Jaws (1975)
Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women.
THE SUMMARY: A small New England beach town is terrorized by a monstrous murderous mega-shark, and a tag team of the police chief, a Scientific Expert™, and a rogue mariner for hire end the threat at great cost. It’s a classic you’ve kind of seen even if you haven’t seen it (I hadn’t before this viewing). Everyone knows the song. Everyone knows the shark. Its influence has to be respected, and even though this movie has aged in a few now corny ways, it was an enjoyable, entertaining, Fourth-of-July appropriate watch.
FROM MOVIE-PICKERS JAMIE AND JEANNE: Without a doubt, this is one of our favorite films. It's a masterclass in suspenseful filmmaking and offers an experience that launched Steven Spielberg's career, setting the blueprint for the modern summer blockbuster.
JAMIE AND JEANNE’S SHOW AI ART FOR THE WEEK:
Matt tells an old war story at sea
THE BEST:
The music, duh: Everyone in the world knows it, and to that extent, it deserves credit. The music made the movie even more famous than the movie itself did. John Williams nails it (almost) every single time, and Jaws was part of the early work that earned him the opportunities to outdo himself with Star Wars, Jurassic Park, and yes, even Home Alone 2. More often than not, when I love a movie soundtrack and look up who did it, it turns out to be John Williams.
Most importantly though, the Jaws theme was critically influential on and briefly introduces the original Baby Shark song, the bath time anthem in this household.
M1 Garand v. Great White: At first I thought shooting the shark with the Garand was hilarious, and then it went a direction I didn’t expect at all - blowing up the shark entirely by shooting a compressed air tank in its mouth. I love the Garand. I love gory surprises. This scene satisfied both spectacularly. My only complaint is the lack of the iconic ping! on last round as the rifle ejects the clip. It would have completed the scene - a real missed opportunity.
A combination of analytic caution and courageous action: Before the movie’s end, even though the oceanographer scientist man Hooper was mostly an academic douchebag with seemingly little practical experience and an unearned smug sense of superiority, I appreciated the dynamic between him and Quint, the roughneck shark killer for hire. One guy brings the charts and math and Latin animal species names, and the other brings the shoot-from-the-hip courage. As much as I mostly hated Hooper, the truth is every man should strive to emulate a combination of both guys - the analytical smarts to make good decisions, and the balls-out courage to see them through, even against overwhelming physical force and danger. This is the entire ‘warrior poet’ concept - don’t be intellectual or strong, be intellectual and strong.
My problem with how this movie made that demonstration though, is the unceremonious death for Quint. Until the end, the movie kept giving Quint the edge against Hooper, seemingly implying that academic study can only take you so far (true). Then they just kill quint off abruptly, apparently abandoning that point, and Hooper never acknowledges the feat of killing the shark was only possible through Quint’s courage. Quint deserved better.
Dun -dun, dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun…
The rifle that won the war also wins the sea
He really deserved better
THE WORST:
Jump scares aren’t supposed to be funny: And in fairness, most of the scares in this movie actually hold up decently well, for a nearly fifty-year-old production. At times the shark looks fake, and the first shark that was supposed to be the killer looks absolutely plastic and fake, but no prop is as hilariously bad as Ben Gardner’s head in the boat. It’s supposed to be a scene of horror, but it looks like a mask sitting on the post-Halloween clearance rack at Walmart. Instead of jumping out of our seats, my family laughed at its reveal. To have the suspense build to that amateur production was absolute comedy, which of course is not the effect for which Spielberg and company were aiming.
How many people have to die before nobody wants to go to the beach anymore?: I understand that the authorities, primarily the mayor, are trying to hide the truth from the town and tourists from afar to protect summer revenue, and I could believe that people would accept one death as a boating accident. But after two violent deaths in the water in just a few days (three if you count Gardner), why are the townspeople still so eager to get into the water, and so mad that the beach will be closed? Two kids have suffered horrific bloody deaths, and all these people are eager to make sure their kids take the same risk… why? In a sensible world, the police chief’s decision to close the beaches would be irrelevant, because nobody would want to get in that water anyway.
Or perhaps I’m misunderstanding. Maybe they don’t want to get in the water - they just want to hang out on the sand? But if that’s the case, I’m not sure why the police chief would object. And of course ultimately he doesn’t - everyone hangs out on the beach anyway, and gets in the water at the mayor’s inexplicable encouragement, which is its own separate question.
Yes, the mayor wants the money, but if the tourists are already in town spending it, why does he care if people actually get in the water or not? And knowing the truth, why would he want to risk another attack, causing his town’s reputation to suffer even more than it already has? The entire plotline of attack after attack, but people still eager to get in the water, had me scratching my head throughout.
Brody and Hooper have no questions for each other at the end: I understand what the writers/producers were trying to achieve here. At the conclusion of a terrible battle, the survivors have something of a telepathic understanding with each other, and simply move on in peace. The transition from horror to tranquility is the point. That doesn’t mean it’s believable, though.
Hooper was knocked out of the shark cage, and hid until it was safe. Brody, after seeing the cage damage, would have likely assumed Hooper died, but he has no visible surprise when he learns that Hooper in fact survived. Brody doesn’t even have any questions about how he did.
Likewise, Hooper was hiding in the seabed, which would have made his view of what happened to blow up the shark very limited, if he even had any sight on it at all. How does he know it’s safe to surface, and how does he know the shark is dead? Even if he sensed the blast and saw the blood, why doesn’t he have any questions about how Brody finally achieved the feat?
If I just spent days nearly dying several times trying to kill a legendary beast and then it’s finally done by one of my companions, I’d like some information about how it happened. But I guess I’m the crazy one.
A comically bad prop
You guys really don’t have any questions?
THE RATING: 4/5 Wickies. Perfectly entertaining - not the biggest thinker, but certainly not boring, and Jaws earns respect for pioneering the genre of summer popcorn action movies. It’s more like 3.5, but half-Wickies round up, and maybe it’s just the right summer time to watch a summer hit of yesteryear. Or yesterdecade.
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NEXT WEEK: The Big Lebowski (1998)
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