Jaws (1975)

Warning: This review contains spoilers.

Buuuh-dum. Buuuh-dum. Jaws is a film so iconic that two choice notes from its John Williams score have become the universal noise of impending danger. There are only a few films in the history of cinema that can reasonably be called perfect. Singin’ in the Rain is one. Kind Hearts and Coronets is another. Having re-watched Jaws, I feel it has to join the pack. Not one second of screen time is wasted on anything trivial. Every line tells us something about the characters. Every moment is engaging. Every shot is perfectly framed. Every performance is perfectly matched to the film’s tone. Every actor is cast in the right role. The atmosphere is thick and engrossing. Every scare works. Every joke lands. I can’t find anything in it to fault.

Police Chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) has moved from the mean streets of New York City to the small beach community of Amity Island: a place where he feels he can make a difference. A young woman is soon found dead on the island’s shoreline, with the nature of her wounds heavily suggesting a shark attack. Fighting against pushback from Amity’s irresponsible mayor (Murray Hamilton), Brody teams up with oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus) to investigate the possibility that an enormous Great White shark is using the island’s waters as its hunting ground. The mayor is eager to keep the beaches open during the tourist-heavy Fourth of July weekend. Brody and Hooper want to prevent a bloodbath. After further attacks, the pair take to the sea with veteran shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) in an effort to destroy the Great White once and for all.

Jaws is a masterpiece of economy and directness. Every necessary detail is established in record time, providing rich detail on each character and the community of Amity without sinking the pacing. A short scene in the island police station clarifies that Amity is completely unprepared for, and unfamiliar with, shark attacks: the island’s typical crime is minor property damage. Within just a few lines, Mayor Vaughn’s shoddy politics and terrible priorities are made clear. A character is made real in the time it takes to crack open a can of beer. Brody’s outsider status is quickly and repeatedly hammered home: he’s a non-islander, more comfortable with other newcomers like Hooper than he is with old-timers like Quint. Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb’s exquisite script is always in motion, always providing new details, always introducing new characters or tense set-pieces. Think of Quint’s iconic introduction, running his nails down the school chalkboard, or Brody’s sweet game of copycat with his son. Every interaction tells us something memorable about this world and its people.

One short line sets the film’s tone. When the shark rips apart its first unfortunate victim, nude swimmer Chrissie, she screams the words: ‘It hurts’. I can’t make them leave my mind. The screaming is significantly worse than any of the film’s gore effects, adding a nasty streak of realism and panic to the drawn-out attack that opens the movie. Actress and stuntwoman Susan Backlinie does an upsettingly good job at making her character’s death feel all-too real. Despite being a souped-up spin on the 50s Corman-esque creature feature, Jaws has no suggestion of campy silliness in its violence. The deaths are all horrible. Two are relatively quick, and one happens off camera, but the most memorable shark attacks are painfully dragged out and exceedingly gruesome. My mom still looks away when Quint meets his fate on the wreck of the Orca, spitting blood as the shark bites him in two. When she watched the film in 1975, it was the first time that she’d ever heard a man scream.

This confrontational violence is one of the film’s great strengths. Spielberg and his crew refuse to make the shark anything less than the greatest threat in the natural world. A good deal of screen time is spent building up each attack, establishing the Great White’s physical strength and associating John Williams’ hair-raising score with the shark’s sudden appearances. Hooper’s knowledge provides biological detail and Quint’s life story provides a first-hand account of the creature’s viciousness. The camera follows Brody as he reads a medical book about shark attacks, gazing at gruesome photos of scar tissue, ripped legs and a stomach missing a massive chunk. Detailed realism is the focus until the extra-real bloody horror takes over. It’s well-known that technical problems with the animatronic shark forced Spielberg to keep it offscreen for most of the shoot. This was a glorious accident, allowing screams and paranoia to take the place of certainty. The shark isn’t visible, so it could be anywhere. When the music starts playing and the underwater footage starts rolling, an attack is imminent.

So much has been said about Jaws, but so little has been said about its leading man. If you asked a random member of the public, they would be familiar with Jaws. They’d likely have seen it but they probably wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of the lead actor. Roy Scheider isn’t a household name, and he isn’t typical Spielberg leading man. The world’s most famous director is fond of a certain kind of movie star. He likes Capra-esque friendly faces (Tom Hanks, Robin Williams, Richard Dreyfus) or classically handsome heroes (Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Leonardo DiCaprio). Roy Scheider is an archetypal New Hollywood character actor; his face is designed for grungy dramas like The French Connection, Klute and 52 Pick-Up. He is the least remarked-upon element of Jaws, and one of the very finest.

Scheider gives the film a greater dose of grit and realism than any typical movie star could provide. Imagine Steve McQueen or Robert Redford in the same role. The vulnerability wouldn’t be there, nor would the intensity. Both add greatly to the film’s realistic tone. Scheider feels like a blue-collar dad struggling with an exceptionally tough day at the office, overworked and underpaid. Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfus perfectly complement Scheider’s lead performance, providing a sweet and sour mix of charm. Shaw brilliantly transforms himself into a salty seadog with a mercenary streak, grinning his way through blue jokes and sea shanties. It’s a broad performance for a colourful character, but Shaw is able to provide some understatement during his finest moment: the Indianapolis story. As far as I’m concerned, this is the film’s greatest moment. In quiet, weary tones, Quint relives his past and paints a picture so vivid that that it doesn’t need to be recreated. Quint speaks straight and chills me to the bone. The real-life ordeal of the USS Indianapolis crew is so horrifying that it doesn’t need any embellishment.

Dreyfus’s character is a wealthy shark expert, a man who’s made his hobby into a profession. Matt Hooper is brave and principled, but he’s thin-skinned and picky: a perfect target for Quint’s casual disdain. Class and technique get between them, as Brody keeps quiet and watches the sea. Scheider, Dreyfus and Shaw form a perfect odd throuple on the boat, bickering and bonding as they hunt together. It’s almost as though they’re on a fishing trip. In a sense, they are. When the three men get drunk together and sing Show Me The Way to Go Home, the film’s atmosphere of threat dissolves into an oasis of brotherly companionship. It’s gorgeous and tender: the kind of detail that a lesser film wouldn’t include. Jaws is celebrated for its mastery of suspense and thrills, but its the characters that make the scares matter.

Spielberg’s direction is confident and profoundly satisfying. There are a few bold flourishes (the dolly zoom on Scheider’s face, the infamous underwater jumpscare), but the majority of the camerawork is slick and unobtrusive. Look at the casual ease with which Spielberg handles Brody’s first conversation with Mayor Vaughn: the two board a ferry, allow it to take them across a channel, and depart in a single fluid take. Panavision equipment is used to shoot wide, capturing the full width of domestic and office spaces before moving across the island and detailing gorgeous stretches of shoreline. Cinematographer Bill Butler (The Conversation, Grease) captures the colours of summer: burning orange sunsets, endless blue skies and vibrant reds and greens on summer dresses. Every shot is blocked beautifully and Spielberg’s technique never distracts from the action. Watching the film again, I found the eeriest image to be the shark approaching Hooper’s underwater cage from a great distance. It starts as distant grey blur, zooming closer and growing larger.

Most blockbusters don’t withstand the test of time. If they aren’t part of a franchise, they fade into the background or they become emblems of obsolete technology. Men in Black, The Day After Tomorrow, Casper, Alice in Wonderland and The Da Vinci Code all dominated the box office when they were released, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. When was the last time that you saw any of these films? Do you plan to see them again? Jaws is the rare mega-hit that unites mass audiences and critics in ecstasy. By marrying a well-detailed world, rich characters and sublime photography with tough, gruesome action, Jaws satisfies everyone. It takes a universal concept, the fear of the unseen, and makes it real. There’s no CGI, no topical gags, no 3D glasses and no skimping on the human drama. Jaws takes the mould of a New Hollywood character study, adds a shark and sauces everything up with the most iconic score ever committed to film. As long as there are human beings, this movie will be loved.