There’s not much to say about the movie Jaws that hasn’t been said. It’s one of the best examples of pacing in a horror movie. The book by Peter Benchley held a lot more soap opera elements, like the fact there was an affair between the chief Brody’s wife and the oceanographer Hooper. Definitely a good editing choice by Spielberg.
Anyway, the literary term I’d like to connect this to is ANECDOTE. An anecdote is a story used to illustrate something, an exemplar. My anecdote concerning this film is about when my father took me and my brother to see it. I will never forget standing in line that wrapped around the block, which was the first time I had ever seen that (and the beginning of the term Blockbuster). My father hadn’t wanted to take us, not because the movie would be too scary for his sons, but because he didn’t want to have to stand in line for so long. But to his credit, loaded us up in the car and we parked a mile away from the theater and had to walk. Then we waited for almost an hour outside in the heat. My brother and I both wanted popcorn and a drink after that long hot wait, but we were a family of limited means (my dad was a teacher and we all know how low teachers’ salaries were in the 70s. So that meant you asked once and when you got a “no” you let it go.
So we found our seats and the movie began and the opening where the naked lady went swimming into the sea, something was touched inside me. There was no monster only the pulsing sound of cellos from the amazing John Williams score. I was taken away and forgot all about my hunger or thirst. It was the scene where Hooper went underwater and was digging out the shark’s tooth from the abandoned boat and that freakin’ head with the dangling eyeball comes popping out scaring me half to death that the three girls sitting in front of me, my brother, and my dad threw their popcorn and drinks up over their heads and they landed on us. My father and brother were drenched in coke and I got showered in popcorn which I ate off my lap. Thank you movie gods!
Flash forward years later when I was watching Jaws on TV with my daughter in the room. My daughter as a little girl had absolutely no fear which I both admired and was immediately frightened of. But I noticed that same head-popping scene was coming up and I called her over to the TV. My palms were sweating as Hooper started digging, and then I had this terrible thought. What if this scary, terrifying scene really scared her for life like it had me. But there was no need for worry as the head popped out, she simply looked at the TV and declared, “That’s gross,” and went back to whatever she had been doing before I called her over.
Of course there's that great anecdote Quint tells in the film. It's not often in a film that the movie stops for a person to tell story. It's a risk. You could lose your audience unless you have two things: an interesting story and an actor who can pull it off. Here's Quint's anecdote:
Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. 'Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent, huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like 'ol squares in battle like uh, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, Bosun's Mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. 'Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent, huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like 'ol squares in battle like uh, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, Bosun's Mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
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