Face-Off: Jaws vs. Jurassic Park

Roy Scheider as Chief Martin Brody
Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper
Robert Shaw as Quint
Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn
Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody
Carl Gottlieb as Meadows

It’s hard to imagine a time when Spielberg was not the most recognizable director to ever walk the earth. But the early-mid seventies was that time, and nobody knew what to expect from this kid who so desperately wanted to make movies. With JAWS he showed the world what he could do, and movies haven’t been the same way since. Even after all his hits, JAWS remains a masterclass of pitch-perfect directing from Spielberg. Everything about his work here is absolutely perfect, from his work with the actors in establishing a natural sense of comradery to, most famously, how he concocted and the intense, thrilling atmosphere that scared audiences to death. Showing as little of the shark as possible was a genius move that has gone on to influence countless other horror movies, and has proven to be timelessly effective. No frame is wasted, and you always know where everything is and everything you see has a reason to be seen. With JAWS, Spielberg proves why he was always the master.

Amity Island is a vacation community where folks from both inside and outside the town spend the summers basking on the beach and swimming in the ocean. But soon, terror comes from the depths of the ocean as a monstrous Great White shark begins to terrorize the island town. Several people are devoured before Chief Brody is allowed to assemble a rag-tag group and venture to take down the deep sea devil before it strikes again.

There were a lot of hands in the JAWS script. Author of the book, Peter Benchley, wrote the initial draft of the script, before writers like Howard Sackler, Carl Gottlieb, John Millius and even actor Robert Shaw rewrote and tinkered with parts. In the end, Gottlieb and Benchley got the main credits (Sackler asked for uncredited work, and lots has been discussed regarding the big Quint speech), and the end result is a fantastic script filled with rich characters, memorable one-liners and a thrilling story that glides between tense horror and exciting adventure like a shark in the water. Despite all the terror and shark chomping the themes and conflicts are clear as day. Considering everything that went into writing this script it is astoundingly focused and lean, mixing pathos, fear, adventure and humor.

A Deadly Swim

Chief Brody and the Family

Finding the Girl

The Big Wigs Step In

Vaughn: “Martin, it’s all psychological. You yell barracuda, everybody says, “Huh? What?” You yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”

A Day at the Beach

Brody: “That’s some bad hat, Harry.”

The Shark Arrives

Alex Devoured/The Zoom In

Nails On a Chalkboard

Quint: “Y’all know me. Know how I earn a livin’. I’ll catch this bird for you, but it ain’t gonna be easy. Bad fish. Not like going down the pond chasin’ bluegills and tommycods. This shark, swallow you whole. Little shakin’, little tenderizin’, an’ down you go. And we gotta do it quick, that’ll bring back your tourists, put all your businesses on a payin’ basis. But it’s not gonna be pleasant. I value my neck a lot more than three thousand bucks, chief. I’ll find him for three, but I’ll catch him, and kill him, for ten. But you’ve gotta make up your minds. If you want to stay alive, then ante up. If you want to play it cheap, be on welfare the whole winter. I don’t want no volunteers, I don’t want no mates, there’s just too many captains on this island. $10,000 for me by myself. For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing.”

Mayhem on the Docks

Meet Matt Hooper

Hooper’s Investigations

Hooper: “This was no boat accident.”

The Wrong Shark

A Slap in the Face

Father and Son

Brody: “Give us a kiss.”

Sean: “Why?”

Brody: “Because I need it.”

Cutting Open the Shark

Nighttime Hunt

Mayor’s Failure to Act

Hooper: “Mr. Vaughn, 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, and that’s all. “

Panic on the Beach

Shark in the Pond

First Shark Visual

Hiring Quint

Quint: “Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women.”

Quint: “Cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark’s in the water. Our shark.”

Shipping Off

Ellen: “What am I going to tell the kids?”

Brody: “Tell them I’m going fishing.”

Reeling in Something Big

The Big Reveal

Brody: “You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

Harpooning the Shark

Quints Story

Quint: “Sometimes that shark, he looks right into ya. Right into your eyes. Y’know the thing about a shark, he’s got… lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes. When he comes at ya, doesn’t seem to be livin’… until he bites ya. And those black eyes roll over white, and then… oh, then you hear that terrible high-pitch screamin’, the ocean turns red, and spite of all the poundin’ and the hollerin’, they all come in and they… rip you to pieces.”

Round Two

Cage Goes in the Water

Shark on the Boat

Down Goes Quint

Brody’s Last Stand

Brody: “Smile you son of a —“

Swimming Home

Brody: “I used to hate the water…”

Hooper: “I can’t imagine why.”

Oh, John Williams, what more can we say about you? With JAWS the musical master created one of the most iconic film scores in history, containing possibly the most recognizable themes ever in film, only behind STAR WARS. The score can be lively and adventurous when it needs to be, just like all Willaims films, but what is so tremendous about the music here is how well it influences the horror. Mixing Spielberg’s work of keeping the shark hidden with the recurring, memorable theme is a monumental example of when music and action influence each other and their effect on the audience. When the score kicks in during a tense scene, our hearts beat with the music and score hits its peak as we’re just starting to jump out of our seats. And then, we get the biggest scare when the shark emerges as Brody is throwing chum out, and a big reason for that is because the music we’ve become accustomed to is gone. Dissertations on musical theory and psychology can be written about this amazing, brilliant score, and there’s no reason to doubt why it’s as legendary as it is.

Spielberg got a chance to do JAWS before he was the household name he is now, which means he didn’t get the budget and the toys to play with that he eventually would. Still, the master director uses the ocean itself as the marvelous set piece it is, giving the visual aesthetic some scope. As for effects, Bruce the animatronic shark is still a sight to behold even nowadays, looking as frightening as ever. It’s hard to think of practical, animatronic work as iconic as the shark in JAWS. Well, let’s check in next door before I really stand by that comment.

When I was in high school our psychology teacher wanted to show the class JAWS to teach us about some sort of cognitive functions or something or other. A girl who sat next to me, near hyperventilating, called the teacher over. She said she had to leave the room if we were going to watch the movie because she was terrified of sharks, and this movie, and this shark, were the reasons why. That is the effect this ocean-dwelling villain still posses all these years later. The shark in JAWS can rank on the list of the best movie villains of all time, all because of its terrifying presence. We go almost the whole movie without seeing the beast, but we get a sense of how its thinking and moving based on first-person (first-fish?) views of kicking, swimming, delicious human legs under the water. Spielberg gave this character a mind of his own, choosing to stay hidden and when to be seen. We get a sense of how it moves and thinks thanks to scenes where harpoons are lodged in him, with attached barrels moving as he does. Because of this shark, the world became terrified of the ocean and sharks (despite how not murderous and evil they are in real life) after this movie, and that fear has no doubt been passed down to newer generations.

Okay, we all know this movie launched the career of Spielberg to a level he has yet to come down from, but this movie is iconic for so many reasons. You got the style, the score, the shark, and we must not forget the impact this movie has had on the current landscape. This movie essentially invented summer movie season, delivering the biggest ever movie at the time during a season that was normally the dumping ground for mediocre affairs (the holiday season was the big ticket time for movies then). We can thank this movie, and later STAR WARS, for the rise of blockbusters, which may be good or bad depending on your view. On top of changing the movie world forever, this is simply an unforgettable masterpiece of American filmmaking that remains timeless and iconic because it is just so f**king perfect.

Spielberg was a young filmmaker when he made this movie, with only three smaller movies under his belt (AMBLIN’, DUEL and THE SUGARLAND EXPRESS). He proved to be a master with this massive movie, and many of the soon-to-be common Spielberg touches are in this movie. However, he was still finding his voice as a filmmaker, and the style, tone and general magnificence that comes to mind when we think of Spielberg at his most, well, Spielberg, is not quite all there yet. Does that diminish this movie’s legacy? Not one bit, sirs and ladies, not one bit.

Oscars:

Won:

Best Sound

Best Film Editing

Best Original Score

Nominated:

Best Picture

Golden Globes:

Won:

Best Original Score

Nominated:

Best Picture

Best Director

Best Screenplay

**10 Wins & 18 Nominations (per IMDB)**

Praise

Rotten Tomatoes: 97% (Audience Score: 90%)

IMDB: 8.0 (Top Rated Movie #236)

Metacritic: 88 (User Score: 8.7)

Money:

$260 million domestic ($470 million global)