- Steven Spielberg (29 years old in 1975) went into Jaws as a promising young filmmaker and emerged as a wunderkind with a masterpiece under his belt. Jaws also smashed box office records and Spielberg became a one man movie industry movement.

It opens with a short little horror film of two teenagers at a beach party. The sequence is largely without dialogue, it introduces John Williams’ brilliantly simple score, and has some lovely photography with dusk arriving on the water.

Roy Scheider plays Brody- the chief of police in Amity Island. Brody is a former NYPD cop (leaning into Scheider’s past in The French Connection from 1971).
- Spielberg directs the hell out of the sequence on the beach from roughly the 14-19 minute mark. There is a three-pronged editing splice as passersbys cross in front of Brody as he tries to keep his eyes on the water. After that, there is the famed split diopter (the film has more but this one is used in textbooks as Brody is listening to the man in front of his face, but his attention is clearly on the water). The marvelous dolly zoom (cinema’s greatest- along with Vertigo) is at the 18-minute mark.

Spielberg pulls no punches early – a stylistic tour de force

the split diopter and dolly zoom nearly back to back
- It is a brilliant four character moral drama featuring the aforementioned Brody, Robert Shaw’s Quint, Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss as the sort of intellectual, white collar bearded Spielberg surrogate—and I can’t believe he’s only 28 here- he could pass for 45) and Murray Hamilton’s Mayor Vaughn. Yes, the second act turns into the Ahab/Moby Dick (Shaw’s Quint with a death wish) well oiled narrative machine that we all know and love- but the first half of the film is a shrewd study on small town politics.
- Robert Shaw has a masterful character introduction at the 20-minute mark with the nails on the chalkboard and Spielberg’s camera sliding up to him from across the room as the noisy room hushes to hear what he has to say. The Spielbergian instincts are uncanny. He hides the mechanical shark throughout most of the film (using the dock attached, or barrels to create fear on top of the water and a POV camera under the water). Shooting on the open water is not easy— even if you’re over 30 years old—and Spielberg chooses not to shoot this film with the fake backdrop of a sea (which would have killed the film- again- good instincts). It is roughly 80 minutes into the movie before seeing the full shark- but just like The Birds (another Hitchcock mention on this page) it is a wonderful foreword.
- Dreyfuss’ Hooper is introduced another 10 minutes after Shaw’s Quint.
- The most intimate moments are strong as the most adventurous. There is a touching scene of Brody’s youngest son Sean mimicking his father—“Give us a kiss” and when the boy asks why—Brody says “Cause I need it” as he drowns himself in drink, racked with guilt.
- The little jump scare at Ben Gardner’s boat may be the only flaw or miss in the film. The film does not need this– it feels cheap.
- There is, of course, a tremendous amount of writing on Jaws, but I have not read anyone compliment Spielberg on beautiful character blocking and positioning within the wide 2.39 : 1 frame. Spielberg, quite often, lets the characters move, poised in the frame, without cutting. He creates a triangulation like Kurosawa would -regularly early with Dreyfuss/Hamilton/Scheider or, later in the film, with Dreyfuss/Shaw/Scheider- even if it falls short of say The Bad Sleep Well (1960) or High and Low (1963) in this regard. One such sequence (a stellar one) is the low angle long take in front of the Amity Island billboard. Spielberg habitually uses the long take in lieu of cutting (the shot on the ferry is done largely in one long take).

Another inspired set up is Spielberg shooting the Orca (name of Quint’s boat) taking to sea through the shark skeleton and window—Spielberg even thought to remove one of the teeth to make the view better.

There is another solid shot of Shaw at the end of the boat. Later, Scheider’s Brody has the transcendent “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” line.

A composition of Shaw in the foreground left sitting, Scheider in the middle/middle standing, and Dreyfuss in the background right on the second level—again- Kurosawa would be proud.

The narrative rolls like few have in the history of cinema. Dreyfuss’ Hooper and Shaw’s Quint have the white collar vs. blue collar banter, then comparing scars. This transitions into the USS Indianapolis which is certainly one of the greatest monologues in cinema history. Taste of Cinema agrees with me (always a great resource) http://www.tasteofcinema.com/2016/the-20-best-movie-monologues-of-all-time/ . Shaw had been terrific before, but this puts him on another level. This monologue is not the end of the scene though, the scene evolves into the charming “Show Me the Way to Go Home” sing along.
- Spielberg uses another split (the depth of field focus throughout is impressive) with Dreyfuss front right, Shaw in the back left after the shark attacks the boat. The story is so engaging it may take a few viewings to appreciate the blocking- the heads in the frame. There is another when Shaw’s Quint finally asks Dreyfuss’ Hooper for help.
- Spielberg lands it all gracefully with the “Smile, you son of a bitch” climax and eventually the Claude Rains and Humphrey Bogart going off together sort of finale with Brody and Hooper paddling towards shore together
- A masterpiece
I’m surprised there are no comments on this one yet. Its a capital M masterpiece loved by critics and audiences (which is somewhat rare. For example, not many non-critics would enjoy a Malick or Tarkovsky film. But everyone loves Spielberg). Its incredibly well made and directed.
I think Spielberg can rightly be considered as one of the greatest of all time.
“For Spielberg, Jaws was the launching pad for the most extraordinary directorial career in modern movie history. Before “Jaws,” he was known as the gifted young director of films such as “Duel” (1971) and “The Sugarland Express” (1974), After “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), he was the king.” – Roger Ebert. You know Spielberg is incredible when the greatest film critic of all time calls his career “the most extraordinary directorial career in modern movie history” and when he calls Spielberg “the king”. I love watching Spielberg films. Definitely one of the greatest filmmakers of all time…
https://www.rogerebert.com/rogers-journal/steven-spielbergs-legacy. Give this article a read. “How many other directors have bridged the gap between popular and critical success? Not many; “. As always brilliantly written by ebert
Absolutely it doesn’t matter. But even from a critical perspective he is superb. Jaws is soooooo well directed, a masterclass in suspense (we barely see the shark. Hitchcockian suspense.), brilliant dialogue, great horror, beautiful cinematography (Spielberg’s trademark sun shots), the camera movement ( he invented the ‘Spielberg zoom’) and the acting is great. Also it has one of the best endings in cinema history. Ebert called him ‘the king’ and the greatest modern director. Spielberg truly is remarkable in my opinion.
Okay this may be out of line haha.
Which would be in your opinion the best movie posters? (this question also goes for readers)
for me Jaws, Blade Runner, Vertigo, Chinatown, Apocalypse now.
@Aldo– love this actually. Amazing choices here- Alien actually is great. Rosemary’s Baby. I’m missing a bunch. Pulp Fiction and Scarface are cliche– all over the place- but that doesn’t make them any less great.
Yes, the one that is everywhere does not make them bad, some others would be Anatomy of a murder, the thing, the exorcist, silence of the lambs, Halloween, Fargo, Metropolis,
@m. I had not seen the intolerance poster, it is very good, very good options the ones you mention.
intolerance. jaws is one of the best. taxi driver, clockwork, carrie, night of living dead
I can’t believe its taken me so long to watch this film, I did technically view it years ago but I don’t remember much (I think it was a late night viewing).
Such a brilliant set up, putting the audience in a scenario where our primal instincts take over. Really just pure filmmaking going on here. Even though you could make a case that trying to survive a shark attack is no different than fending off a serial killer, I think the man vs nature element creates a different sort of atmosphere. The shark is such a pure villain, unlike a human villain, there is no need to try to explain the why or the “how did they end up this way?” types of questions that would be necessary in a movie about a human. There are no larger questions that need to be pondered about the shark.
Really the Richard Dreyfuss character sums it up beautifully “What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks.”
The narrative is incredibly lean and even at about 2 hours flat there is little in the way of unnecessary scenes, character histories, or sub-plots. Instead we have a cohesive story with several great characters.
The score is so iconic that I knew about it years before I had even heard of the film!
An undeniable classic.
Hi Drake, My problem with jaws is that no shark would actually act that way; it’s one thing for a shark to kill, but it’s completely something else for it to destroy a boat so that it could get to the humans inside. Isn’t the movie somewhat overblown?
@Wallace Pittari – Thank you for visiting the site and the comment here. Others can chime in, but I think Spielberg is not terribly interested in realism here in his attempt at Jaws. Jaws is as much a monster as any fictional villain.
But what makes it such a “masterpiece”. How is it any better than any other of the marvel blockbusters of today. Just because it created a genre (the summer blockbuster) doesn’t make it good. If anything it hurt cinema as people stopped being worried about making art and became interested in action and box office success.
@Wallace Pittari- I mean I have the page dedicated to it here so I’ll let that speak for itself. Rotten Tomatoes is a great resource if you’re trying to see what others admire so much about it here https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/jaws/reviews?type=&sort=&page=4 . How about the work of Robert Shaw? The score by John Williams? The dolly zoom of Roy Scheider?… those are three quick ones off the top of my head.
@Wallace Pittari – As mentioned the score is an all time great. Unlike the Marvel blockbusters (I don’t mean to put literally all of them together but in general) Jaws is driven by a slow burn set up. It is a masterpiece of suspense rather than non stop action. It takes its time in building up its characters and their different motivations.
And I’ll reiterate what I said on this page above:
“Such a brilliant set up, putting the audience in a scenario where our primal instincts take over. Really just pure filmmaking going on here. Even though you could make a case that trying to survive a shark attack is no different than fending off a serial killer, I think the man vs nature element creates a different sort of atmosphere. The shark is such a pure villain, unlike a human villain, there is no need to try to explain the why or the “how did they end up this way?” types of questions that would be necessary in a movie about a human. There are no larger questions that need to be pondered about the shark.”
Really the Richard Dreyfuss character sums it up beautifully “What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks.”
@Wallace Pittari- i agree with a lot of points you make but i think it has some artistic merits unlike marvel movies as mentioned in the review and by @James Trapp. I kinda agree with your point about “hurting cinema” It’s spot on but you know I think we should stop talking about Spielberg and his intellectually unchallenging cinema now and let Terry Gilliam do the talk. And trust me all the points we are supposed to make in an argument against Spielberg are made by the legend.
https://youtu.be/CAKS3rdYTpI
@James Trapp and @MASH and @Wallace Pittari– I think there are two questions here. Is Jaws a film worthy of the cinematic canon? And is Jaws to blame for the rise of the summer blockbuster or any sort of current state of popular movies? For the first question- I think it is pretty obvious that it is worthy of the canon (to what degree can be debated) and regardless to your answer to the second question, I don’t think you can hold that against Jaws the film in a serious argument as to why Jaws is or isn’t, a great work of art.
@Drake – well said, there are definitely 2 questions. I think I made my opinion clear on the 1st question.
As for the 2nd question of whether or not you can blame Jaws for the current state of the summer blockbuster, I think that is a much harder question to answer as it can be difficult to gage the long term aspect of any pop culture phenomenon. Saying Jaws is practically single handedly responsible for the lowering standards for film is probably going too far even without conducting a full scale study on this subject.
But one thing I’ve learned in the last few years, especially following this site, is this:
there is NO shortage of high quality cinema.
If anything, I am having trouble as there are so many directors whose work I am interested in viewing.
Funny Spielberg video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqIYH-FsWDM
Jaws getting an IMAX release, how cool is that?
https://www.firstshowing.net/2022/new-imax-trailer-for-spielbergs-jaws/
They did the same for E.T, really great experience seeing it in that format
Yep. I also caught ET in the imax a week ago. I was shocked by how many great images there were in there. I might have to check Jaws out too, the IMAX certainly enhances the experience