An icon of cinema that still clenches its Jaws around your ankle for its entire running time without letting go

Rating: Null/10 (2 March 2015)

Confined to the mere dimensions of his poster, he's a shark rising from territorial depths, bearing an almost menacing grin as he prepares to feast on a helpless swimmer. But he's long since broken free of that frame, assuming he ever needed to. He is a harbinger of fear, that great primal substance that sent people scurrying from their televisions, from their beaches and from any signs of water in 1975, and brought them back again in their rushes of adrenaline and wonder and the masochistic human need to subject themselves to something more powerful or terrifying or that which we can't entirely understand. And he still encourages this process if not in adults then in new generations who are for the first time dipping their toes into that great foreboding water. Because whatever you believe of his cinematic credibility or enjoyment, his indomitable presence cannot be understated. In that carnivorous madness, he not only ate the limbs of unfortunate swimmers, but of last legs of the old Hollywood machine and in that bloodied wake was born the summer blockbuster. In this enduring legacy he's an icon; a symbol of change and the cinematic talent that struck the hearts of enough filmgoers to bring about that. I caught this film on the TV a few weeks ago, about 10 minutes in, and put it on not so much out of a nostalgic indulgence but out of intellectual curiosity to see how I'd immediately respond to it with a mind freshened over the years since I'd last seen it. Within about five minutes, I'd downloaded the film and began watching from the beginning. I don't know what I expected. As much as this is the kind of film that you revisit frequently, playing memory hopscotch as you jump from scene to scene registering the quirks, quoting your favourite lines and waiting for those 'big' moments, whether a scare or some catharsis or triumph of character, it's still ultimately a Spielberg film and that means there's always more to discover each and every time. Great cinema is timeless yes, but his name almost guarantees the film will have a longer life expectancy.
Being in a Spielberg film, we are of course almost immediately introduced to a family, and one that will be core to which the protagonist gravitates, because of course there's more than just the audience's composure on the line in this film, there's the family unit to maintain. I like how in Spielberg's '70s families exist somewhere between a 1950s nuclear family and the Wonder Years era of freedom and discord and strife that became more apparent in the domestic environment. Introducing our timeless Chief Brody, unwitting hero, the man whom I seem to recall earned much adoration from me as a child, wakes up alongside his wife, bathed in the radiant summer glow, checks the window to ascertain the whereabouts of his kids, and trades quips with his wife and then leaves. It's fairly standard stuff, but it's great in introducing the warm domestic heart of Amity, Brody's life, and the man himself. This is what is being threatened constantly throughout the film, and we take much delight in that. Chief Brody is a perfect character with which to embark on this adventure, because he's neither particularly macho or domineering or timid and inhibited. He's played by Roy Schieder with both composure and hesitance, his glasses and his patience carry a bookish reticence to him, but he's also firm and resolute, like every good hero, and I dedicate this paragraph to him because I've always been drawn to the guy. I think as a child I had some sort of Freudian complex with his character, because to me he always emanated paternal qualities. Glasses, cigarette and black turtleneck are eminently respectable.
Perhaps the wife, is a little underdeveloped, as she's really more of figure of quiet domestic life, and extension of Brody's family responsibility than much of a character herself, and maybe some of Amity itself, like the Mayor (played with shady-contempt and-a-thin-façade-of -beach-front- good-guy-with-that-bloody-sports-coat-of-his by Murray Hamilton who I actually recognised from an episode of the Twilight Zone), is a little underexplored, who insists on keeping the beaches open, innumerable times, despite his children also being there, but then, Spielberg knows to keep this film focused on the actual terror driving its way through the narrative, and that all the other stuff is there to keep us involved in the world and actually care beyond visceral thrill, but not start wondering in-depth about it all. It's a tight picture, and like Aliens what is does is initially suggest at the terror, which we know is there but can't be certain of, introduce us to the characters and see their dynamics unfold naturally, all whilst the tension slowly coils up, then thrusts these characters into danger, as that tension snaps violently in our faces. People may be surprised how little Jaws is actually seen, as the film taunts us with his presence and consequence but not a physical sighting and in one case the carnivorous beast becomes a floating pier, which is simultaneously hilarious and terrifying.
Of course the immortal dynamic of this film is in the troublesome trio of Brody, Hooper and Quint, the latter two played by Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw. The former is an animated dramatic-exposition- unloader, played to a wonderful point where he almost seems unhinged in his love of sharks, and the latter really needs little introduction, except to say that the monologue never diminishes in power, partly because Shaw in playing such a haggard and crude man is utterly arresting when he's quiet and haunted, and the silence that hangs over that seen is so heavy, and it's both a brilliant move in humanising a character and furthering the horrific mythology and possibility of this shark, and thus the sense of dread that becomes so palpable.