"This shark, swallow you whole"

Rating: 9/10 (14 January 2019)

Modern thrillers and action pieces seek to wow the audience with fantastic special effects and visuals. They aim to prove they can show the audience something they have never seen before. And to a great extent, they succeed. But Steven Spielberg's 1975 film adaptation of the 1974 book Jaws, prided itself on what it didn't show the audience. Although the result of mechanical difficulties, the absence of any true antagonist until the films midpoint helped catapult Jaws to cult classic status. The film remains a blueprint to thriller filmmakers, a cherished memory for some, and a source of summertime terror for many more.
Jaws follows the terror a great white shark preys upon the residents of Amity Island. Roy Scheider plays Chief Martin Brody, the man charged with solving the series of watery deaths who never believed anything bad could happen in Amity. Brody enlists Quint (Robert Shaw) and Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) to set out on the ocean with him to hunt the killer shark. Although Jaws never kept me from swimming in the ocean after I saw it as a child, I still remember it whenever I enter the Pacific. The film isolates you with its seaborne protagonists and sweeps you away like the victims of the USS Indianapolis.
The film's soundtrack alone is highly memorable and includes one of the greatest uses of leitmotif ever devised. From the visual perspective, the mise en scÃ¨ne is seldom boring and calls attention to important elements with ease. Overall, Jaws best succeeds in delivering a multifaceted story where the audience feels akin to victims and Brody alike.
Jaws is a work of art and directorial determination. It will remain a hallmark of thriller classics for years to come. The infamous "da-dum" of an approaching shark will be the subject of childhood jokes, even by those who will never see the movie.