Spielberg's greatest directorial achievement

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2008)

You know the story of JAWS. Small New England seaside town Amity is moving normally towards summer when, out of nowhere comes a killer shark. Not seen until halfway through the film, the shark is an ominous, almost omnipotent presence felt throughout the entire film, even from the beginning.
An attractive young girl is swimming and gets taken in one of the great opening scenes in film history. She feels something bite her, drag her in all directions, then she disappears underwater. Her boyfriend reports her missing and her body is found by local police the next morning all chewed up and spit out along the shore. The Amity police chief is Martin Brody (played by Roy Scheider in his greatest film role). When he and his deputy find the body, they immediately quarantine the beach and post signs to stay away, but the Mayor (played effectively by Murray Hamilton) will have none of that since local businesses will lose lots of money during the tourist season if the beaches are closed. The beaches stay open and a young boy is killed by the shark on the first day of tourist season.
It appears as if some of the local fisherman have caught 'the shark' when a oceanographic expert on sharks named Matt Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfuss in a totally winning and expert performance) shows up in Amity to assist Chief Brody in finding and catching the real shark. Hooper immediately does an autopsy of the girl eaten in the opening scene and verifies that a 'great white shark' did this. One of the many memorable great lines of this film come shooting out of his mouth 'This was not a boating accident!' The day Hooper arrives, while all the fisherman are patting themselves on the back and everyone is celebrating the shark 'capture', something unexpected happens. The mother of the boy that was killed, dressed in all black funeral garb, walks up to Chief Brody and slaps him for not closing the beaches even though he knew a man-eating shark was out there (of course we know this isn't all his fault). This one scene has always stuck out with me from the film. It is very realistic and shows how people can really take their grief and anger out on the wrong person, but this moment served as a kind of closure for the woman and as a wake-up call for Brody. From this moment on, Brody takes everything that Hooper says seriously and wants to be sure that the real shark is still not out there.
Hooper does indeed verify to Brody that the shark is still out there by cutting open the captured shark and verifying no signs of human consumption. But the stubborn mayor still keeps the beaches open not believing them. As expected, the shark attacks again, this time almost killing Brody's son. NOW the Mayor has to pay attention. A town meeting is held and Brody and the Mayor tell them they need to hire professional shark hunters. Then another great moment occurs. An annoying, screeching sound is heard. It's a man scraping a blackboard with his fingernails to get everyone's attention. That man is Quint (played by Robert Shaw in a role that he should forever be remembered for). Quint is a local fisherman who is extremely knowledgeable about the sea and sharks (we'll find out why later) says he'll catch the shark for the right price. Eventually they agree and Brody, Hooper, and Quint (reluctantly) join forces to go after the great white.
The adventure begins. The 3 men go after the great white in Quint's boat. An uneasy alliance forms amongst the 3 men, as they each argue with each other and get on each other's nerves early on. Quint is old school and thinks all of Hooper's technical equipment is hogwash, while Hooper thinks Quint is too rigid and primitive. Brody is like a 3rd wheel as he's not a seamen at all and he hates the water! At a totally unexpected moment, THE SHARK appears, then Brody in a frozen state slowly walks back towards Quint and says 'You're gonna need a bigger boat' (maybe the best line in film history). This is followed by one of my all time favorite film sequences as the 3 men scramble to do what each of them do best to kill the shark. They fail at first, but slowly bond during the trip. One night, while drunk, Quint and Hooper compare sea scars, then Quint tells the story of how he got this one scar while he was a sailor on the USS Indianapolis which got bombed and sank while he and his fellow survivors were stuck in shark-infested waters waiting for rescue. This dialogue is famous for being completely scripted by Robert Shaw himself and he delivers it perfectly.
Needless to say, they get one final chance to catch the shark and in this long sequence that climaxes the film, the tension builds from moment to moment as they try everything to catch the shark and as the shark goes all out in trying to eat up the men and the boat itself. A great movie.
This, for me, is Steven Spielberg's best directorial effort. I love his later work too, but JAWS is a perfect film. Not a weak moment in it. I love the Hitchcockian elements of building tension and suspense, the Kubrickian elements of overlapping dialogue and long scenes that are totally enthralling and not boring, the great background music, and quotable, memorable dialogue. Ironic that this perfect film inspired all the fake, unrealistic, over-the-top, unsuspenseful summer crap they make nowadays. JAWS should never be mistaken as one of these films.
It was nominated for Best Picture in 1975 (should have won) and won the 3 other Oscars it was nominated for (Editing, Sound, and of course Score). Spielberg was robbed by not even getting a Best Director nom.