At times it seems that Steven Spielberg and I grew up in parallel worlds--he makes movies about many of the things that fascinated me as a child. There were the Saturday matinee serials (Raiders of the Lost Ark), King Arthur (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), aliens (Close Encounters and E.T.), dinosaurs (Jurassic Park), and sharks (Jaws).

I remember getting on a huge shark binge when I was 12 years old, reading every shark related material could find in the public library. Especially interesting were the books describing shark attacks with pictures of mutilated body parts. Especially gruesome was the terrifying account of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and the 1,100 men who fought off man-eating sharks for a week before they were rescued; only 316 came out alive. Others died horrifically--a number severed in half.

Those shark stories stuck with me even though I lived in Illinois, with little chance of seeing them in the wild. Of course, the inevitable happened, and I found myself facing the Atlantic Ocean in Ft. Lauderdale in the early 1970s. Though I was excited to swim in the ocean for the first time, I discovered I couldn't enjoy it. Primal fears overtook me--I knew sharks lived in these waters somewhere, and all I could do was wade in and look for tell-tale dorsal fins. Just the thought of being in the same waters that sharks inhabited scared the bejubies out of me!

So, I didn't need the hype that surrounded the release of Jaws in the summer of 1975. I was prepared; I even bought the Peter Benchley novel and read it in a couple of days because I couldn't wait for the film. Sharks may scare me, but they also fascinate.


The summer blockbuster is born

I obviously wasn't the only one. Many others shared my phobia about sharks. It's like the Amity mayor says, "You yell 'barracuda,' and people say 'Huh?'--You yell 'shark,' and we got a panic on our hands."

29-year-old director Steven Spielberg had latched on to the psyches of the entire nation. So many people flocked to the movie theaters to see Spielberg's human-eating machine that a new monster was born--the summer blockbuster. The movie industry has never been the same.

Spielberg became Hollywood's "golden boy," causing a great deal of jealousy but opening up the money coffers to do whatever movies he wanted to do. A larger influence was the idea that Hollywood could make a huge profit by screening movies in the summer that have a large audience appeal, cater especially to younger audiences, and lend themselves to repeat viewings.

Jaws was the first summer blockbuster and became the prototype for all subsequent summer fare.


Positives

Though the quality of potential summer blockbusters has generally been poor over the years, appealing to the lowest common denominator of movie watchers, Jaws actually is better than average. Despite all the technical challenges of filming on location in the ocean, Spielberg demonstrates his film instincts and knowledge throughout.

What makes Jaws work is Spielberg's meticulous attention to creating suspense. We can almost sense his Hitchcockian sensibilities in this vein. Like Hitchcock, nothing is thrown in without serving a purpose. From the opening shots of the credits, where we are thrust into the shark's point of view deep into the ocean, we realize danger lurks in the water.

This intensifies with the creepy string-and-brass gruntings of John Williams' effective musical score as we see the legs of Chrissie (Susan Blacklinie) slowly treading water from below. We know the danger, but she doesn't, and she is violently devoured. Yet Spielberg borrows from the Master of Suspense. Just as we don't see the murderer right away in Psycho, nor do we see the shark until much later in Jaws.

Like the Master, Spielberg doesn't serve up mass quantities of blood and gore. He knows it's the anticipation of horror that brings suspense; there are relatively few killings. The unfortunate sequel gives us a bloodbath and sacrifices nearly every teen that appears. True horror does not depend on the number of killings; it depends on the suspense and the creative quality of the killings.

Spielberg also creates suspense by setting up scenarios that make us anticipate another shark lunch, only to surprise us.

Early on, Sheriff Brody's son talks about having a cut on his finger. Those of us who know anything about sharks realize this is a blatant clue that his son is in for a shark encounter, since their keen sense of smell and love of blood will send them into a feeding frenzy. Later, two men are shark-fishing from the dock when a huge fish takes the bait and breaks off the dock, dragging one of the men with him. We are sure this man will become a late-night snack as the dock begins "swimming" towards the frantic man, and we catch our breath as he escapes.

If you've read the original Benchley novel before seeing the movie, even more surprises are in store for you. Different people get munched; you will never be able to anticipate which characters are destined to live. We can also be thankful for a different ending. Benchley's original one had me chuckling--it is lifted straight out of Moby Dick, with the captain taking his last stabs as he and the shark descend into the depths.

There are at least two places that will make any shark-fearing person jump and scream. Like Hitchcock, the young Spielberg has a sense of rhythm and adds touches of humor to the film to break up the tension. However, just as you are beginning to relax a bit, out pops a mangled head or a chomping great white shark, and the adrenaline rush begins.

The action sequences with the shark attacks are well-crafted using the technology available in 1975, and I find the sequence with Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) attempting to survive in the battered shark cage especially intense. Yet though the action sequences are highlighted, Spielberg remembers basic effective filmmaking and develops characters we can care about. He does this by showing us vignettes of some of the main characters to allow us to relate to them.

We learn that Sheriff Brody and his wife (admirably played by Lorraine Gary), have a warm family life and are seeking a refuge away from New York City. Brody is living on Amity Island even though he hates the water; after all, "It's only an island if you look at it from the water." He does care about the community and attempts to do the right thing, and feels very bad when the Kintner boy is killed. There's a precious family moment that occurs as he is feeling the guilt over the boy, where his own young son copies his dad's every gesture. It's a much-needed break.

We also grow to enjoy Hooper's character, primarily through his shark knowledge, his sincerity, and his sense of humor. Hooper is the one who berates the Amity mayor, telling him that he is "familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this particular problem until it swims up and bites you on the ass!" Later, he and his natural antagonist on the Orca fishing vessel, Captain Quint (Robert Shaw), get into a small, humorous "contest." Quint crushes a can with his hand; Hooper stares him down and crushes his styrofoam cup (bringing a chuckle to the audience).

Spielberg masterfully molds the characters beyond the typical stereotypes now so often found in blockbusters. We even get a nice glimpse into the character of Captain Quint as he and Hooper swap fish stories and compare scars. Up to this point we've seen Quint as a rather crude and arrogant man, a competent seaman but not all that likeable. Suddenly the background music stops as Hooper asks about a tattoo Quint has had removed and jokingly guesses that it had said "Mother." Quint pauses, then quietly states "U.S.S. Indianapolis." Hooper becomes silent, and Quint relates the mother of all shark tales and gains our respect for being among the few who survived that awful ordeal. We now understand what has driven Quint to become a shark hunter.

Quint's story tells us a lot about sharks. At one point he becomes slightly poetic as he describes their eyes: "The thing about a shark, it's got lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eyes. When it comes at you it doesn't seem to be livin'... until he bites you, and those black eyes roll over white."

Throughout Jaws, Spielberg teaches us about sharks, whether it's through stories, visuals in the books that Sheriff Brody browses, or in conversations with Hooper about the contents of a tiger shark's stomach. That Jaws can teach us some new information ranks it well above most of the summer blockbusters that have followed.


Weaknesses

Jaws is an enjoyable movie and is educational to a degree, but don't expect it to uplift you totally and raise your consciousness. The shark facts are flawed and give the creatures a much worse reputation than they deserve. Conservationists had to work very hard to re-educate the public about the true nature of sharks and why they should be protected. With as much garbage as we dump into our waters, something needs to help clean up the mess.

Besides the distorted facts, which can be excused because a horror story can not be properly formed around "My Friend, the Great White Shark," the easiest target is the special effects and the sharks themselves.

By today's standards, Bruce (the nickname of the mechanical shark) looks pretty cheesy. He's not very flexible and seems stiff when he climbs aboard the Orca in search of his meal. Certainly a computer generated shark like the one that hops aboard ship in The Perfect Storm would look a lot more realistic. It would have made Spielberg's ocean-filming a less-painful ordeal, but I still like the old guy when he first pops up out of the water, causing Sheriff Brody to remark: "You're gonna need a bigger boat."

Although Sheriff Brody and Matt Hooper are well-developed, the other characters are mostly stock figures, often sporting behaviors either too blatant or too unreal. OK, I understand Captain Quint is an independent old seaman with a reason to hate sharks, but why wreck the Orca's communication devices, and then deliberately overwork his little boat to leave the three-man crew as "dead meat" for the shark.

The mayor and the businesspeople of Amity also seem false. Perhaps many do think primarily in terms of profits, but the script hits us over the head with this idea. The way it is written establishes a clear-cut, black-and-white case of good vs. evil. Of course, people shouldn't be required to think too much here, and few can manipulate the emotions of the heart better than Spielberg. A most difficult film to produce, he puts together a great summer flick that has bankrolled him into a marvelous career--and we're all the richer for it.