An Appreciation of Robert Shaw

Rating: 6/10 (7 May 2011)

Okay, it's been 36 years now since that summer when we were all afraid to go into the water, and what was new and suspenseful and amazing then is either a milestone or a cliché, depending on who you listen to.
I don't want to review the whole movie, because I don't think anyone needs a review of the whole movie. I just want to talk about one particular scene in the movie that, for me, lifted it above ordinary thriller material and put me in awe of what an actor can do.
That's the scene when Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw are on the boat "Orca," and they're all sitting around a table in the galley and they're slightly drunk. They start comparing scars, and Dreyfuss or Scheider, can't remember which, notices the tattoo that Shaw has. The one with the name "USS Indianapolis".
When Shaw describes what happened to the men on the Indianapolis, what it was like, in that one scene, he makes the character of Sam Quint real, and completely understandable. Shaw makes the whole movie live and breath and crystalize in that one scene.
I didn't get to see many movies when I was growing up, and when I went away to college I didn't have time or money to go to the movies. I didn't actually get to see Jaws when it first came out. But when I had time to see movies and could actually watch them on the VCR, this scene in "Jaws" was the first that actually left me in awe of what an actor could do, if he was good enough. If the material was good enough.
After the movie was over, I couldn't wait to hunt up information on the USS Indianapolis and the events Shaw described. This wasn't as easy back then, around 1980, as it is now: there was no internet, so if you wanted to research something, you had to go to the library and try to find a book or magazine or archival newspaper stories. Well, I found a book about the Indianapolis and I was fascinated.
I was awe-struck at the power Robert Shaw had to evoke the tragedy of the Indianapolis in that one scene. For me, that one scene made the whole movie. Shaw made me understand the character he played, and got through to make me feel the primal fear a shark can evoke.
That's a powerful talent. And Shaw certainly was a powerful talent; I loved him in "The Sting" and in "A Man for All Seasons." But I think I saw him truly at his best in those magical moments of that one scene in "Jaws," when through his talent he broke through the gloss of fanciful entertainment and got right to the heart of terror, and in so doing lifted a summer suspense thriller above the ordinary into the extraordinary. I am thankful for Shaw and his art.