's turn it over to Jon Favreau's answer to my question:
"'Slow ahead' I can go 'slow ahead.' Come on down and chum some of this shit--"
It's the line before "You're gonna need a bigger boat" that reveals the shark popping up in Brody's coverage. It's the moment that continues to be the gold standard of un-telegraphed reveals. A pop-out that earns a scream and a laugh.
Props to Favs for getting the big line right. I've even seen official Universal shirts with “We're going to need a bigger boat” printed on them. You're gonna need a bigger boat. YOU'RE!
I hear Robert Downey Jr. is a massive Jaws fan, too, but sadly I don't have his contact info in my rolodex...
Next up is Jason Schwartzman, who is one of the biggest cinephiles I've ever had the pleasure of talking with, so I was really pleased that he responded. Here he is:
I have not watched Jaws in maybe a year, so forgive this:
A scene that always stood out to me and scared me deeply was the scene with Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss at night, just the two of them, and Richard Dreyfuss goes into the water to investigate!
Why!
Why!
Why!
That is all I could think watching that damn scene. The ocean in that film is scary enough, combined with the night it adds a whole new layer of dread to me. And how the light travels through water at night! So eerie and also very beautiful looking, but totally scary.
I think what I always loved about the movie was that each guy had his own reason to go get the shark to protect, to study, to kill. They were all coming together for a common goal, but each was motivated by something slightly different, BUT JUST SLIGHTLY.
Anyways, what can I say about the movie that hasn't been said? It's a killer.
While Jason didn't particularly highlight the Ben Gardner head pop, this scene is a common thread through most Jaws fans' memories of this movie. That stinger, man. Best jump scare in cinema history? Probably. I can say that I've seen Jaws on the big screen easily 12-15 times in my life and no matter the makeup of the audience or how beat up the print was there have ALWAYS been screams at this moment.
In fact, that's what the next guest points out as his favorite. Here's Guillermo del Toro's response:
Hooper finding Ben Gardner's boat and the "head scare."
This scene is a small masterclass on the art of the "jump scare" and it makes the ocean a haunted house unbound by walls. Menace was lurking off frame, gliding in the water. Tension build was flawless and classy.
As a makeup geek I thought the mauled head was gruesome and amazing-
I remember seeing it, opening night, in a packed theatre and watching every single head levitate two feet off the seat and the whole audience laughing and applauding as if they were in a concert. I had, by then, noticed Spielberg's name on DUEL (which I saw in a drive-in theatre) and on Night Gallery and Columbo and I decided then and there to look for every movie he did.
JAWS was one of the very first LP records I bought- the others? STAR WARS and THE GODFATHER. But Jaws' score made me realize the power of soundtrack and the fact that there was powerful music at work in many scenes where I had noticed no score.
JAWS remains one of my favorite Spielberg movies and, as testament to its power, my kids still refuse to watch it because they've heard it's too scary.
Thanks, Guillermo!
Next up is one of my best buddies, who also happens to be a kick ass genre actor. You know AJ from The Signal, You're Next and The Sacrament, but the dude knows his shit about all things cinema, too. His response to my question is pretty boss. Check it out:
This is easy because it informed how I put on a diving mask for the rest of my life.
'I got no spit.'
As a kid that told me that when you were stressed you lost the ability to spit, and that you should always spit into your mask, because it's magic and lets you see things clearly, like a giant fucking shark. Attempting to eat you.
I always wanted to be Matt Hooper. The movie Hooper, not the novel Hooper, because he was an asshole.
This movie is in my top 5 and always will be. Farewell and adieu, you fair Spanish ladies.
You'll always be the Hooper to my Quint, buddy. Wait, I think that means I get eaten and you get to lazily hide while the monster kills me. I take it back!
But AJ's right. That little line from Dreyfuss is so human, a little bit of humor that doesn't at all hide his terror at going into the water. Brilliant little character moment that sticks with you.
Next up is Mark Millar, creator of Kick-Ass, Kingsman and a bunch of other nerdy shit. Jaws touched him in an inappropriate way as a young man and now he is here to tell us his tale.
“I spent far too much time thinking about this because Jaws means everything to me. That shark’s face is up there with Superman, Luke Skywalker and James Bond on my personal Mount Rushmore. I saw it when I was five or six in a cinema, taken by my brother’s fiancee for some reason, and I remember she was so surprised and upset at the content that she covered my face with her handkerchief for pretty much the entire final act and I watched it, one-eyed and through the lace around the edges.
I was young enough to not only be scared of water after Jaws, but scared to even sit on a toilet seat because I was worried the shark would somehow navigate the pipes and into that little puddle of water at the bottom. So this movie had a genuinely profound effect on me and I easily watch it once a year to try to tap into that initial response and the weird thing is I usually can. I think it’s probably the most perfect movie ever made. It’s flawless in that there’s not one scene you could really remove or in any way improve upon. The casting, the setting, the extras, everything about this movie just works. What I love is that it’s a folk tale and would have exactly the same impact on any human being at any point in time. It’s about a threat to the village and three local men heading off to neutralize that threat before it kills anyone else. Yes, this is a well-trod slasher-story structure, going all the way back to Bram Stoker’s Dracula, as the heroes must face the monster in the place where he’s strongest, but by God it works and the power hasn’t faded 40 years on.
Picking a favourite scene is impossible. It’s like picking a note in the middle of a masterpiece. But two scenes do stay with me and forgive me if they’re so obvious and well-known, but Hell, can’t we quote the entire movie verbatim? The first I think is that beautiful, surely improvised moment between the concerned Chief Brody, wondering what to do about this terrible situation, and his son mimicking his grave poses, lightening the whole mood at a grim point in the picture. It works because it’s real and it’s funny and we’ve never seen this in a movie before, only in our daily lives. It’s perfect because it shows what’s at stake and it makes us like Brody because EVEN THIS LITTLE KID seems to idolize him. It’s economy of info and no dialogue at all, which is cinema at her very best.
My other scene, after much deliberation, is poor Alex Kintner and his shredded yellow lilo. Not so much that shark attack thirteen minutes in, though it’s obviously perfect, but again the subtle, brilliant Spielbergian idea that you focus on the human impact of something that really should be very over the top and schlocky. While the screaming is going on we have this wide shot of the crowd and all the kids panicking, running from the water and hugged by their parents. One by one they’re all quickly reunited, except this poor, middle-aged Mum looking around in a panic and realizing her kid is the one that isn’t coming back. You didn’t need to see a body. This was everything we needed in terms of impact and I think it’s one of the greatest moments in film, where a director is just so on top of his game that nobody can touch him. Sweet Mother of Mercy, was he really just 28 when he was shooting this?
That dinner scene is another common favorite scene amongst Jaws nerds and for good reason. There's so much subtle character work going on there that conveys almost a whole movie's worth of character info without the audience realizing they're getting it.
Fred Dekker, director of Night of the Creeps, The Monster Squad and writer of the upcoming Shane Black Predator reboot, touches on that in this appreciation that will close us out. Here's Mr. Dekker:
Let’s cut to the four-barrel chase: JAWS changed my life.
I was a movie nerd from childhood, thanks to my Dad. He'd watch old black-and-white war pictures on TV, and routinely point out character actors to me, by name. Not the stars, mind you -- the secondary players. I should have known then that film was in my DNA. My dad trundling us off to the drive-in to see THE SAND PEBBLES or WHERE EAGLES DARE or PLANET OF THE APES… these are some of my fondest memories; laying in the back of the station wagon in a sleeping bag in case I fell asleep (which, let’s be honest, I rarely did).
But while movies were a major part of my life, in an odd way they always felt somehow pre-fabricated. Like Nissan makes cars, or McDonalds Big Macs, movies, for good or ill, always seemed factory made; off the shelf. I didn’t equate a film’s “personality” with a person.
Until June of 1975. Until JAWS.
It was the style of the movie, mostly. The unerring sense of composition, moving camera, naturalistic performances. But what really struck me were the flourishes— the single take of the ferry boat conversation; the split-diopter shots and the “dolly-zoom” when Brody sees the shark attack at the beach; the shooting star in the night sky as a portent of hope, or doom. For the first time, I was noticing a point of view; a single vision. That’s when I realized there was an actual person behind it all -- that the director was the storyteller. And from that day on, that’s what I wanted to do.
I could pick any number of scenes to marvel at, dissect, diagram, but one in particular reaps new discoveries upon each viewing: Hooper Comes to Dinner. It’s a simple scene, really. Three people in one room. But when we talk about the modern summer blockbuster that has come to define the motion picture industry, the type of movie JAWS is credited with (or blamed for) creating… we think of non-stop action, rampant special effects, wall-to-wall music, mind-numbing cuts and deafening sound effects.
The Hooper dinner scene has none of that. It’s quiet, and warm. Pure character. Brody and his youngest son making scary faces at each other, then a goodnight kiss (“Because I need it”); Ellen's awkward small talk; Hooper grabbing a discarded dinner plate and chowing down like he’d forgotten to eat for days. But for me, the key to the scene is the wine bottle.
Hooper’s come to give Brody some bad news. Although the locals have caught a shark, Hooper thinks the real man-eater is still out there. But he knows it’s dinner time so he brings some wine (red and white), showing that for all his youthful brashness and ego, he was raised right. When Brody starts to pour the wine before it’s had a chance to “breathe,” we see Hooper’s Ivy League snobbery in play. It’s a wonderful character moment, but something more important is happening: Brody’s pouring because he needs a drink.
Think about it: he’s the new chief of police in an old money beach town, he’s afraid of the water, and a 25-foot great white shark is eating the town’s populace. Fuuuck. Scheider’s performance is one of muted, reflective exhaustion -- but we know he’s scared, even overwhelmed, and that’s something we rarely see in a movie hero. If ever. And then something wonderful happens: for the rest of the scene, he absently peels the foil off the neck of the wine bottle. Was this in Carl Gottlieb’s script? A Spielberg suggestion? Something Scheider brought to the party during rehearsals? It doesn’t matter. What matters is this: it makes Brody human. Because he’s doing what you or I would do. He’s an actual, recognizable human being, plausibly facing an unimaginable situation.
And that, JAWS taught me, is the best kind of movie there is… and every one I’ve seen since is in its shadow.
Fred Dekker
June, 2015
The fact that we didn't even touch on the Indianapolis speech, the brutal opening attack, “Smile, you son of a bitch!” or Quint's introduction shows just how many top level moments are in this film. The stuff we left out is better than the best stuff in most movies.
Thanks to all who contributed to this love fest and thank you all for reading along.
Happy Birthday, Jaws. You may be 40, but you don't look a day over 21! Here's to swimmin' with bow-legged women.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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