Steven Spielberg first MASTERPIECE!

Rating: 10/10 (21 November 2013)

What was the cinema before this film? A sublime art that attracts attention of critics that could be rather positive or negative, and that people would rarely see only as a hobby. And the rookie Steven Spielberg, who was known for only 2 films with good reviews but commercial flops, and television directing episodes of unknown TV-series, found a dropped script and made a landmark in cinematic history.
The story takes place in the peaceful community from Amity Island, where a young girl is found dead on the beach, in what appears to have been a shark attack. The new town sheriff Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) decides to give the order to close all the beaches from the island, but Mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) prohibits the order at the request of several merchants of the island, because the city's trades relies on summer tourism. But when the mysterious shark attacks become frequent, the sheriff hires a marine biologist from the Oceanographic Institute, Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) to help him find and kill the mysterious killer shark. And for this hunt it joins the mysterious local fisherman Quint (Robert Shaw) offering his boat. But the small group barely know they will need a bigger boat.
This movie had everything to go wrong. Costs increase in the middle of the production of 4 million to 9 million due to several flaws in filming with cameras being damaged and problems with the mechanical shark. The Company was willing to give up the movie, but the young Spielberg insisted he wanted to go through with the job. And who would have thought that what was the predictable failure eventually end up grossing over 400 million dollars, no film before had hit that mark at the box office (which would reasonably up to 10 or 20 million). This film was the 1st blockbuster of cinema history, way before "Star Wars".
Pity that nowadays people just see this film as a mere classic and nothing more. Nothing to compare with today's movies, right?! WRONG! This masterpiece (yes, masterpiece), has qualities of any great movie. "Jaws" not only marked just for have been the No. 1 blockbuster in film history, but its history also left critics and audiences amazed. The story is not just about three men chasing a white shark, well, it is, but how it is constructed. The screenplay by Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley (who wrote the book on which the film was based) building realistic and relatable characters, no film had ever done that before, bringing human reality to the film. Getting to make a realistic narrative characters, and several hilarious moments, bringing the film an excellent entertainment.
But even with laughter, the film brings terrifying moments when the hunt starts. And Spielberg delivers one of his best directing debuts provided with excellent chilling scenes to breathtaking action scenes. And that's why Spielberg proved to be so talented, managing to have a large variation in he direction, ranging from sublime scenes of dialogue to the terrifying scenes of shark attacks, and the chilling last 30 minutes of the film. It also thanks the classic and terrifying soundtrack of John Williams, who will live forever and frighten us by his "dandan dandan dandandandandandandan" with the mysterious monster getting closer ever more.
And also the performances are no bat at all, actually they are all superb. Almost the entire cast came from movies and unknown plays and even in the case of Robert Shaw as the magnificent and unforgettable Le Quint Dickey (which serves almost as a parody of Captain Ahab and his hunt for the white whale Moby » Dickey). This film also has also secured the fame of both Scheider and Dreyfuss entering in other films which would guarantee their first Oscar nominations and here they won their first fortunes.
If you wonder why Spielberg is so well known and appreciated today, see this masterpiece. The master with this film not only mixed a loyal adaptation of a book with humor and horror, but redefined modern cinema forever. Thanks to this film, actors and directors today earn fortunes, people line up to see and be entertained with a movie, which gave us cinema of quality cinema. All thanks to a terrifying soundtrack from John Williams and Steven Spielberg, with "Jaws", one of his first of many masterpieces.
10/10