Jaws

Fifty years ago, Jaws made a huge splash in the cinematic landscape and its ripple effects are still felt to this day. Shortly after its original release in 1975, it thrashed box office records and became the highest-grossing film of all time until the release of the original Star Wars just two years later and even surfaced to a Best Picture nomination at the Academy Awards. Such a feat put Steven Spielberg, who had based the film off of the bestselling Peter Benchley novel of the same name, on the map and led to a lucrative career that made him a household name. Even now, Jaws is often regarded as one of the greatest films of all time, as well as perhaps the only good Shark movie ever made. It also can’t be understated how much of an impact it had on Hollywood filmmaking and society at large, for better or worse.

In honor of the fiftieth anniversary of such a monumental film, we did our due diligence and gave Jaws another watch (with a twenty-five-year-old DVD to boot). After all, films this old may not have held up as well as its reputation would suggest. However, not only has Jaws held up surprisingly well after a few decades, its reputation feels more than earned and it’s easy to see how it still serves as a continuous source of inspiration.

In the New England beach town of Amity Island, a young woman is pulled underwater during a late-night swim at a beach party. The next morning, her partially-eaten remains are washed ashore and, after the coroner concludes she was killed by a shark, police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) closes the beaches. Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton), however, wants the beaches open for the sake of the local economy and pressures the coroner to rule the death a boating accident, which sticks until Alex Kitner, a young boy, is killed by the same shark at a crowded beach. What follows is a manhunt for the shark that ends with Chief Brody, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), a consulting oceanographer from the mainland, and Quint (Robert Shaw), an eccentric local shark hunter, hunting it themselves.

Quint (Robert Shaw), Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) and Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss)
hunt down the killer shark.

Jaws has a rather simple storyline with three men hunting a shark in the wake of ongoing tragedy, but it’s told very well. The main trio who hunt down the shark aboard the Orca are very diverse characters: Chief Brody is a police chief facing a threat much larger than he has ever faced, Matt Hooper has much more experience identifying sharks than he does actually confronting one and Quint, though of a lower social class, has more than enough experience with the open sea to make up for it. Thanks to the skills of their respective actors, all three feel like real people with a very natural and believable dynamic, including how they gradually bond during the hunt. Opposing their efforts is Mayor Larry Vaughn, who cares a lot more about the local economy and only acts on the threat of the shark when it’s almost too late.

What really helps the film, however, is how well it builds up the shark (which goes unnamed in the film, though the mechanical sharks used during filming were nicknamed “Bruce” during production and tie-in products have alternatively called the shark “Jaws” or “Bruce”). For much of the film, it goes unseen and we occasionally see the shark’s POV as it swims toward its victims. When we do see it, we only catch fleeting glimpses of it and those who witness it understand its powerful and destructive nature. During the hunt for the shark, it’s rather resilient, as mere harpoons aren’t enough to take it down, and just a glimpse of it before the climactic battle is enough to make Chief Brody question the trio’s preparedness. All of this creates a good suspenseful atmosphere and makes for a very memorable and iconic antagonistic force of nature more terrifying than most modern movie villains. It’s really no wonder that it would influence the antagonists of other major works like Alien, Final Fantasy VII and Godzilla Minus One.

The occasional shark POV goes a long way.

Through all of the suspense and gore, including shots of dismembered body parts and a corpse jumpscare during an investigation of a wrecked boat, Jaws also has a sense of humor that prevents it from getting too dark and dreary. Unlike a number of modern blockbusters, however, the humor in Jaws strikes a proper balance with its tense and horrific moments, creating a lighter horror where the characters take the threat of the shark seriously, but their interactions feel natural and the laughs don’t turn the hunt into a farce. One of the biggest examples comes from the film’s most famous line, where Chief Brody has a close call with the shark and tells Quint, “You’re going to need a bigger boat.” In context, this line conveys the horror Brody feels in the moment, yet the delivery and timing carry a comic touch based on the banter that came right before without destroying the mood. Looking at the film now, I would say that the balance of horror and levity helps give Jaws its timeless appeal.

If I had one complaint, however, it’s that although the shark is described as one that went rogue, it’s easy to walk away from the film thinking that sharks are nothing more than mindless killing machines. While this would be an understandable reaction fifty years ago, there’s a lot more information about sharks nowadays that suggests that they’re rather misunderstood, which makes watching Jaws in the present day feel a little different. This in no way makes the film any less enjoyable, mind you, but knowing anything about sharks going in gives you a different perspective (then again, going into any older film with a modern lens would have that effect regardless of the film’s quality).

One more aspect of the film that certainly earns praise, however, are the visual effects. Unlike more modern films that rely heavily on CGI, including Jaws’ countless imitators, this one relies instead on practical effects and great cinematography. Though the crew faced hardships working with the animatronics for the shark, their efforts did not feel in vain, as the few appearances of the shark look incredible while the impressive POV shots sell its power and terror. Amity Island, filmed on location at Martha’s Vineyard, also looks like somewhere you wouldn’t mind visiting, minus the killer shark of course. I will mention though that you may wonder why the film has a PG rating and not a PG-13 or R considering the number of corpses and severed body parts, all still impressive through the use of practical effects, to which I would say that it would likely have gotten at least a PG-13 if the rating had existed back in 1975.

The glimpses of the shark still look impressive.

Of course, we can’t forget the memorable score by John Williams. While he’s perhaps known more for his epic scores for films like Star Wars, he displays minimalism at its finest, allowing for plenty of quiet moments and letting the score highlight the tension when needed. For this reason, the theme for the shark, which consists primarily of two notes, stands out as one of the most recognizable leitmotifs ever written for film. Even if you’ve never seen Jaws, you’ve likely heard the shark’s theme in another context, yet still knew its origin. If that doesn’t speak to the power of a great score, I don’t know what does.

At fifty years, Jaws’ lasting impact, for better or worse, cannot be understated. While this doesn’t really affect the question of whether or not you should watch Jaws, I at least wanted to touch on this subject in honor of this milestone anniversary.

Following the success of the original film, Jaws would spawn a handful of sequels: Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge. While Jaws 2 would have the best reception and box office performance of the three sequels, none of them would live up to the acclaim or performance of the original and would even inspire a joke in Back to the Future Part II that suggested the existence of a Jaws 19 in the year 2015 (fortunately, this would not come to pass, though we would unfortunately get six Sharknado movies in its place). Among the countless tie-ins and merch spawned from Jaws, the film would spawn three video games, a self-titled NES game based largely on the fourth film, Jaws Unleashed and Jaws: Ultimate Predator and Universal Studios Hollywood represents the film within the tram tour, while the Orlando location had a dedicated self-titled ride that still exists in the Japan park as of this writing.

The gag from Back to the Future Part II.

The success of Jaws, along with Star Wars two years later, would notably help create the current Hollywood system, which has increasingly relied on high-concept summer blockbusters with a wide release and heavy marketing. While this has led to a number of pop culture mainstays over the years, this model has started bordering on unsustainable for the big studios in a post-COVID world and has had other unintended side effects like pushing out mid-budget films. Witnessing the diminishing returns firsthand, which have been obscured somewhat by increased ticket prices creating the illusion of high attendance for many, it’s clear that the big studios may need to rethink their business model going forward and not constantly hunt for the next Jaws.

While Jaws has had a positive influence on filmmaking, including how certain major projects handled their most famous villains, the film has also had a major social and cultural impact, for better or worse. Over the years, the film has been attributed to a decline in beach attendance due to the fear of encountering a man-eating shark. Although Jaws didn’t create negative stereotypes about sharks from thin air, it certainly didn’t help their reputation as mindless killing machines when, in reality, they are anything but. Since the general population tends to believe what they see in film more easily than we would like, this has made shark conservation efforts more difficult, even with increased documentation of the true nature of sharks. Jaws is also allegedly responsible for overhunting of sharks, though I couldn’t say for sure. In any case, Benchly and Spielberg have since expressed regret for the film’s unintended negative impact on shark populations the world over.

Purely on its own merits as a film, I would still recommend watching Jaws. It remains a compelling thriller whose writing quality and level of suspense remain unmatched by other shark movies or, to an extent, many modern films. Once it grabs on, it will never let you go.