Roy: Steven Spielberg directed Jaws and was immediately responsible for a particular aquatic phobia developing in millions of people. This fantastic film tells the story of a massive great white shark and how it terrorized a New England coastal town for a summer. Three men eventually embark on a quest to hunt down and kill the menace blah blah blah. Look unless you’ve been hiding under a rock for the last 39 years, you know the story. You’ve seen the famous scenes. Unfortunately, I think that most of us have watched these scenes over and over and feel like we have seen this movie a thousand times. Maybe you have, but I think there are many of us who have not sat down and experienced this brilliant film from beginning to end in a long time. If you fall into that category and are looking for something good to watch you could not make a better decision than Jaws.
Roy Scheider does a good job as Brody, but Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfus hand in spectacular performances as their characters. It was Quint who commands my favorite part of the movie. He tells the true story of the USS Indianapolis, and adds that he was one of the 317 survivors. Robert Shaw knocks this out of the park. That scene felt so real and made you understand why Quint was so strange. Why he was hell-bent on destroying this shark. It made you a little sad to see a man who survived the USS Indianapolis meet his end in the belly of a shark just 30 years later.
The impact this movie had on my generation is impossible to explain. My wife tells a great story about when she and her brothers would go swimming in the ocean as kids. One of her brothers became quite adept at pretending to be drug under by a shark like the poor young lady in the opening of the movie. To this day my wife can remember how upset she got when she saw him do this. We ALL have stories like this. That’s what makes this movie so wonderful. It’s not just the suspense and intensity and Brody fudging his pants as he’s chumming the water and sees the shark pop up out of nowhere. It’s how this movie grabbed all of us and became a permanent part of our lives. THIS is why I love movies. When done correctly, no other art-form can come close.
Cody: Anytime there is a production company started based off of a line from your movie (that’s some bad hat Harry), you know you’ve made it. We could just stop right there, but of course I won’t. First of all, I think we all can admit that anytime we enter the ocean we are at least 36% sure that our day will end in those iconic bass notes and a bloody circle in the water. I also think Jaws at least loosely spawned the Shark Week that we have all come to love. This movie is, as Roy said, just the epitome of why we watch films.
As Roy also said, there are multiple famous scenes here, and am I the only one that can’t believe how well this movie holds up almost 40 years later? Even that giant rubber shark doesn’t look half bad. Did you notice all the foreshadowing about the eventual exploding fish using the air tank? Spielberg must have thrown us 10 hints in there. I am not sure why this is relevant, but it is something I felt like throwing out there just to mull over. The penultimate shot of the movie of Brody laying horizontal on the mast of the ship basking in the sunlight and the stink of his exploded foe is just excellent movie making. We are about to watch 1,001 movies together; which, if you’re doing the math at home, means we had a literal crap ton of movies we could have started this journey with. Is Jaws the best movie of all time? No. Is it the best movie we could have started with? You could make an argument for that.
Well, needless to say, I am not going anywhere near water anytime soon. I would write more on our toothy friend, but I would need a bigger boat. *rim shot*
Roy: I will just be content to not swim in the ocean with gross old men who forgot their bro at home...
Cody: It’s a manzier!
P.S. Brilliant blog as usual. Mark my words...F A M O U S.
ReplyDeleteIf you guys never have any other fans you have me. I most definitely support the long film journey you guys have ahead of you. Having watched many of them myself I can say that you will have a roller coaster ride of emotions and endurance tests ahead of you. Many films are very rewarding if you'll just be patient with them, many will have seemed like a waste of time, many will leave you floored and leave a lasting impression. That's what film is all about.
ReplyDeleteAnd besides if you get tired of these so called classics you can always hit up the real classics: Red Dawn, Big Trouble in Little China, Road House, etc. Oldies, but goodies.