What Makes "Jaws" Great.

It's just a couple of days until "Independence Day", so now is as good a time as any to talk about the game-changing film that started the concept of "The Summer Blockbuster" and put director Steven Spielberg on the map.

I'm not going to go into much detail with the plot as most of you are quite familiar with this film, but to put it bluntly, When a killer shark begins terrorizing the people of a small New England island town, a water-phobic police chief (Roy Scheider), A veteran shark hunter (Robert Shaw), and a young marine biologist (Richard Dreyfus), go out to sea in a dangerous voyage to find and kill the shark.

One of Spielberg's great trademarks is his ability to mix familiar and normal settings and excitement and thrills. and that shows in this world he shows us. The fictional town of "Amity" is exceptionally well done, it feels like one of those real-life small tourist towns where everyone runs a business, everyone knows each other, and everyone heckles just one person, in this case, Chief Brody, whenever they have the slightest of problems. Brody himself, the film's main protagonist of the film is another great example of Spielberg's skill with these, the scenes introducing Brody perfectly establish him as an average Joe with a good wife and kids and a job that doesn't have much real excitement, It's scenes like these that him an easy character to like and relate to, especially when he is pushed into this shark epidemic as he is not some sort of Superman, he can't just go out and stop the shark as soon as it starts terrorizing his town as he is only human and not used to dealing with a situation this big, just like most of us. The best he can do is just try to persuade the greedy mayor (Murray Hamilton) to close the beaches and watch carefully at the beachgoers to make sure nothing goes wrong. There's a great scene at around the middle of the film where Brody is drinking is sorrow after being blamed by one of the victims mothers for not closing the beaches, and the only thing that seems to somewhat bring him out of this is his youngest kid intimidating his facial expressions and movements and Brody eventually playing along with it. It's both a heartwarming and sad scene as we know what happened to the boy killed by the shark really isn't Brody's fault, he wanted the beaches closed but the mayor said no and that caused the boy to be killed, but a man in that position would obviously be beyond such reason, and it's wonderful that it isn't a pep talk that brings hem out of it, but rather the innocence of his young son. Richard Dreyfus is also great as the shark-obsessed marine biologist Matt Hooper. His the total opposite of Brody his adventurous and idealistic persona. He is the kind of character where you just love seeing how smart he is and how passionate he is about his work. The performance that steals the show though is, of course, Robert Shaw as Quint. He gets so many great lines and has fantastic delivery, basically, everything that comes out of his mouth is just pure gold. He is a character that has so many layers to him, he can be a jerk at times, he can be frightening at times, and even very funny and charming at times. Like Hooper, you just love seeing how passionate this guy is about catching and killing sharks. This three characters alone on a boat is just great. The actors work off each other perfectly and you just love seeing this three different personalities clash. The best scene for me is still the scene where they are just chilling on the boat at night where Hooper and Quint exchange scars, Quint gives his iconic USS Indianapolis monologue, and the three singing "Show me The Way to Go Home".

As for the shark itself, it is a perfect example of the hard ache that leads to the genius of this film. The robotic shark would rarely work so they had to come up with ways to show the shark's presence without actually seeing the shark. This lead to all the things we love such as the various point of view shots with the shark swimming, the iconic opening scene which fans have come to call "Chrissie"s last swim", and of course the amazing score by John Williams. The way they use the shark is a perfect example of how the things we don't see can't scare us. We know the shark is there ripping them to shreds, but it's more frightening when you see the victim struggling but you can't see what's causing it. Spielberg is also a master manipulator of the audience in this. Throughout most of the early instances with the shark, there is that Williams score to indicate it's presence, but later there are some fake out scenes like during the Fourth of July beach scene where what looks like a shark turns out just to be some kids pulling a prank, this is hinted at as there is no music that plays during this scene which acts as an indication that that's not the shark. There is also another good fake-out scene on the boat where Quint gets a nibble on what he and the audience expect to be the shark, but as it goes on, we slowly realize that it isn't thanks to the pace slowing down and the lack of music indicating that the shark is present. After this, Spielberg probably has a good idea that we know the established pattern he has created, so he uses this to his advantage when Brody is dumping chum into the water, this plays out at first as a quiet scene with Brody cracking one-liners about how disgusting dumping chum is, and then out of nowhere the shark pops up behind him with no musical cues to warn the audience, This is a perfect example of a jump scare.

Jaws is a film that has and continues to inspire generations of young filmmakers. When it comes to Fourth of July traditions, Fireworks is always at the top, but sitting down to watch Jaws is a pretty good one too.