Fifty years later, there is almost nothing here that feels old.
Nerdy Up North Podcast
The setup
After a young woman is killed by a shark, Amity police chief Martin Brody wants the beaches closed. Local officials refuse, forcing Brody to eventually join oceanographer Matt Hooper and shark hunter Quint aboard the Orca to hunt the animal themselves.
Jaws is a movie that has been copied referenced and parodied times. It is easy to forget how good the original Jaws really is. On the surface Jaws tells a story. A big shark starts attacking people around the town of Amity. The police chief is trying to tell everyone that the beaches must close. The problem is that the town depends on tourists so keeping people off the water is not what the leaders want to hear. What I love about Jaws is that it never feels like it is just waiting around for the shark to show up.
The characters are good enough to carry Jaws on their own. Roy Scheider is brilliant, as Brody. He is not some action hero, he is scared of the water. Clearly feels completely out of his depth for most of Jaws. That makes everything feel more real because he is basically a bloke trying to deal with something way bigger than him. Then you have Richard Dreyfuss as Hooper and Robert Shaw as Quint and the three of them together are where Jaws becomes something. The chemistry between them is fantastic especially because Quint and Hooper are constantly clashing.
The other thing Jaws gets right is how little you actually see of the shark for parts of Jaws. Spielberg was forced into that because the mechanical shark was apparently a nightmare to work with. It ended up making Jaws better. You know something is underneath the water. You cannot always see it and that is much scarier than constantly showing you the monster.
John Williams music obviously deserves a mention too. That theme is probably one of the most known pieces of film music ever made and it is ridiculous how much tension can be created with basically two notes.
By the time you finally get a look at it Jaws has already done such a job building the tension that you are completely invested. What also makes Jaws stand out is that it has characters, humour and drama alongside the horror. It is not just about people getting eaten. You actually care about Brody, Hooper and Quint. That makes the final act more intense. There is a reason Jaws is still considered one of the best movies ever made. It is tense, funny, brilliantly acted and somehow managed to make millions of people scared of going into the sea. Nearly everything that came after Jaws has tried to copy the formula. Very few have ever come close.
Verdict
Jaws is not merely a great shark film. It is one of the best examples of suspense, character and filmmaking problems being turned into strengths. Half a century later, it has lost almost none of its power.
