The release of Iron Man last week signalled the start of the summer blockbuster movie season. A blockbuster, of course, is any movie whose budget is inversely proportional to its character development or its narrative credibility. Or, it’s any movie in which the money allocated to special effects outweighs the money devoted to the script by a factor of 10 million or more.
The movie most commonly cited as the originator of the summer blockbuster is Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws, released 33 years ago this June. Smashing old records and establishing new benchmarks, Jaws marked a turning point in the history of American film. Opening nationwide in a then unprecedented 409 theatres, it quickly became the first movie to gross more than $100 million (topping The Godfather’s $86 million and The Exorcist’s $89 million), not a bad return on a movie with a budget of just $12 million.
Worldwide, Jaws went on to generate half a billion dollars. Hoping to repeat — or at least capitalize on — this success, a number of sequels appeared over the next decade or so, each depressingly more dismal than the last. The series ended (hopefully!) with Jaws IV: The Revenge, frequently ranked among the worst movies ever made.
Indeed, despite its commercial success (even the last one made a profit of more than 100 per cent) and cultural significance, the entire Jaws franchise has been tainted by the “blockbuster” tag and, consequently, been all but ignored in standard histories of American film. For example, neither Jaws nor Spielberg himself appears anywhere in the 1978 edition of Robert Sklar’s Movie-Made America or in Kenneth Cameron’s America on Film (1997).
One reason for this neglect, argues Nigel Andrews in his book-length analysis of Jaws, is that in initiating the blockbuster — and so paving the way for Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Batman, Shrek, Spider-Man, etc. — Spielberg’s original movie stands accused of helping to “kill” American cinema. By setting the standard for “safe but glossy movies that would open all over America,” Jaws (and all that followed) squeezed out the opportunities for smaller, independent, artistic and “serious” films.
Andrews challenges the simple snobbery behind this argument, noting that Jaws “did not inaugurate the dumbing of American cinema,” a process that had been well underway with the likes of Airport, The Poseidon Adventure and Earthquake. What’s more, he adds, good, serious, independent films have continued to flourish over the past three decades.
Still, Jaws is rarely taken seriously. That’s a shame, for as a film that was conceived in the wake of Watergate, Vietnam and the first major recession since the 1930s, Jaws throws light on a nation in crisis. More than that, Jaws still has important things to say even today, perhaps more so than its more “worthy” contemporaries such as Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now! Here, then, are five reasons why Jaws remains essential viewing for anyone wishing to understand America in the 21st century.
1. Sin matters — Jaws reeks of guilt and retribution. The opening scene is a mini morality play in which the shark’s first victim is “punished” for her sin of inviting casual sex. Indeed, as the shark attacks her naked body from below we watch her writhe in a twisted parody of sexual orgasm, even as her drunken would-be lover lies on the beach moaning, “I’m coming, I’m coming.” The second victim is an innocent boy, but his death is down to the fact that Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) has kept the beaches open against his better judgment. Guilt motivates him for the rest of the movie.
2. Paranoia is pervasive — on a rational level, no one in the town of Amity had to fear even the most voracious of sharks as long as they stayed out of the water. It’s the genius of Jaws that it works on our primal fears that something is out there that we can’t simply avoid. It could be a shark, it could be communism, it could be al-Qaida — whatever it is, we have much more to fear than fear itself.
3. Denial is the first line of defence — Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) brilliantly captures the knee-jerk response of “this can’t be happening here.” “It’s all psychological,” he tells Brody. “You yell barracuda, everybody says ‘Huh? What”’ You yell shark, we’ve got a panic on our hands.” Whether it’s terrorism or economic collapse, America has always clung to the comfort of disbelief.
4. Don’t trust those in power — as a product of the post-Nixon era, Jaws shares the same distrust of authority as All the President’s Men and The Parallax View. Whether it’s fast-talking Mayor Vaughn or the medical examiner who, under political pressure, changes his verdict from “shark attack” to “probable boating accident,” the message here is the same: they’re all lying bastards.
5. Free-market misery — shark-hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) mocks the offer of a $3,000 bounty, instead promising to find, catch and kill the rogue beast for $10,000. Mayor Vaughn says he’ll take this offer “under advisement,” but once the bodies start to pile up he has no choice but to accept Quint’s price. Quint eventually delivers, but only at the cost of his own life. As a foreshadowing of neo-conservative economics of the 1980s and ’90s, where even the winners are losers, Jaws stands as a bleak and depressing parody.
So there it is. Much as Melville’s Moby Dick is about much more than a big white whale, so Jaws is about much more than a big white shark. As this summer’s wave of blockbusters threatens to drench us once more, take another look at the film that started it all. You might be surprised.
