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The Seventies in America Jaws Identification: Motion picture Director: Steven Spielberg (1946- ) Date: Released in 1975 Jaws, about a human-eating great white shark, became the most successful motion picture of its time by earning more than $100 million. This Hollywood disaster film that exploited the era's hunger for sensational thrills, shocking images, and masculine American heroism in the face of unprecedented danger and terror. Based on a pulp novel by Peter Benchley, who also collaborated on the screenplay, Jaws was Steven Spielberg's second feature film and his first big commercial hit, arguably because it was able to exploit widespread fears about killer sharks. Like Spielberg's television film Duel (1971), which pitted an ordinary traveling salesman against an anonymous driver of a menacing truck, the plot line of Jaws centered on a similar menace--a shark--that stalked unsuspecting characters. Perverse and even absurd in its plot, characters, and situations, Jaws nonetheless had a strong visceral appeal, and its visual style set a different course for disaster films. Set in the small coastal resort community of Amity--the name means "friendship"--in New England, the film has three main protagonists, each with distinct personalities: Police Chief Martin Brody (played by Roy Scheider), ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), and tough old salt Quint (Robert Shaw). The three men set out on a small boat--slyly named Orca--to track down the great white shark that has been terrorizing the community with its savage attacks on swimmers. Brody discovers that primal horror cannot be escaped even in an otherwise idyllic setting, while Hooper finds that pure science is inadequate to deal with one of nature's unparalleled monsters. Quint, however, becomes the agent of madness or stupidity in opposition to the other characters' reason and science. Quint clearly represents Ahab, the protagonist in Herman Melville's Moby Dick (1851), and the 4,550-pound shark off Long Island becomes the equivalent of Melville's whale. Quint's obsession with the creature begins a descent into foolhardy bravado that ends with his gory death within the jaws of the shark. Spielberg used the camera in bold ways, not limiting himself to conventional framing. He also made use of shadows against light, shooting swimmers from underwater--as if from the stalking shark's point of view--with light filtering into the deep from above the surface. John Williams's chilling soundtrack to signal the shark's approach and Verna Fields's superb editing delivered shocks, and Spielberg, in a virtuoso decision, did not show the actual shark until past the halfway mark of the film, thus building the suspense masterfully. In this way, the horror of the shark's presence was expanded by the audience's imagination. The sheer pace of the storytelling and the uncomplicated nature of the tale helped to make the film immensely popular. Impact An experiment in film terror, Jaws was considered especially American for its ability to combine Freudian horror and suspense with themes of small-town politics and an Everyman-versus-nature struggle. The film made it acceptable for the public to express its private fears openly while appreciating a suspense film's flashes of black humor. Further Reading Crawley, Tony. The Steven Spielberg Story. London: Zomba Books, 1983. Mott, Donald R., and Cheryl McAllister Saunders. Steven Spielberg. Boston: Twayne, 1986. Taylor, Philip M. Steven Spielberg--The Man, His Movies, and Their Meaning. New York: Continuum, 1992. Keith Garebian See AlsoDisaster films; Dreyfuss, Richard; Film in the United States; Horror films; Science-fiction films; Spielberg, Steven. |
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