Steven Spielberg’s cinema blockbuster and directorial masterpiece Jaws recently turned 50.
Released in 1975, its influence on popular culture remains as significant as any movie ever made. Indeed, arguably Jaws is as impactful as any popular cultural artifact made in any art form in the 50 years since.
Quentin Tarantino described it as ‘the greatest movie ever made’. He’s correct.
I have seen the movie countless times, well over 50, and haven’t tired of it. In the 2hrs and 4mins, running time, Spielberg managed to give life to an engrossing and complex plot, produce moments of high adventure, terror, suspense and humour, create many memorable and complex characters, and explore several universal themes. At the same time, Jaws is wonderfully entertaining and captivating cinema.
In the modern era, long-form series and multi-episode programs have emerged as the form of choice allowing writers and directors to develop plot and character and build audience investment in the story and fate of the protagonists. Spielberg, like all great filmmakers, manages to achieve all of these outcomes in a standard-length film. A remarkable achievement for a then 27-year-old.
The film is an adaptation of Peter Benchley’s best-selling novel of the same name. The book is okay, but not exceptional, and unlike the movie it holds no place in the pantheon of great works of its genre.
The movie itself is very taut and brilliantly edited with not a wasted word or scene. The three major male characters are brilliantly wrought, and the numerous supporting roles are also very well executed. The screenplay holds up brilliantly today and John Williams’ film score is surely one of the most recognisable and evocative ever composed. There are half a dozen iconic scenes and a similar number of lines that have become popular cultural references. The effects were ground-breaking for the time, and while rudimentary by comparison to CGI, still look amazing. We’ve all seen the movie so there is no need to provide details of its many high points.
Jaws announced Spielberg as a seriously gifted auteur and his subsequent canon is as great as any director. Some of his other great films share thematic similarities with Jaws but are grander productions, but for many cineasts, Jaws remains Spielberg’s masterwork.
I have a lifelong attachment to the film. I was 8 years old when it was released in Sydney and saw it with my parents in the lead-up to the summer of 1975 in the long since demolished Barclay cinema in George Street, Sydney. As a beach-going family and with an already keen enjoyment of the ocean cultivated from fishing with my grandfather, I was completely enraptured by the film. My then 6-year-old brother was completely terrified and developed a pathological fear of sharks as a result throughout his early childhood. He has long since outgrown this and is a very avid surfer and waterman, but the scar tissue remains. I’m sure he’s not alone. I developed a deep and abiding fascination for great whites after seeing the movie, a fascination that endures to this day. I have been lucky (if that is the word) to see four great whites in the ocean; one in a cage dive near Cape Town, South Africa; one off Tamarama beach, surfing with aforesaid brother, one surfing in Suffolk Park near Byron Bay last summer with my adult son; and one game fishing off Sydney. There have been a couple of likely other sightings, but I can’t be certain they were whites.
The movie is of its time and explores themes of public safety and the role of the State in balancing economic interests, personal freedoms and the circumstances in which the intervention of public authorities is warranted. Parallels have been drawn between Jaws and Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of the People. Themes concerning the cost and consequences of public safety are central, with the corrupt and venal mayor Vaughan and his chamber of commerce cronies contrasted with the moral conscience of Chief Brody.
These themes remain very relevant today. Since 1975, public freedoms have become increasingly curtailed, and the State is increasingly likely to intervene to address perceived risks to public safety- witness the Covid response. The idea that a local regional council and chamber of commerce would fight and dissemble to keep the beaches open to allow beachgoers to enjoy 4th of July summer celebrations and to spend their money in coastal bars and eateries in the face of repeat shark attacks seems unlikely today in today’s more paternalistic society. The other thing that places the film in 1975 is the driving force of the plot itself, that is the shared object of ruthlessly alleviating the threat of the shark. Interestingly, this objective is shared by the obsessive blood lust-inspired Captain Quint, the upstanding and civic-minded Chief Brody, and even the environmentally minded Matt Hooper. This is a clear reflection of the attitudes of the time.
If the film was made today, plot realism would have demanded the beach be closed upon the mere suspicion of a shark, let alone multiple attacks and grisly deaths to the town folk. There is also little prospect that a bounty and kill-party would be set loose on the shark. After all we are constantly reminded that we ocean goers are unjustified intruders into the shark’s natural home!
In this regard, the film brilliantly explores the tension between the privileged environmentalism of Hooper and the primal hunter, Quint. Hooper is portrayed as an East Coast elite with family wealth and his sense of entitlement underpins his environmental leanings. Quint is a hard-boiled second world war naval veteran. He lived through a mid pacific shark frenzy when his naval vessel, the atomic bomb carrying Indianapolis went down. Most of his shipmates were eaten. He lacks any sentiment in his view of the natural world. Brody sits in the middle of the two characters. He is a pragmatic New York cop who merely wants to manage a public threat. He neither shares Hooper’s abstract eco tendencies nor Quint’s psychopathy and jaundiced view of the natural world. The film manages to explore these protean environmental themes subtly but very effectively. Many allegories may be drawn from the three principal characters’ philosophical conflicts.
It’s easy to enjoy the film at a superficial level as a tale of high adventure because it manages to provoke several emotional responses in the audience like all great films can do. However, if you’re a major fan of the film as I am, there are deeper layers to explore and its themes of state intervention, public safety, environmentalism vs human mastery are even more relevant today than they were in 1975.
Happy birthday Jaws!
Andrew Christopher is a lawyer and writer
