Film Screening: Jaws

It’s been 51 years since Steven Spielberg invented the summer blockbuster with this iconic tale of a killer great white menacing beachgoers on Amity Island (a fictionalized Martha’s Vineyard), and it’s still a toothy terrifying thrill. Though it did give sharks an undeserved bad reputation as mindless bloodthirsty predators, which Spielberg and author Peter Benchley later regretted, it also sparked widespread interest in shark studies, leading to our better understanding of this mostly harmless family of fishes today. It’s a story as old as Moby Dick, pitting men (Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw) against a supernaturally potent and pale sea beast (played by a rubberized mechanical contraption nicknamed Bruce, after Steven Spielberg’s lawyer, that was vastly prone to malfunctioning), underscored by John Williams’ two-note theme. Now that it’s aged half a century, Jaws (1975, rated PG) is as much a rollercoaster ride of tension and technique as it is a briny metaphor for the lure and struggle of Hollywood filmmaking.