It was the troubled movie production that ran months over schedule and by more than twice its budget. It didn’t help that problems with its mechanical sharks led to the shooting of being dubbed “Flaws” by some crew members.
But a young filmmaker named Steven Spielberg, aged 27 and with just one other movie credit to his name, took the shortcomings that plagued his shark thriller and turned them into a movie-making miracle. From its iconic ‘dum dum’ score by John Williams, to its distinct and colourful characters, to its sense of tension and toying with its audience, Jaws became the most successful movie of all time when it was released in 1975. It set Spielberg on course to become one of the most celebrated filmmakers ever as became a punctuation point in the history of cinema.
On August 29, the tale of a great white shark who plagued the town of Amity will return to Irish cinemas to mark its 50th anniversary. Commonly regarded as the first summer blockbuster and based on Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel, sees the small community turned to chaos when a shark makes its home offshore, munching his way through the local and tourist population. Police chief Brody (Roy Scheider) joins forces with a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss) and a shark hunter (Robert Shaw) to find the deadly predator.
It shouldn’t have worked out this way. On a troubled production that ran massively over budget amid numerous issues, the three mechanical sharks named Bruce would frequently break down. An early suggestion that a live great white would be trained for the film had long been dismissed and shelved, but Bruce’s mechanical challenges would frequently delay production. Spielberg’s decision to bring authenticity by filming in open waters also proved a nightmare. Seasickness plagued the cast and crew, the unpredictable weather was a continuity challenge, and other boats not connected to the film would drift into shots.
Stressed but determined, Spielberg turned to the growing movie-making skills and instincts that would later endear him to worldwide audiences through films including and It was a massive gamble that somehow worked, says Dr Barry Monahan, senior lecturer in the Department of Film and Screen Media at UCC.
“Some people say, if the shark had worked, it would have been a hopeless film, because it was the fact that we couldn’t see it that left it to the imagination,” says Monahan. “Without that footage, the suggestion of what the terror was was far more potent than what it would have been if we’d seen the rubber shark. That might be true, but still you had to know where to cut, and still you had to know how much of that you could get away with without satisfying some itch that the audience has.”
What the young filmmaker brought to the movie, he adds, was an innate gift for knowing how to engage an audience. “He had a sense of story. Like every great storyteller, he could put himself in the audience’s shoes and know what the audience was hoping to see next. And once you’re there, you’re on to a winner. If you know what your spectator wants to see next, you can either give it to them, or you can deny them that, and they are eating out of your hands, depending on which of those, the postponement of satisfaction or the delivery of a satisfaction, keeps them enticed enough.”
Instead of disaster, the film that ran more than 100 days and more than twice the budget over its production schedule resonated massively with audiences – and still feels fresh as its 50th anniversary release date in Irish cinemas approaches.
Spielberg, aided and abetted by the brilliant work of film editor Verna Fields and the cast and production team, pulled the challenging production from the jaws of defeat and used their skills to build a sense of intensity and tension that still works on screen today. Leaning into the playbook of filmmakers like Alfred Hitchcock while bringing their own creativity to the table, the filmmakers used clever editing and strong performances to deliver a true original, spooking audiences with glimpses of a shark fin in the water.
“They didn’t get the shots they needed on a day-by-day basis,” says Monahan, adding that Fields’ collaboration with Spielberg is one of the film’s great victories. “Everything she did, everything that’s praised about that film, from the music, which follows an editing rhythm, from the sequential development of characters that is entirely about the editing development, from the the use of shock-factor shots and the development of tension, a la Hitchcock, all of that was Verna Fields.”
Released in US cinemas in June 1975, was in uncharted waters in a world where the summer blockbuster hadn’t yet become a trend with audiences. But Universal Pictures pushed awareness of the film through a robust marketing campaign and gave Jaws a wide release, allowing audiences to recommend it through word of mouth. Peppered with great one-liners including “you’re gonna need a bigger boat” and “you open the beaches on the 4th of July, it’s like ringing the dinner bell for Christ’s sakes”, the movie started resonating with film fans as soon as it hit the big screen.
Back in the days when film companies had to physically transport film reels across the Atlantic, the blockbuster finally made its way to Cork in March 1976 when it opened at the Capitol cinema.
captured the public zeitgeist and became the biggest film in box-office history, taking an enormous $260 million on its initial release. It made studios realise that an event movie could capture a wide audience, and the summer blockbuster was born. “One of the big things that the blockbusters brought back, that the young directors like Scorsese and Coppola and Spielberg and Lucas started peddling, was the thrill and the fun,” observes Monahan.
“People would come out of the cinema and tell people that this was worth seeing for the right kind of reasons, with the right kind of enthusiasm, and that’s what shaped the things that we would later call blockbusters as we moved into the late ’70s and ’80s.”
Speaking in a new documentary for National Geographic called Spielberg still recalls the sense of stress he felt during the production. “We didn’t have the words PTSD in those days, and I had consistent nightmares about directing for years afterwards. It was, logistically, I think the most difficult movie I think I’ll ever make,” he says.
But seeing how it still enthrals audiences 50 years later, he spoke of his delight at the public response at the documentary’s premiere. “Fifty years after its initial release, making Jaws remains a seminal experience for every single one of us, and five decades has done nothing to dim the memories of what remains one of the most overwhelming, exciting, terrifying and rewarding experiences of my entire career.”
- returns to Irish cinemas on August 29
