PROJEKT iVIEW : You are gonna need a bigger boat!
iVIEW AUTHOR:
Ratnakar Sadasyula (Bangalore, India)
email: ratnakar.techie[at]gmail.com
Language: English
The cop Brody is shoveling a mixture of fish parts and blood into the ocean, hoping to attract the great white shark. And suddenly the shark appears out of nowhere, snapping, before it disappears back into the water. As the shark circles around the boat, Brody along with his mates Quint and Hooper watches it in fascination. Brody mutters “You are gonna need a bigger boat“. All the 3 people on boat are stunned, and so was the audience, including myself, when I first saw Jaws on the big screen way back as a kid. Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster Jaws was a landmark in many ways. Majority of the “creature vs man” movies had been B movie stuff, with a host of unknown actors, half dressed females screaming at top of their lungs, cardboard characters, clunky dialogue, and no script at all, barring a few like Alfred Hitchcock’s Birds. Jaws was one of the few A list movies in this genre, which made it into the Top 100. Jaws also catapulted Spielberg from a talented director to one of Hollywood’s hotshots, as he followed this up with other big hits like Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, ET.
Based on Peter Benchley’s novel, Jaws is set against the backdrop of a beachside resort town, Amity Island. The movie starts off with a group of youngsters enjoying a beach party, one of the persons, a young woman, named Chrissie Watkins, runs into the sea for a swim. She becomes the victim of a shark attack, we just see her head bobbing up and down, and her terrified screams. The Police Chief Martin Brody(Roy Scheider) finds her mangled remains on shore, and after the autopsy confirms it’s a shark attack, he wants to close the beaches. The town mayor is however against it, as he fears this would affect the tourist income, on which the town survives. He covers it up stating that the victim was killed by a boat propeller, and with all evidence against him, Brody is helpless and reluctantly goes along.
The shark next attacks and kills a young boy named Alex Kinter, and his distraught mother offers a 3000$ bounty to any one who kills the shark. Predictably this sparks off a shark hunt, with every amateur wanting his share. A professional fisherman and shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) offers his services, but is rejected because of the high price. In the meantime a large tiger shark is caught by some of the novice fishermen, who claim that the killer has been caught. Matt Hooper(Richard Dreyfuss) a marine biologist is however not convinced at all. He wants to examine the stomach of the shark, but the mayor rejects it, as he does not want a public spectacle to be made. Hooper and Brody now team up, and after exploring in his boat, they find another victim of a shark attack.
The mayor however is adamant, in keeping the beaches open. On the 4 th of July weekend celebrations, when the people are enjoying themselves, a false alarm is triggered, and while panic floods the beach, the shark enters another estuary, kills another man, and one of Brody’s son nearly becomes a victim. Brody now forces the mayor to close the beaches. The hunt for the shark starts off with Brody, Quint and Hooper on a fishing vessel called the Orca. How these 3 men hunt the shark, and what happens, is best left to be seen on the screen itself.
What primarily works for Jaws, apart from the edge of the seat action sequences is the character development. The 3 main characters are well developed, and each of them has a motivation. Quint, a professional shark hunter, quite resembles Capt Ahab of Moby Dick. Like Ahab obsessed about the great whale, Quint’s only mission is to capture the shark. So obsessed he is with the shark, that when Brody and Hooper, are repairing the engine damaged by the shark, he cuts off all contact with the Coast Guard, to prevent Brody from radioing for help. His monologue about his experiences as a survivor in WW2, after his ship was sunk, and how he watched the survivors being eaten by sharks, gives us an insight into the frame of his mind. And tragically like Ahab he becomes a victim of his own obsession.
Brody is the cop who has to battle the town’s Mayor as well the shark. His main aim is to protect the people, but very often he ends up the target of their ire. Like in the scene where the mother of Alex Kinter, slaps him for his failure to protect her son. As also where he finds himself helpless against the Mayor’s bullying and manipulation. Hooper the third member of the trio, is somewhat the lesser character. He however is a key to the hunt, due to his knowledge of sharks, their mode of attacks.
Apart from the dramatic content Spielberg, as usual manages to create some edge of the action sequence stuff, the best being the crew’s first encounter with the shark. Other interesting scenes
* The shark pulling off a huge pier
* The shark attacking Hooper in a cage, underwater, is really heart stopping.
* The death scene of Quint, quite gruesome and horrifying.
* The scene where Brody creates a false alarm on the beach, and the ensuing panic.
And of course Spielberg’s favorite composer, John Williams coming up with another unforgettable score. The scenes where the shark attacks, and the panic of the people is heightened by that alternating two notes pattern, which really makes the viewers heart skip a beat. One of the best pieces of terrifying musical score, on par with Bernard Hermann’s in Pyscho.
The performances by the 3 actors also elevate this movie above the normal B stuff. Neither Scheider or Shaw or Dreyfuss, were top stars, but pretty good actors.
Robert Shaw already had a string of good performances behind him, as the baddie in the Bond flick From Russia with Love, the Nazi tank commander in Battle of the Bulge and the mobster in The Sting. The move had him in the meatiest role, and he sinks his teeth into it. Whether it’s the drunken monologue on the boat, or his obsession with the shark or his final death scene, he gives a solid performance, making you empathize with his character.
After playing a series of supporting acts in movies like Klute and The French Connection , Roy Scheider, came into his own, as the cop Brody, a family man, who has to fight the townspeople as well as the shark. He comes out with a pretty good performance underplaying his role to that of Shaw’s more over the top characterization.
Richard Dreyfuss , as biologist, Matt Hooper, does well, in his role too. He would later play a major role in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind, as well as to win an award for his role in Goodbye Girl . Not much of a mainstream star, he made his mark in indie ventures like Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Mr.Holland’s Opus.
So my recommendation is do watch this movie, even if the effects seem slightly cheesy, some of the scenes and the performances by the lead actors, more than make up for it.
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Onir
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Revathy
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Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
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Shivajee
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have yet to watch this movie… thanks for jogging my memory.. from everything i’ve heard about it, it’s a landmark film just bc of the way it was made and at the time it was delivered.. influenced people’s decisions of going to the beach and made them look at the beach in a whole new fashion. anybody who can influence people in that respect is a force to be reckoned with.. no doubt why spielberg has remained one of the world’s most influential filmmakers. nice post ratnakar!
striker? jaws nahin dekha abhi tak?:o
me too :( nahi dekhi…. i ll go and fight with my mom
“mummy, mujhe Jaws kyun nahi dikhaayi?!”
good informative article but, Ratnakar
i see that you are also in B’lore, DVd de do bhaai ;)