Back in the theater again, and this time on IMAX screens, Jaws was, is, and remains one of the great movies in the history of cinema.  It’s the film that put Steven Spielberg on the Hollywood map, changed summertime movie exhibition bookings (for better and worse) and kept millions of people, myself included, out of the water.  It is a legendary classic, fully deserving of all the hype, all the sleepless nights and all of the love it has received over the years.  I hope it is never remade, because nothing could ever top it.

Steven Spielberg’s drama occurs on Amity Island when a giant great white shark begins feeding on people and the town’s police chief (Roy Scheider) is tasked with stopping the slaughter.  Chief Brody and shark expert Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) join crusty fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw) on a hunt that thrills and terrifies audiences even today. Interestingly, like Halloween soon afterward, the number of victims is absurdly low, just five.  But it sure feels higher, and in both cases the sequels became bloodier and bloodier because the studios stupidly thought that was what audiences wanted to see.  Nope; it’s the suspense, the imminent danger, that provides the thrills.

I like the first half of the story more than the hunt, thrilling though the second half is to experience.  My favorite scene has Brody sitting at his dinner table with son Sean (Jay Mello), finally realizing that his boy is imitating him.  It’s a moment of beautiful humanity, and it’s not the only one.  Throughout the story Spielberg and his writers (Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley, adapting Benchley’s more troublesome book) take the time to fully humanize Brody and his family, Hooper and even Quint, as he realizes that the shark is just too much for him to handle even as his ego urges him to fight on.  The spectacle takes center stage in the latter half — even if you feel the shark looks fake (because it is) it’s still damned impressive in action — but for me it’s the human moments that shine brightest, from Quint’s tale of the U.S.S. Indianapolis to the cute rivalry that arises between Quint and Hooper on the boat, from Hooper’s hyperventilating during the autopsy scene (“This was no boating accident!”) to Brody’s abject terror when he first sees the shark up close (“We’re gonna need a bigger boat”).  This is a great movie.

As an aside, I recommend the immediate sequel, Jaws 2 (1978), as well, for the same reasons.  It isn’t the great film that the first one is, but the characterization of Chief Brody (Scheider again, perhaps even better) is superb.  His anxiety about having “go to through that hell again” is transferred directly to the audience and it carries the movie past its incredible improbabilities for another fun thrill ride.  On the other hand, the less said about the next two sequels, the better.

I view Jaws as the Moby Dick of American cinema.  It shares many of the same themes and improves upon them by presenting them in a hugely thrilling 124 minute adventure.  It is my second favorite film of all time, one which cost me a night of sleep the first time I saw it when I was but fourteen years old.  It should have been rated R for its violence and intensity, but the studio was able to persuade the ratings board to be lenient.  Jaws made a boatload of money, scared people out of the water, quickly entered the popular lexicon and made Steven Spielberg a household name, and none of those things has changed nearly fifty years later.  Do yourself a favor and see this movie as it was meant to be seen, on the big screen.  It’s one of the greatest movies ever made.  ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆.  4 September 2022.