The One...The Only...JAWS (1 Viewer)

[Tino]

The more I think about Jaws, the more I believe it is the greatest summer film ever made and my favorite Spielberg film.

I watch it every summer and it never gets old. It’s still as thrilling and exciting as the first time I saw it in the summer of 1975.

I’m actually showing it this Wednesday night in my backyard on a 100” screen with family and friends and everyone is excited.

I think if this film was rereleased in theaters in IMAX it would be a huge success even today.

Bruce Lives!!

 

[Tino]

Favorite Jaws screening.

I was thinking about what was my favorite screening of Jaws ( apart from the first time I saw it in 1975).

I’ve seen it countless times since then but my favorite is seeing it in 1997 at Radio City Music Hall with a sold out crowd that knew and cheered every famous line and scene.

Peter Benchley introduced the film and shared a few anecdotes about it. It was electric.

What was your favorite screening of Jaws?

 

[Traveling Matt]

I haven't had an experience like that (!) but my favorite screening was 2022's 3D conversion. Seeing the third act in 3D was cool, but I was far more impressed with the human intimacy (one of the best things about the film) in three dimensions. The shot of Brody and Vaughn walking towards the camera down the narrow Town Hall hallway made you feel like you were right there. It made very intimate small town happenings even more intimate. I didn't expect that at all, and I gained an entirely new appreciation for 3D beyond just pop outs. And I'm still sad it's not available for home viewing.

 

[DaveF]

And???

I was posting in a free moment and ran out of time to finish.

Aspects of Jaws are fantastic. Early Speilberg directing Roy Schieder and young Richard Dreyfuss is brilliant. There are so many shots and scenes so clearly crafted to convey the feeling of the characters. The recurring use of someone's head filling half the frame and the ocean out of focus but clearly in the background in the other half of the frame to convey the back-of-mind, constant anxiety about what might be happening, is all so good.

And that classic scene I linked prior with Chief Brody seeing the shark for the first time, and his stunned reaction pulling his face into frame, and then wordlessly backing into the ship cabin, and saying, apropos of nothing to Quint, "We're going to need a bigger boat" is perfection.

There's a sequence late in the movie when Jaws is caught up on the boat with the barrels and ropes and it's incredible. Fifty years later and it looks like a real giant shark and I'm stressing. Even the moment just mentioned of Brody seeing Jaws was pretty believable.

But there are times when this is a very 1970s movie. The shark looks still and off kilter and like a bad model in many scenes. The Tiger Shark that's killed early on, viewed on 4K, is nothing more than a rubber dummy. The flat painted eyes are terrible and jerked me out of the reality of the scene.

And the John Williams score, overall, isn't great. The theme is iconic. But that's it, the rest of the music is middling or even tonally wrong, giving the wrong mood. Much of the time on the boat, when it's tense and stressful moments, the music is light and prancing and even silly. I didn't understand it. Some of the best moments are when the score goes away and it's just character dialog.

And the pacing is so '70s. We've got a giant shark monster horror movie...and we spend a lot of time with no monster and largely people talking about unrelated things. The scene with Quint, Brody, and Hooper talking about scars and a weird -- and in hindsight maybe in poor taste -- story about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis -- were very of the time. But Brody's phobia about water and boats is never given any dialog, and certainly never made explicit.

The overall plotting is a bit quirky. Hooper ultimately is largely useless. The only thing he does that's helpful is cut open the Tiger shark to show that it's ate license plates not children. In the climax, he goes into the cage, goes under water, gets beaten around, and then is off screen the rest of the movie.

Movies have changed over the years.

I liked it. Glad I finally watched it. I enjoy getting back to classics. Compared to modern movies, parts are still fantastic, and parts of very aged and have been improved upon since. Well worth watcing for anyone that hasn't seen it or not in a long time.

 

[Tino]

The Tiger Shark that's killed early on, viewed on 4K, is nothing more than a rubber dummy. The flat painted eyes are terrible and jerked me out of the reality of the scene.

That was a REAL Tiger shark.

 

[Tino]

And the John Williams score, overall, isn't great.

 

[Tino]

I was posting in a free moment and ran out of time to finish.

Aspects of Jaws are fantastic. Early Speilberg directing Roy Schieder and young Richard Dreyfuss is brilliant. There are so many shots and scenes so so clearly crafted to convey the feeling of the characters. The recurring use of someone's head filling half the frame and the ocean out of focus but clearly in the background in the other half of the frame to to convey the back-of-mind, constant anxiety about what might be happening, is all so good.

And that classic scene I linked prior with Chief Brody seeing the shark for the first time, and his stunned reaction pulling his face into frame, and then wordlessly backing into the ship cabin, and saying, apropos of nothing to Quint, "We're going to need a bigger boat" is perfection.

There's a sequence late in the movie when Jaws is caught up on the boat with the barrels and ropes and it's incredible. Fifty years later and it looks like a real giant shark and I'm stressing. Even the moment just mentioned of Brody seeing Jaws was pretty believable.

But there are times when this is a very 1970s movie. The shark looks still and off kilter and like a bad model in many scenes. The Tiger Shark that's killed early on, viewed on 4K, is nothing more than a rubber dummy. The flat painted eyes are terrible and jerked me out of the reality of the scene.

And the John Williams score, overall, isn't great. The theme is iconic. But that's it, the res of the much is middling or even tonally wrong, giving the wrong mood. Much of the time on the boat, when it's tense and stressful moments, the music is light and prancing and even silly. I didn't understand it. Some of the best moments are when the score goes away and it's just character dialog.

And the pacing is so '70s. We've got a giant shark monster horror movie...and we spend a lot of time with no monster and largely people talking about unrelated things. The scene with Quint, Brody, and Hooper talking about scars and a weird -- and in hindsight maybe in poor taste -- story about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis -- were very of the time. But Brody's phobia about water and boats is never given any dialog, and certainly never made explicit.

The overall plotting is a bit quirky. Hooper ultimately is largely useless. The only thing he does that's helpful is cut open the Tiger shark to show that it's ate license plates not children. In the climax, he goes into the cage, goes under water, gets beaten around, and then is off screen the rest of the movie.

Movies have changed over the years.

I liked it. Glad I finally watched it. I enjoy getting back to classics. Compared to modern movies, parts are still fantastic, and parts of very aged and have been improved upon since. Well worth watcing for anyone that hasn't seen it or not in a long time.

Suffice it to say I disagree strongly with many of your opinions. Perhaps if you had seen the film in its original theatrical run it without its iconic reputation you would have enjoyed it more. But hey different strokes.

 

[Tino]

The scene with Quint, Brody, and Hooper talking about scars and a weird -- and in hindsight maybe in poor taste -- story about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis -

Considered by many, including Spielberg, to be the best scene of the film. It’s a fascinating scene which completely tells us who Quint is and how he became what he was. Imo it’s one of the best scenes ever filmed in any movie.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Considered by many, including Spielberg, to be the best scene of the film. It’s a fascinating scene which completely tells us who Quint is and how he became what he was. Imo it’s one of the best scenes ever filmed in any movie.

Yes the telling of the USS Indianapolis would fit comfortably on my list of favorite scenes/segments in any film.

 

[Malcolm R]

The character of Hooper had a much bigger arc in the novel. They cut a lot of that in the movie, which makes him seem less necessary. In the film, he seems to be mostly there at the end because Quint needed another crewman. Quint didn't really want him, but no one else was volunteering.

Hadn't really thought about Williams' "light" score during what should be tense scenes, but I think I would agree with that some.

But there's not much to be done about the FX of the time. The only way to get a giant shark to act on screen was to build an actual giant shark and put it in the ocean then hope it works (which it didn't much of the time).

But as Tino says, I'm pretty sure that's a real tiger shark hanging on the dock. I recall reading a behind the scenes book where they talked about how it hung there so long it was really starting to stink. I never thought it looked fake, though some of that perception may be enhanced 4K resolution and a decomposing shark.

The only time I've seen this theatrically was the recent 3D version, but it's always been a favorite of mine since I was old enough to discover "movies".

 

[Osato]

My best and only theatrical viewing so far was 2 years ago. I caught it in an imax screen. It was packed for national cinema day.

Loved seeing it with an audience too.

I haven’t had a home viewing this summer but I will at some point.

 

[Tino]

"A shark, not THE shark": The tale of 'Oscar' the Tiger shark in JAWS​

Yes, Jaws used a real tiger shark named Oscar for filming. Oscar was 13–14 feet long and was transported to Martha's Vineyard airport and then to a refrigeration unit at Norton & Easterbrook's dock. To prepare Oscar for filming, he was hung by his tail and "wounded" with knives, guns, and theatrical harpoons. Oscar also had makeup applied to cover his decaying face and had a strong odor that became noticeable once he was brought to the docks in Edgartown.

https://thedailyjaws.com/blog/a-shark-not-the-shark-the-tale-of-oscar-the-tiger-shark-in-jaws

 

[DaveF]

Suffice it to say I disagree strongly with many of your opinions. Perhaps if you had seen the film in its original theatrical run it without its iconic reputation you would have enjoyed it more. But hey different strokes.

I enjoyed watching it thoroughly. My opinion of it is a mixture of watching it anew in 2024 but also appreciating it’s a 50 year old movie. But I’m watching without nostalgia.

I agree that the sharing-stories scene is a fantastic scene. But it’s also an odd scene for a movie. First, we get a deep dive in Quint’s character, but we never have anything close to this for Brody. It feels off kilter to go deep on the third-most important character, who I care least about and is killed off because he’s a jerk and horror movies kill the jerks, but we don’t explore Brody to the same depth.

Also, I have mixed feelings about exploiting the real-life tragedy of the USS Indianapolis as a ploy to get us to hate sharks and sympathize with shark killers. Maybe it’s not awful but it’s definitely not great.

USS Indianapolis (CA-35) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There’s a partial story with the youngest child that never comes to fruition. It felt like there was supposed to be a B-plot with that kid chasing after his brother, the mom losing track of him. And then, nothing.

The character of Hooper had a much bigger arc in the novel. They cut a lot of that in the movie, which makes him seem less necessary. In the film, he seems to be mostly there at the end because Quint needed another crewman. Quint didn't really want him, but no one else was volunteering.

Hadn't really thought about Williams' "lighit wast" score during what should be tense scenes, but I think I would agree with that some.

But there's not much to be done about the FX of the time. The only way to get a giant shark to act on screen was to build an actual giant shark and put it in the ocean then hope it works (which it didn't much of the time).

But as Tino says, I'm pretty sure that's a real tiger shark hanging on the dock. I recall reading a behind the scenes book where they talked about how it hung there so long it was really starting to stink. I never thought it looked fake, though some of that perception may be enhanced 4K resolution and a decomposing shark.

The only time I've seen this theatrically was the recent 3D version, but it's always been a favorite of mine since I was old enough to discover "movies".

Interesting to learn that Hooper was trimmed down. I think I could have enjoyed trading off some Quint to get more Hooper.

As for the shark, yes obviously, it’s 50 year old practical FX. But it was inconsistent. Some scenes were incredible, utterly convincing even today. Other scenes it was like the shark machine was broken but they filmed it anyway.


Jaws isn’t perfect. And any older movie is seen different viewed against modern social and entertainment and technological norms. That’s ok. Jaws has aged really well, I think.

And the clarity of vision, the strong style through, of Spielberg directing, big faces filling have the screen, and the use of focus and unfocus throughout is just great. I’m not an expert in film, but I’ve seen enough movies to recognize masterful work and seeing earlier Spielberg is great.

Similarly, Schneider and Dreyfuss are riveting.

 

[Tino]

Also, I have mixed feelings about exploiting the real-life tragedy of the USS Indianapolis as a ploy to get us to hate sharks and sympathize with shark killers. Maybe it’s not awful but it’s definitely not great.

I don’t see it as exploiting at all. The men are sharing stories and scars and Quint shares his experience aboard the Indianapolis at Brody’s prodding.

That scene imo is certainly not about making us hate sharks but rather about the life changing event that Quint experienced and shaped his future. Seeing his comrades killed and eaten by sharks will do that to you.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

viewed on 4K

This always goes over like a lead balloon when I bring it up, but movies made before the digital intermediate era that were shot and finished on photochemical film, especially 35mm or smaller gauge negatives, were simply never meant to be seen with anything close to that level of resolution, and in my humble opinion, are harmed more often than helped by that kind of presentation. By the time these movies went from 35mm camera negative to IP to IN to release print, and when that release print was shown on a mechanical projector with moving parts from a projection booth through a glass window and onto a distant screen, were clocking in much closer to 480p to 720p’s worth of resolution. That the film negative as a raw element in and of itself can hold up to 4K resolution does not mean that the viewer should be seeing it that way. The filmmakers of the time knew that there were multiple layers of degradation built into the process of making a movie out of what they shot and they made their creative and technical choices based on what a release print would show, not on what a negative could capture. Raw flour isn’t a cake, and a 35mm camera negative isn’t a completed film.

Much of the time on the boat, when it's tense and stressful moments, the music is light and prancing and even silly. I didn't understand it.

I’ve always felt those great themes on the boat to be thrilling. I took them as being nods to earlier seafaring epics and their rousing scores, with the soaring music giving voice to the sound and feel of sailing on the wide open ocean. I think it’s also there to contrast against the moments when the crew are in actual danger. I’d argue it’s a similar score to Jurassic Park in that sense. If it doesn’t work for you, I can’t and wouldn’t try to argue against that, but I think there is a reason for it sounding as it does.

Hooper ultimately is largely useless. The only thing he does that's helpful is cut open the Tiger shark to show that it's ate license plates not children. In the climax, he goes into the cage, goes under water, gets beaten around, and then is off screen the rest of the movie.

I would argue that the point of the Hooper character in the film (as opposed to the novel) is to provide information to Brody (and by extension, the audience) that allows us to understand what the town is up against. I would agree that Dreyfuss’ billing sets up the expectation that his character might do or offer more than he does. He shows up late in the movie to let the town know its shark problem hadn’t been solved. In an era before Shark Week on TV and the internet, without him, the town and audience would have had little reason to doubt that the tiger shark wasn’t the right catch. We need Hooper to understand that the mayor was wrong.

It feels off kilter to go deep on the third-most important character, who I care least about and is killed off because he’s a jerk and horror movies kill the jerks, but we don’t explore Brody to the same depth.

That definitely feels a product of its time and of a certain style of storytelling. Brody is the hero and the audience surrogate. He has a wife and family he has to protect, and he has a job he cares about doing right, and I think the decision to leave it at that is meant to make him easily relatable. The less specific he is, the more we can see ourselves in him, and by extension, feel like the story is happening to us.

As for the shark, yes obviously, it’s 50 year old practical FX. But it was inconsistent. Some scenes were incredible, utterly convincing even today. Other scenes it was like the shark machine was broken but they filmed it anyway.

I really think some of that speaks to seeing it in 4K, on a modern display, with all of the advances that have been made since 1975 inescapable from the mind. I haven’t even seen the 4K; the Blu-ray from the same master source already reveals more than was ever apparent on release prints, TV broadcasts, VHS and DVD. I just don’t want to see any more detail than what I’ve got on the BD. And some of that is the dynamic of watching a movie at home in total control of the environment vs seeing it in a theater where you wind up riding the wave of audience reactions. Films before the modern digital era, especially those made before the VHS era, were really made with a mindset towards how they’d play with a crowd and it’s difficult to fully replicate that at home. I think there’s been a subtle but noticeable shift in more recent years towards considering the solo viewer or home viewer as much as the crowd, even if filmmakers don’t like to talk about it or actively deny it.

Jaws isn’t perfect. And any older movie is seen different viewed against modern social and entertainment and technological norms. That’s ok. Jaws has aged really well, I think.

I think that’s a great summary of the experience viewing it freshly today. We’re looking at a movie from 1975 that takes place in 1975, and a lot of what happens is explained by “this is how people behaved back then, and this is what audiences expected to see back then.” I think that’s a hard thing to convey to a lot of people who aren’t versed or interested in film history. And then on the flip side of that you have people who are so enamored with how things used to be that they can’t accept that things are always changing, never static. I appreciate your thoughts as both conveying how it plays now while still acknowledging how it would have been then.

Jaws is 49 years old now. That means that when Jaws was a new, contemporary film, a film as old then as Jaws is now would have come out in 1926. That seems almost impossible to comprehend.

 

[Tino]

takes place in 1975

1974 actually.

 

[Malcolm R]

1974, in the "corners" office.

Brody should have let Polly do the typing too.

 

[Worth]

…Jaws is 49 years old now. That means that when Jaws was a new, contemporary film, a film as old then as Jaws is now would have come out in 1926. That seems almost impossible to comprehend.

Yikes!

 

[DaveF]

This always goes over like a lead balloon when I bring it up, but movies made before the digital intermediate era that were shot and finished on photochemical film, especially 35mm or smaller gauge negatives, were simply never meant to be seen with anything close to that level of resolution, and in my humble opinion, are harmed more often than helped by that kind of presentation. By the time these movies went from 35mm camera negative to IP to IN to release print, and when that release print was shown on a mechanical projector with moving parts from a projection booth through a glass window and onto a distant screen, were clocking in much closer to 480p to 720p’s worth of resolution. That the film negative as a raw element in and of itself can hold up to 4K resolution does not mean that the viewer should be seeing it that way. The filmmakers of the time knew that there were multiple layers of degradation built into the process of making a movie out of what they shot and they made their creative and technical choices based on what a release print would show, not on what a negative could capture. Raw flour isn’t a cake, and a 35mm camera negative isn’t a completed film.



I’ve always felt those great themes on the boat to be thrilling. I took them as being nods to earlier seafaring epics and their rousing scores, with the soaring music giving voice to the sound and feel of sailing on the wide open ocean. I think it’s also there to contrast against the moments when the crew are in actual danger. I’d argue it’s a similar score to Jurassic Park in that sense. If it doesn’t work for you, I can’t and wouldn’t try to argue against that, but I think there is a reason for it sounding as it does.



I would argue that the point of the Hooper character in the film (as opposed to the novel) is to provide information to Brody (and by extension, the audience) that allows us to understand what the town is up against. I would agree that Dreyfuss’ billing sets up the expectation that his character might do or offer more than he does. He shows up late in the movie to let the town know its shark problem hadn’t been solved. In an era before Shark Week on TV and the internet, without him, the town and audience would have had little reason to doubt that the tiger shark wasn’t the right catch. We need Hooper to understand that the mayor was wrong.



That definitely feels a product of its time and of a certain style of storytelling. Brody is the hero and the audience surrogate. He has a wife and family he has to protect, and he has a job he cares about doing right, and I think the decision to leave it at that is meant to make him easily relatable. The less specific he is, the more we can see ourselves in him, and by extension, feel like the story is happening to us.



I really think some of that speaks to seeing it in 4K, on a modern display, with all of the advances that have been made since 1975 inescapable from the mind. I haven’t even seen the 4K; the Blu-ray from the same master source already reveals more than was ever apparent on release prints, TV broadcasts, VHS and DVD. I just don’t want to see any more detail than what I’ve got on the BD. And some of that is the dynamic of watching a movie at home in total control of the environment vs seeing it in a theater where you wind up riding the wave of audience reactions. Films before the modern digital era, especially those made before the VHS era, were really made with a mindset towards how they’d play with a crowd and it’s difficult to fully replicate that at home. I think there’s been a subtle but noticeable shift in more recent years towards considering the solo viewer or home viewer as much as the crowd, even if filmmakers don’t like to talk about it or actively deny it.



I think that’s a great summary of the experience viewing it freshly today. We’re looking at a movie from 1975 that takes place in 1975, and a lot of what happens is explained by “this is how people behaved back then, and this is what audiences expected to see back then.” I think that’s a hard thing to convey to a lot of people who aren’t versed or interested in film history. And then on the flip side of that you have people who are so enamored with how things used to be that they can’t accept that things are always changing, never static. I appreciate your thoughts as both conveying how it plays now while still acknowledging how it would have been then.

Jaws is 49 years old now. That means that when Jaws was a new, contemporary film, a film as old then as Jaws is now would have come out in 1926. That seems almost impossible to comprehend.

I think I mentioned it earlier, but I definitely commented on it to my wife: Jaws is a 1970s movie is doing 1970s movie things. It’s like watching Star Wars today and realizing this is 1970s auteur doing scifi; so Jaws is 1970s auteur doing monster-horror.

I watched Prey (2022) last night. Fun movie, totally enjoyed it. But stylistically, well, it had no style. Not like Jaws. With its film grain, and big heads and split focus, and long character dialogs, and extended watching-the-ocean-while-boating with sea faring music scene. Prey, a wholly modern action monster-horror-action movie has none of that. No back story. No quiet moments of dialog. No travelogue. No unique, director-has-a-vision visual style.

I critique Jaws from a nostalgia-free, 2024 perspective on pieces of its story construction and quirks of scoring and such. But it’s also clearly a superb work by a superb storyteller in a specific time of moviemaking.

I don’t have a lot of patience for the “movies stopped being good in 1980” crowd (or pick the decade when you were 10 years old and that’s your halcyon-nostalgia demarcation). But I do recognize that styles change and the economics of the business change. And 1970s they were making movies like they don’t make them today. And Jaws is of that era.

 

[DaveF]

Something I do like about older action movies, maybe better than contemporary movies, is the stakes are so low.

It’s a small beach. They have a shark. They kill the shark so the tourists will not skip their town this summer. The end.

Today, a shark movie will be a shark than can destroy global shipping business or whatever. It’s not a shark, it’s an Kaiju. The stakes for a 2000’s era movie are world-ending, universe-ending, multi-verse ending.

I like that stuff. But stakes-inflation can be tiring. Watching Jaws (or last night’s Prey) with very local, very small scale stakes is refreshing.

 

[Osato]

Something I do like about older action movies, maybe better than contemporary movies, is the stakes are so low.

It’s a small beach. They have a shark. They kill the shark so the tourists will not skip their town this summer. The end.

Today, a shark movie will be a shark than can destroy global shipping business or whatever. It’s not a shark, it’s an Kaiju. The stakes for a 2000’s era movie are world-ending, universe-ending, multi-verse ending.

I like that stuff. But stakes-inflation can be tiring. Watching Jaws (or last night’s Prey) with very local, very small scale stakes is refreshing.

This is a great point about past films vs how films are today. There are so many films and franchises that could learn so much from studying this point!