Download Dissecting the Great White: Steven Spielberg`s Jaws and the Advent

Dissecting the Great White: Steven Spielberg's Jaws and the Advent
of the "Summer Blockbuster" Genre
by Jeff Jarot
It was in the summer of 1975 that a fledgling 28-year-old director named
Steven Spielberg first caused moviegoers to willingly eschew potentially sharkinfested waters. Jaws, an adaptation and enhancement of Peter Benchley's
bestselling potboiler, established Spielberg's reputation for crafting audiencepleasing entertainments. Yet although filmgoers generally have been pleased
with the director's output as is evidenced by the tremendous box office
success of his pictures, the reception of critics has been decidedly mixed. Some
have been especially disgusted with what they perceive to be Spielberg's
negative influence on the quality of all Hollywood movies after Jaws' debut.
Since the appearance of his mechanical shark on movie screens in the mid1970s, a preponderance of pre-packaged movies, where the star and concept of
the movie are often set and the cameras begin to roll before a workable script
has even been completed, has unfortunately become de rigueur. Moreover, some
argue that the success of Jaws has led the Hollywood studio system with the
complicity of eager moviegoers to create a "summer blockbuster" genre that to
this day seems to be in no danger of abating. Indeed, this type of filmmaking
has thrived in the 1980s and 1990s and has boldly, for better or worse,
continued into the new millenium.
In his book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, author Peter Biskind details the rise and
fall of the New Hollywood generation of filmmakers whose heyday occurred
during the decade of the 1970s. He suggests that the beginning of the "New
Hollywood" era occurred around 1969 with the premiere of Dennis Hopper and
Peter Fonda in Easy Rider. Thomas Schatz charts the genesis of this same era
as far back as the early 1950s (9), yet in the same breath he suggests that the
"post-1975 era best warrants the term 'the New Hollywood'" ("New Hollywood"
9). Biskind argues that Spielberg, as well as George Lucas, the writer/director
of Star Wars, is solely responsible for a "blockbuster mentality" that has
infected Hollywood studio heads and American audiences for the past twentyfive years. Writing of Spielberg in conjunction with his moviemaking colleague
Lucas, Biskind declares that the men "marched backward through the looking
glass, producing pictures that were…infantilizing the audience…overwhelming [it]
with sound and spectacle, obliterating irony, aesthetic self-consciousness, and
critical reflection" (344). The bitterness that the success of Jaws created
spread to so-called "artistically-minded" fellow filmmakers as well. Speaking on
Spielberg and Lucas' perceived negative impact on the industry, director
William Friedkin states, "The taste for good food just disappeared. Now we're
in a period of devolution. Everything has gone backward to a big sucking hole"
(Biskind 344). Clearly, Schatz, Biskind, and Friedkin (and nearly all critics)
acknowledge Jaws as a watershed in the history of movies, for better or worse.
There is no doubt that this "blockbuster" mentality does exist and that a large
portion of films released during the summer months since the mid-1970s are
blatant attempts to mirror certain aspects of Lucas and Spielberg's pictures.
Nevertheless, blaming the "juvenilization" of American motion pictures on one
or two filmmakers as well as the movies that catapulted them to success seems
simplistic and shortsighted. Spielberg's film does exhibit certain
characteristics that the makers of subsequent summer films, Spielberg himself
ironically among them as director or executive producer, have consciously
attempted to duplicate with varied degrees of success. Nevertheless, over
twenty-five years after its initial release Jaws continues to display a certain
sophistication, especially with regard to character development, the seamless
weaving of image to music, and cinematic craft that elevates it from the ranks
of subsequent films in the "summer blockbuster" genre.
First of all, it is important to first discuss the salient features of films that
are a part of this genre. With this in mind, part of what characterizes a
"summer blockbuster" is what Justin Wyatt calls a "high concept" film. Loosely
defined, this type of picture places "an emphasis on style…and is carefully
integrat[ed] with marketing and merchandizing" (7). Furthermore, such movies
are "modeled on economic and institutional forces," (8) and are "pre-sold" (as
Jaws was since the film was based on a novel that previously was a bestseller).
Despite these similarities, a significant difference between the "summer
blockbuster" genre and "high concept" films in general is a seasonal one.
"Summer blockbusters" are expressly released between May and August
whereas "high concept" films, at least within the parameters Wyatt uses to
explain them, presumably can be released at any time of year. In sum, "summer
blockbusters" can be considered a subset of "high concept" films.
The movies in the "summer blockbuster" genre obviously hit theaters during the
summer months, since the premiere of Jaws a prime releasing season, to take
advantage of the "youth market," whose time commitment to such obligations as
school is lessened significantly. In "The New Hollywood," Schatz reiterates that
it is Jaws that commenced this trend. "[I]n those years [previous to the film's
release] most calculated hits were released during the Christmas holidays" (18).
Indeed, the success of Spielberg's film eventually (and unfortunately) led to
the all-too-common practice of studios consciously rolling out filmic "brain
candy" especially during the period from Memorial Day weekend to the end of
August, purportedly to appeal to a prepubescent/teenage (mostly male)
demographic. Schatz characterizes this "youth market" as being "a new
generation with time and spending money and a penchant for wandering
suburban shopping malls and for repeated viewings of their favorite films"
("New Hollywood" 19).
Other characteristics of the "summer blockbuster" genre merit mention as well.
For example, actors and actresses who have established "marquee names" and
therefore have immense fan bases as well as immediately recognizable names,
faces, and personas are frequently cast in "summer blockbusters." Yet it is
important to realize that the protagonists of Jaws are far from glamorous and
are obviously not conscious attempts to cash in on the automatic "star power" of
famous movie actors and actresses, as will be discussed later. Furthermore,
audiences attending these movies are often overwhelmed by a vast array of
expensive, cutting edge special effects. With this in mind, although the
mechanical shark in Jaws is impressive when it is onscreen, it is important to
realize how much of the film's impact depends on the absence of the shark (and
the absence of special effects by association).
In addition, sequels make up a significant percentage of "summer blockbusters"
(Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Jurassic Park,
Lethal Weapon), as do spin-offs of recognizable franchises. These may take the
form of video games (Super Mario Brothers, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider), comic
book characters (Batman, Dick Tracy, X-Men), or updates of vintage television
shows and movies (Wild Wild West, Mission: Impossible 1 and 2, The Mummy,
Planet of the Apes). The movies themselves released during this season are
usually ready-made for any number of tie-ins and merchandising spin-offs,
anything from cheap toys procured at fast-food restaurants to soundtrack
albums to video games and action figures and beyond. In his discussion of "high
concept" movies, Wyatt refers to such films as "playing across a wide range of
media" (188), while Schatz calls them "multi-purpose entertainment machines
that breed music videos and soundtrack albums, TV series and videocassettes,
video games and theme park rides, novelizations and comic books" ("New
Hollywood" 9-10).
Also, since many of the films in the genre contain an action/adventure story
line, explosions, gunplay, and other assorted acts of violence are often a
prerequisite. Such bloodletting can take the form of elaborate skirmishes on an
historic (Braveheart, Saving Private Ryan, The Patriot) or imaginary sci-fi (Star
Wars, Independence Day, Planet of the Apes) battlefield. Violence can also take
the form of the visible display of vigilante justice (Die Hard, Terminator 2).
Most if not all "summer blockbusters" invariably contain a necessary amount of
blood and gore. Given the graphic (albeit PG-rated) nature of the carnage the
shark wreaks, the ensuing quest to hunt the great white down, and the ultimate
fate of Quint (Robert Shaw) and the beast, this is what happens in Jaws to a
considerably lesser extent than some of the previous examples.
On a certain level the genre for which I am arguing is overarching. It can
borrow some of its iconography freely from any number of established genres,
whether they are a western, horror, buddy picture, or whatever. The
iconography is specific to the "subgenre" that the "summer blockbuster" is
taking upon itself. With this in mind, the iconography, a term admittedly used
loosely, of the "summer blockbuster" genre lacks the specificity of such genres
as the western or the gangster film. In addition, the films often contain quite a
few elements of fantasy, and a viewer's "suspension of disbelief" is constantly
called upon. The protagonist is often a seeker of adventure or excitement,
whether he or she is an astronaut or space-based adventurer, a soldier, an
archeologist, or a cop (as in the case of Jaws).
Also, "summer blockbuster" films share characteristics both inside and outside
the actual films themselves. Certainly one of the salient traits of these movies
is purely economic. "Summer blockbusters" are often conceived, perceived, and
marketed in order to attain the greatest economic gain possible. Although it can
be argued that nearly all Hollywood product is created solely to make money for
those employed in the industry, it would seem that especially since the mid1970s summer films in particular are thought up, made, and released expressly
for impressive economic gain. Studios have consistently released their big
budget pictures with recognizable stars during the summer months and always
aim to break the previously established summer box office record. In
describing Jaws, Schatz calls the film the "thriller that recalibrated the profit
potential of the Hollywood hit and redefined its status as a marketable
commodity and cultural phenomenon as well" ("New Hollywood" 17).
I realize that these traits are not solely exclusive to movies that are released
between the months of May and August. However, it seems that both Hollywood
executives and the filmgoing public are consciously aware that movies
highlighting these characteristics are released en masse during the summer
months. A "summer blockbuster" need not have all these characteristics to
qualify for the genre, but a preponderance of them certainly is necessary.
Jaws, being the primary "summer blockbuster" film in Schatz's self-proclaimed
"experimental" stage of a genre, "where conventions have been established"
(Hollywood Genres 38), does share certain elements of subsequent "summer
blockbusters." First of all, the film is a hybrid of more than one previously
established genre; it borrows from other genres. The first section of the film,
with its numerous killings courtesy of the great white, plays much like a horror
film, with a murderer (in this case, a shark) stalking and butchering innocent
victims. The final section of the film unfolds more like an action/adventure
story set at sea, with Quint, Brody (Roy Scheider), and Hooper (Richard
Dreyfuss) sailing off to hunt the great white. And throughout the picture
Spielberg expertly employs conventions of the thriller genre, as will be explored
later.
This quality of Jaws reflects another distinguishing characteristic of the
"summer blockbuster" genre, which is that it theoretically can consist of any
number of other genres. In other words, the "summer blockbuster" genre can
subsume other genres. Any single film, for that matter, can be looked at
through any number of prisms; hence, one movie purportedly could belong to
multiple genres. For some this admittedly may be a loose interpretation of the
term "genre." Yet at the same time the word is only as good as its usefulness in
application. Any single film could arguably belong to multiple genres, and Jaws
certainly serves as a case in point. In "The New Hollywood," Schatz alternately
calls the film an action film, a thriller, a monster movie, a "slasher" film, a buddy
picture, and a "male initiation story" (18). Indeed, the movie can conceivably be
called a thriller, a horror film, an adventure yarn, and, of course, a "summer
blockbuster" all rolled into one. This is the root problem of the concept of
"genre" in the first place.
The movie's action/adventure bent, the nature of its protagonist, the prevalent
presence of violence, and its groundbreaking special effects foreshadow future
exhibitions of such elements in subsequent summer pictures. The irony,
however, is that although Jaws and its director are often single-handedly
blamed for spawning the "summer blockbuster" trend, the film does not always
blatantly exhibit the characteristics for which the genre as a whole is
condemned. In fact, there are a number of ways in which Spielberg's film
transcends the vacuous spawn to which it supposedly gave birth. The traits of
the characters, the director's seamless melding of John Williams' two-note
theme to create a character-in-itself in the music, and Spielberg's skillful play
with audience expectation through his conscious use of the thriller conventions
of "suspense" and "surprise" make the muckraking of critics rather inaccurate.
First of all, given the characteristics of a typical "summer blockbuster," Jaws is
hardly a star-propelled vehicle. If anything, the film launched the careers of
the actors who performed in it rather than taking advantage of any pre-existing
"star power" in the personae of the actors. Immediately before Jaws, Roy
Scheider had appeared in William Friedkin's The French Connection, and Robert
Shaw had played the heavy in The Sting with Paul Newman and Robert Redford.
Both of these films were huge hits, yet audiences hardly flocked to Jaws
expressly to see either Scheider or Shaw, neither of them being marquee
names. For his own part, Richard Dreyfuss was virtually an unknown when he
appeared in Spielberg's film. Schatz does not dispute this, having pointed out in
"The New Hollywood" that "the seminal New Hollywood blockbusters were not
star-driven" (31). Therefore, the only "pre-sold" star of the movie was arguably
the shark itself, looming prominently from the bottom of the film's advertising
and marketing materials.
In addition, the age and overall appearance of the main characters suggest that
they have not been deliberately crafted to automatically appeal to the "youth
market" to whom subsequent "summer blockbusters" were aimed. Muscle-bound
Sly Stallone or dashingly handsome Brad Pitt these men are not. And despite
the admitted youth of Dreyfuss' character, Hooper, he comes across as an
introverted, intellectual bookworm, not the physically attractive, immediately
recognizable leading man who causes ladies to swoon, the typical male hero of a
"summer blockbuster."
Furthermore, given the characteristics of a typical "summer blockbuster, "
Spielberg imbues his characters with much more depth than the typical onedimensional "cardboard cut-out" nature of most inhabitants of "summer
blockbuster" fare. Schatz backs this up by stating that the characters in Jaws
"emerge more organically as a function of [their] drives, desires, motivations,
and goals" rather than simply being "plot functions" as are the characters in
most "summer blockbusters" ("New Hollywood" 23). One way Spielberg achieves
this "uncharacteristic" characterization is by inserting relatively short,
humorous scenes into the narrative to give the principals more depth. One of
the director's criticisms of Benchley's book was that "none of the characters
[were] likable" and that when he first perused the novel in galleys, he "rooted
for the shark" (Biskind 264).
Nowhere is Spielberg's development of the characters more obvious and
important than in the movie's chief protagonist, Martin Brody. The audience's
identification with and sympathy for this character is established early in the
picture. From the initial scene in which we see the police chief, his "outsider"
status in relation to the natives of Amity Island, the setting of the picture, is
highlighted. Since he was not born on Amity, he will never belong, and his
motives and actions will always be held suspect, particularly by the mayor
(Murray Hamilton), who does everything he can, caution and safety be damned,
to keep the beaches open for swimmers. In addition, the audience views Brody's
wife and children in the same scene in which the chief himself is first
introduced, thereby providing a clear motive for his chasing the shark. Not only
does he need to protect the citizens and vacationers of Amity from the danger
that the shark represents, but he also has a vested paternal interest in
shielding his children from injury as well.
Brody's vulnerability (and the audience's subsequent sympathy with him) is
further established with his fear of boats and the water. Although the police
chief does survive by the time the end credits roll, the fallibility and humanity
of Brody's character as a result of his weakness is a far cry from the invincible
nature of many an action hero or heroine in subsequent "summer blockbusters."
The audience also sympathizes with Brody because he fights against the foolish,
conservative political powers in the town, represented by the mayor and his
cronies. The economic prosperity that summer visitors provide for the town are
much more important to these men than the safety and protection of fellow
human beings.
Spielberg further adds characterization to the protagonists, Brody included, by
injecting comic relief at certain points. The director himself has stated that
this offsetting of serious subject matter with leavening humor is deliberate.
"I'm always trying to infuse humor into any situation. The more dramatic the
situation, the more fun I have trying to find the lighter side to the darkness"
(Forsberg 130). In one scene, Brody is accosted, slapped, and verbally scolded
by the mother of Alex Kintner, a boy who has been slain by the shark, for
failing to close the beaches in the interest of safety. Afterwards, the police
chief silently broods at home at a table in his house, his much younger son
seated at his side, a plate of food remaining untouched. Brody drinks from his
glass; his son does the same. Brody folds his hands and rests his chin on them;
his son mimics him. All of this is occurring without the father realizing it. His
wife appears in a doorway at the center of the frame, Brody rubs his face with
his hands, and his son reciprocates. When he finally notices, Brody steeples his
fingers and gives his son a mock scowl, and the boy of course mirrors his
father's actions. The scene ends with Brody asking his son for a kiss. When the
boy asks why, his father responds, "Because I need it."
The scene comes across as both funny and touching instead of sappy and serves
as an extra layer carefully placed onto Brody's character. He must be tough and
stoic in his daily occupation as Amity's police chief, and his encounter with
Kintner's mother has caused him to bottle up his speech and emotions. Yet the
content of the scene as well as the way Spielberg frames it, with father,
mother, and son appearing prominently together in the frame, again underscores
the importance of Brody's family, especially given his "loner" status on the
island. Furthermore, his motive for ridding Amity of the shark for the safety of
his own children and, by extension, all of the island's children, is further
established. Incidentally, Spielberg would duplicate this scene of mutual
mimicry a few years later in E.T. when Elliot and the alien have their first
encounter in the boy's bedroom.
Another scene in which the director inserts humor into an otherwise serious
situation in order to enhance Hooper's and Quint's characters in particular
occurs when the three protagonists are out to sea to hunt the shark. It is night,
and the men are drinking coffee in the galley of the ship, the Orca. Small talk
leads to both Hooper and Quint doffing hats and peeling back shirts, sleeves,
and pant legs to ascertain who has the most admirable disfiguring mark. At one
point Brody discreetly lifts his shirt to privately examine a scar from an
appendix operation to see if it is worthy of the discussion. The scene climaxes
with Hooper opening his shirt to reveal his chest and pointing to his most
impressive "scar," declaring, "Mary Ellen Moffett…she broke my heart!"
One could argue that this scene provides nothing more than silly male bonding,
yet it serves a much more interesting purpose. The scene does not play as a
serious showcase of what it takes to be a "real man." Instead, the characters'
macho posturing is meant for a laugh. Not only does the scene generate added
sympathy for the principals, Quint in particular, who has been in dire need of
the audience's understanding, but it also provides needed comic relief in a
situation where, in their quest to kill the great white, death for the characters
is an ever-present possibility. Interestingly enough, Spielberg follows this
comedic scene with perhaps the most profound passage in the film, that of
Quint relating his horrific experience with sharks while a sailor on the ill-fated
U.S.S. Indianapolis. This speech in itself reveals Quint's motivations for
wanting to slaughter the great white. It is also noteworthy that Spielberg has
deliberately chosen to wait to reveal Quint's motivation for killing the shark
until later in the picture. The director ends the scene with the men humorously
joining in a loud, impromptu chorus of an old sea ditty. He immediately cuts to
an exterior shot of the Orca on the water, a yellow barrel floating on the
surface, signaling the imminent attack of the shark. With all this in mind, one
would be hard pressed to find such characterization in a typical special effectsladen "summer blockbuster."
Much has already been said about the music that accompanies Spielberg's
images. Surely, John Williams' Academy Award-winning soundtrack is perfectly
melded to Spielberg's visuals in a way all but uncommon to films in general much
less in the typical "summer blockbuster." Especially with regard to the shark,
character and music are blended in a way that would be further enhanced two
years later in Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It is somewhat
unfortunate that Williams' theme music has become so familiar because it is
easy to forget how innovative it was and how integral it is to the character of
the shark. It is a mere two notes, almost laughably simple. In fact, when
Williams first played the shark theme on a piano for Spielberg, the director
though he was joking. Yet its simplicity reveals the primal nature of the shark,
how its behavior is instinctual. Film critic Roger Ebert has called the theme "low
and insinuating" (3), while Schatz has characterized it as "pulsing [and]
foreboding" and suggests that it "convey[s] the essence of the film experience"
("New Hollywood" 18). With this in mind, it does not take viewers long at all to
associate the theme with the shark. The low register of the notes and the way
Williams scores the theme for strings is ominous in itself, and the music alone
creates suspense. The soundtrack for Jaws is not merely an excuse to produce
a top-selling soundtrack album. Rather, it serves an integral function in that it
effectively communicates the character of the shark.
Finally, Spielberg's mastery of technique, especially with regard to conventions
of the thriller genre, is not to be diminished. In an analysis of the film twentyfive years after its initial release, Ebert quotes Alfred Hitchcock explaining the
difference between "surprise" and "suspense," two conventions the oftenavowed "Master of Suspense" developed and employed in his own movies. "A
bomb is under a table, and it explodes: That is surprise. The bomb is under the
but does not explode: That is suspense" (1). At different points in the picture,
Spielberg offers examples of both techniques, expertly leading the audience on
with its perceived knowledge, sometimes fulfilling its expectations, at other
times teasingly frustrating them, and at other points simply shocking viewers
senseless.
According to legend, Spielberg supposedly told producers Richard D. Zanuck and
David Brown that he would only direct the film if he could keep the shark
hidden for the first section of the film in order to create suspense, a claim
that Ebert suggests in his analysis (1). It is more likely that this decision was a
result of the frequent breakdowns to which the crew was subjected while
Spielberg was filming on Martha's Vineyard. Hence, the failure of special
effects to work properly led to the necessity of keeping the shark hidden for a
large segment of the film, creating suspense and significantly improving the
movie in the process. Since it is often blamed for ushering in movies that are
top-heavy with numbing special effects that often have no logical relation to
whatever threadbare plot exists in a typical present-day "summer blockbuster,"
it is important to note that Jaws resorts to comparatively few such
pyrotechnics.
From the very start of the opening credits the audience hears the distinctive
two-note theme highlighting the unseen presence of the shark. In addition, we
see the environment from the shark's point of view for the first time as well.
The first human beings we see in the picture are teenagers lounging around a
bonfire, drinking and necking at a nighttime beach gathering, the very "youth
market" demographic to which the "summer blockbuster" genre would eventually
cater.
The technique that Spielberg employs throughout the first part of the film in
order to create suspense is set up in the now-famous, endlessly imitated opening
sequence in which a young female swimmer is attacked by the shark. Spielberg
shows an underwater shot directly below the victim, combined with John
Williams' ominous, primal two-note shark theme. As the director ever so slowly
zooms in on the swimmer treading water, the music plays to suggest the shark
similarly "zooming in" on the unsuspecting victim. We in the audience know that
the shark is present without seeing so much as a dorsal fin pierce the surface
of the water, and Spielberg skillfully repeats this technique elsewhere in the
picture, leaving the audience to contemplate what the shark actually looks like.
In its review of the picture when it first premiered, Variety declared that this
"subjective camera technique [makes the shark's] earlier forays excruciatingly
terrifying all the more for the invisibility" (Perry 107).
In the scene in which the shark claims its second victim, young swimmer Alex
Kintner, Spielberg teases the audience and thwarts its expectations directly
before the actual attack by providing two "false alarms" with regard to the
animal's imminent strike. The audience, along with Brody, who dutifully albeit
nervously scans the water near the shoreline, views two shots in succession in
which a dark ovoid shape skims the surface of the water, stealthily moving
toward an unsuspecting stocky female swimmer sunbathing on a raft. The
unidentified object dives beneath the raft and resurfaces to reveal itself as an
innocuous elderly swimmer adorned in a dark swimmer's cap. Next, as Brody
half-listens to a man conversing with him, we, as well as Brody, discern a female
swimmer over the man's shoulder at some distance out in the water. The woman
suddenly lets out a scream. The expectation of a shark attack is again
frustrated when Spielberg reveals that the young woman has yelped as a result
of another swimmer sneaking beneath the water to reveal himself above the
water with the young woman astride his shoulders. At this point Spielberg show
a series of shots displaying children splashing about in the water. Next, the
disappearance of a dog playing fetch with its owner on the shoreline near
shallow water is the first indication that something is amiss. The director cuts
to a shot of the stick previously seen being carried in the dog's mouth followed
by a point of view shot similar to the one seen at the beginning of the film.
Williams' two-note theme again provides accompaniment as the camera slowly
zooms in past assorted kicking legs to narrow in on the underside of a raft being
propelled by a child's splashing limbs, the music gradually quickening in tempo as
the shark strikes the raft. The attack is quick as the figure of the shark is
glimpsed as a swift, unrecognizable figure. And Spielberg's depiction of blood
spurting up from the water is disturbing yet strangely is not gratuitous or
excessive. The director follows this with a forced perspective shot centering on
Brody's face as he witnesses the carnage, followed by a succession of quick
edits portraying him loudly commanding people to exit the water as panicked
swimmers frantically run onto the beach. These shots contrast with the long,
subjective underwater zoom-in used previously. Spielberg, along with Williams
and editor Verna Fields, has expertly blended image, music, and editing
technique to build suspense. In all these scenes, Spielberg relies on filmmaking
skill and craft rather than resorting to the plethora of mindless special effects
to which makers of filmic summer fare would resort nowadays.
Ebert further suggests that Spielberg's deliberate constraint in revealing the
shark, leaving the terror to be enhanced and made that much more terrible in
viewers' imaginations, again occurs in a scene not long after the Kintner boy is
killed in which Brody flips through assorted reference books on sharks at night.
"Spielberg…establish[es] the killer in our minds as we look at page after page of
fearsome teeth, cold little eyes[,] and victims with chunks taken out of their
bodies" (1). In other words, the mental pictures of the shark that each
individual audience member hold during the first two-thirds of the film is much
more threatening than any special effect, no matter how costly or impressive,
the filmmakers could provide.
Intercut with this scene are two bumbling residents of the island using hook,
chain, and a raw roast in a feeble nighttime attempt to win reward money for
the capture of the shark. The bait is attached to a small inner tube, and as the
men cast the meat out onto the water and whistle at the dock, Spielberg cuts to
a shot of the inner tube being tugged at from below the water. As the inner
tube is quickly pulled out to sea, Williams' theme music ominously crescendos,
and the audience immediately realizes that the shark is present. The chain piled
on the dock quickly unravels, and the beast takes the bait and manages to pull
apart the dock on which the men are standing in the process. Again, rather than
display the shark for the audience, Spielberg holds back and shows the floating
remains of the deck being dragged across the surface of the water by the
shark. This effect becomes especially threatening when the remnants of the
dock make an abrupt about-face in an attempt to hunt down the two men, who
have tumbled into the water and miraculously escape to land in time. Ebert
points out that "floating objects are used all through the movie to suggest the
invisible shark" (2).
This is not to say that Spielberg does not resort to surprising the audience
occasionally. On the contrary, during the scene in which Hooper dives beneath
the surface to explore the wrecked fishing boat of Ben Gardner, one of many
local fishermen who have set out to capture the shark for proffered reward
money, the audience expects the shark to appear. Indeed, by this point in the
picture viewers expect that an attack by the great white can conceivably
happen any time a character is at, in, or even near the water. In this instance
Spielberg deliberately eschews the shark's presence in favor of the sudden,
shocking image of Gardner's dead face, an eye gruesomely ripped from its
socket, floating from a gaping hole in the ship's hull out of which Hooper has
just pulled a shark's tooth. An equally abrupt loud and dissonant chord in
Williams' musical score accompanies the image, perfectly accentuating the
sudden horror.
The director also deliberately surprises the audience when at long last he
reveals the actual shark. He does this by intentionally forgoing Williams' theme
music and the previous frequent subjective underwater shots from the shark's
point of view. When Brody is nonchalantly, routinely scooping chum from a
bucket out onto the surface of the water in an attempt to draw the beast to
the surface, the shark, replete with beady eyes and gaping maw and sans any
music cue or any other kind of warning, surfaces suddenly. Brody, and we, are
shocked, terrified.
During the final section of the film, the three principals go off to sea in order
to hunt the shark. It is here that Spielberg chooses to replace the one physical
vestige of the great white to which the audience has grown accustomed, the
dorsal fin, with first one and then multiple floating yellow barrels. As a result of
the feral power of the great white, the barrels fail to remain above water for
long and pop up sporadically immediately before the shark chooses to strike.
This occurs just when viewers have become comfortable in the repeated use of
Williams' two-note theme and the underwater point of view shot as well as the
dorsal fin, all of which signal the presence of the shark. Once again, Spielberg
robs viewers of their brief shared complacency and foils their expectations.
This seamless blending of character development, music, and cinematic
technique elevates Jaws from the subsequent blatant imitations and other
"summer blockbusters" that have surfaced in the wake of Spielberg's movie in a
conscious attempt to duplicate its popular and financial success. With this in
mind, the director's own financial prosperity and unabashed ambition to
entertain have often overshadowed his stature as an artist. The director
himself has freely pointed out the difficulty if not the impossibility of pleasing
the contradictory camps of general audience and discriminating critic. "I'm still
a showman…I have that real pull between being a showman and being a
filmmaker and there is a tough netherworld between both titles. It's filled with
contradictions and tough choices" (Forsberg 131). Admittedly, the director has
not helped his situation by straddling the fence between entertainer and artist.
For every conscious attempt at serious subject matter, especially films later in
his oeuvre like Schindler's List and Amistad, Spielberg spent part of his earlier
career, especially in the mid-1980s when his name became a recognizable
trademark for entertainment, willingly lending his name as executive producer
to such no-brainers as *Batteries Not Included and The Goonies. In addition, in
"The New Hollywood" Schatz quotes Spielberg in a way that makes him sound
like an avid supporter of the much-maligned "high concept" philosophy. "What
interests me more than anything else is the idea. If a person can tell me an idea
in twenty-five words or less, it's going to be a good movie" (33). Coupled with
this is a problem that Wyatt points out in his discussion of all "high concept"
pictures, that of "high concept inevitably [being] synonymous with being
aesthetically suspect and tainted" (14).
Aside from the fact that Schatz has stated that the blockbuster in general has
been "key to Hollywood's survival" ("New Hollywood" 8), he has also maintained
that "hype and promotion aside, Jaws' success ultimately centered on the
appeal of the film itself. One enduring verity in the movie business is that,
whatever the marketing efforts, only positive audience response and favorable
word-of-mouth can propel a film to genuine hit status" ("New Hollywood" 18). In
the end, it is the popular and financial success of Jaws that has damned it in
the eyes of critics like Biskind and not the merits that can be discerned within
the film itself. At the time of its release, Variety called the film not only a
commercial but also an artistic smash. (Perry 106) The technical finesse of the
picture has been obscured by imitation in other movies as well as the fact that
Jaws itself spawned a number of inferior sequels. At the time it was made,
Spielberg had no control over the influence the film would have on subsequent
pictures as well as the future of the industry as a whole. Instead, he could only
control the quality of the product he was helming at the time. In the final
analysis, it was a task he did well.
Sources:
Biskind, Peter. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and Rock 'n' Roll
Generation Saved Hollywood. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998.
Ebert, Roger. "Jaws" [Online] Available
http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/greatmovies/jaws.html. 20 August 2000.
Forsberg, Myra. "Spielberg at 40: The Man and the Child." Steven Spielberg
Interviews. Ed. Lester D. Friedman and Brent Notbohm. Jackson: University of
Mississippi Press, 2000.
Jaws. Dir. Steven Spielberg. Perf. Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard
Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton. Universal, 1975.
Perry, Goerge. Steven Spielberg Close Up: The Making of His Movies. New York:
Thunder's Mouth Press, 1998.
Schatz, Thomas. Hollywood Genres: Formulas, Filmmaking, and the Hollywood
Studio System. New York: Random House, 1981: 14-41.
"The New Hollywood." Film Theory Goes to the Movies. Ed. Jim
Collins, Hilary Radner, and Ava Preacher Collins. New York: Routledge, 1993: 836.
Wyatt, Justin. High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 1994.