Cinema, 50 years ago, taught movie audiences to be afraid of sharks.
Friday, June 20, marks the 50th anniversary of the debut of Steven Spielberg’s “great sea chase episode” Jaws. Released in 1975, it’s not just a movie; it’s a cultural phenomenon that redefined the thriller genre and created the summer blockbuster.
The classic, starring Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gary and Murray Hamilton, takes us to the peaceful seaside community of Amity Island, which is shaken by the appearance of a killer great white shark.
The feature film was not only a commercial success and an effective production of horror and suspense, but also marked a significant milestone in the film industry. It represented a break from the traditional ways of releasing and marketing films, laying the foundations of what we know today as blockbusters.
Likewise, it left firm evidence that technical setbacks can become narrative strengths, and that a good story does not need to show everything, but to know how and when to do it.
At the time, it won three Oscars in the categories of Best Editing, Best Score for John Williams’ legendary composition and Best Sound. In addition, the film garnered four more Golden Globe nominations and seven more BAFTA Award nominations. It has been listed as one of the 50 greatest films in history by the American Film Institute (AFI) and recognized as an essential part of its country’s cinematic heritage by the Library of Congress.
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of Jaws, here are seven cinematic secrets from the making of the film that even its biggest fans don’t know.
The film is based on the book by Peter Benchley
Some of the most important movies in history, since The Godfather and Gone With the Wind, have been based on books, and Jaws was no exception. The shark thriller was based on Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name, published in 1974.
In July 1916, the New Jersey shore made the front pages of the American press due to a series of shark attacks that resulted in the deaths of four people in a period of less than two weeks. Nearly six decades later, writer Peter Benchley was hired by Doubleday Publishing to write a novel.
Although Benchley was inspired by the events that took place in New Jersey during the fateful summer of 1916, he also drew inspiration from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, as well as the adventures of the eccentric fisherman and famous shark hunter Frank Mundus, whom the writer would have taken as a reference to create the character of Sam Quint.
Benchley was also inspired by Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, as well as the adventures of the eccentric fisherman and famous shark hunter Frank Mundus, whom the writer would have taken as a reference to create the character of Sam Quint.
A hellish shoot: sinking sharks and seasick actors
Today, technological advances, such as CGI, have made it easier to create sophisticated and highly complex visual effects. In the 1970s, however, animatronics were used.
As you can imagine, the filming was characterized by technical and logistical challenges, to the point that Spielberg almost abandoned the project.
As the movie required the presence of a huge shark, three mechanical replicas, each 7.5 meters long, were created. To effectively manage the mechanical effects, a team of more than forty professionals specialized in the field was hired. These technicians were responsible for ensuring the optimal functioning of the mechanical or animatronic sharks, which meant a significant increase in the budget allocated to the production.
Overall, the handling of the mechanical sharks was deeply challenging. Not only did they frequently break down due to the salty water, they were trapped in the seaweed, and some fourteen people were required to articulate their movements.
In addition to these setbacks, there were also other difficulties arising from filming at sea, such as the humidity that damaged the expensive filming material, the continuous appearance of other boats sneaking into the shots, and the fact that the actors had to work with constant seasickness due to the rocking of the ship.
No one wrote the movie’s most famous line
The line “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” unforgettably uttered by Roy Scheider, was not in the script at all, but was inadvertently improvised by the actor on the day of shooting.
It is an immortal line and a great cinematic moment that still resonates with audiences around the world.
Spielberg laughed at John Williams’ musical score
It is widely known that the famous two-note melody, composed by John Williams, was conceived to generate suspense in the audience and convey an impending sense of doom with the shark lurking beneath the frame. And, no doubt, that goal was more than met.
However, when John Williams, one of the most renowned film composers of all time, presented Steven Spielberg with the now world-renowned score, Spielberg thought it was a joke. After all, the score consists of only two notes, and Spielberg did not know how to react.
In 1976, the Jaws score earned Williams his second Oscar, and has been voted by the AFI as the sixth greatest film score of all time.
It was the first “blockbuster” film
In 1975, this thriller topped the theatrical box office, ranking as the most successful film of all time.
Although the debut of Jaws was scheduled for Christmas 1974, multiple delays during filming led to its postponement until the summer of 1975. Many thought this was the film’s death knell, as summer releases traditionally performed poorly.
To everyone’s surprise, the film would become the first to gross $100 million upon its release, a title it would retain until 1977 when Star Wars hit the big screen.
This event changed the film industry forever. To this day, most studios plan their big releases for the summer months.
“Until Jaws, studios had no clear strategy for releasing movies in the summer. Before, productions were divided by themes and seasons. But this film broke that paradigm. It was the first to be conceived, promoted and distributed as a massive summer event, aimed at a specific audience: teenagers and young adults, between 13 and 30 years old. Its success was such that it marked the birth of the concept of the summer blockbuster, a model that is still in force today,” explained Professor José Felipe Coria, from UNAM’s National School of Cinematographic Arts.
Part of what you see in Jaws is real shark footage
As hard as it is to believe, some of the most shocking shark images in the film are real.
Prior to the start of shooting Jaws, the young director made sure to hire two underwater cinematographers to film great white sharks off the coast of southern Australia.
Ron and Valerie Taylor, skilled and well-known divers back home, set about capturing the footage that would be used in Jaws’ climactic scene, when Dreyfuss’ Matt Hooper dons a wetsuit and enters a cage to lethally inject the beast that has been terrorizing Amity Island.
Spielberg liked the Taylor’s images so much that he had some scenes rewritten from the script.
Years after directing Jaws, Steven Spielberg came to regret the film
While Jaws invented the summer blockbuster and catapulted a young Steven Spielberg to fame, the director has repeatedly expressed concern about the implications the production has had on public perception of sharks.
Some experts contend that the feature film may have been a contributing factor in the increase in shark fishing, resulting in a decline in shark populations. Although it has never been conclusively proven that Jaws had such a negative influence, Steven Spielberg has regretted giving sharks a bad name as one of the world’s most devastating and deadly predators.
Speaking on BBC’s Desert Island Discs in 2022, Steven Spielberg said: “That’s one of the things I still fear, not to get eaten by a shark, but that sharks are somehow mad at me for the feeding frenzy of crazy sport fishermen that happened after 1975… I truly, and to this day, regret the decimation of the shark population because of the book and the film.”
Both Spielberg and Benchley regretted contributing to the mass hysteria and tried to help efforts to preserve them.
The text The Jaws Log, by Carl Gottlieb is full of additional information about the creative process and production of the film, we recommend reading it to find out more.