Jaws, Part I

The Most Important-to-Hollywood Movie Ever

[Editor’s Preface: This Pitch features multiple references to cliff-hangers and class-discussion mic drops. Because I had so much fun writing about Jaws, this Pitch itself will finish with a cliff-hanger, and we’ll pick it up in Part II.]

“It won’t be permanent. You wanna see permanent? Boom-boom-boom-boom?”

As of this writing, Jaws is the most important movie in Hollywood history. And while I can’t say for sure, I’d be willing to bet it will always hold that title. What I do know for sure is that as of this writing, Jaws is the most important movie in my Film Lit career. I’ve taught it more times than I’ve taught any other film. It currently holds—and has long held—the honor of being the first film I show every semester.

To be clear, it’s not the best movie I’ve ever seen or taught. But it is so darn teachable, so accessible. Its execution on so many levels—scene construction, use of music, visual storytelling—makes it as effective a film-as-textbook as you’ll find. Former students will confirm: whenever I teach it, more than once I’ll stammer in admiration, “Once again, gosh darn it, you know, Spielberg is really good at this.”

In recent iterations of Film Lit, I’ve paired Jaws with A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood to form the “Making, Breaking, and Bending the Rules” unit. The idea is that we start the class with the definitive Hollywood blockbuster and then palette-cleanse a bit with a smaller (yet still ambitious and courageus) film that is intentionally not a blockbuster.

Of course, it’s a bit more complicated than that. As the unit title suggests, what makes Jaws wonderful is that while it makes such effective use of storytelling rules—“principles,” as Robert McKee-disciple Donald Kaufman would say—it also bends and departs from several supposed money-making essentials. For example, for a film that set box office records, it was (and clearly appears to be) a low-budget film. In addition, its actors aren’t super-glamorous. And, most importantly, while every thriller features at least a half-effort to center the story around the humanity, the arcs of its characters, Jaws succeeds in ways few movies do.

As a result, it’s a great way to start the semester. We get to discuss the rules for scene contstruction and the three-act structure, as well as the unexpected character nuances you won’t find in most blockbusters. Thus we get a nice lead-in to the very complicated and very wonderful A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, which unapologetically revolves around character nuances and feelings, and breaks a few rules in its own right.

Plus, I just think it’s fun to go from a film where the antagonist is an unprecedentedly brutal killer to a film where the antagonist is the nicest man in the world. (For more on A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood, check out this Pitch.)

For the rest of this Pitch, and the next, we’ll walk through how I teach Jaws. As you might expect, we’ll start with the ending.

As soon as the film finishes, and the class has caught its collective breath, I tell them about what I dub as the most important meeting in Hollywood history.

“You’re gonna need a bigger boat.”

So Steven Spielberg invites Peter Benchley into his office, to chat about the ending. Benchley not only co-wrote the Jaws screenplay, but authored the original novel.

[Editor’s note: Less important but fun is that he also made a cameo in the film. The story/joke goes that Spielberg needed someone to play the self-important jackass mainland reporter, the one who rambles about Amity Island and its “beautiful white sand beaches.” He immediately—and lovingly—thought of Peter. Peter, confident yet at least a little self-conscious about the offer’s implications, accepted.]

[Editor’s note: Carl Gottlieb, the other co-screenwriter, was also in the film, in a more prominent role. He played Meadows, Mayor Larry Vaughn’s right-hand man, the guy who arranges for the group picture in front of the infamous and slandered “tiger shahhhk.” (A whhaaaaaaat?) (I’ll see myself out.)]

Benchley sat down, and Spielberg informed him that he changed the ending of the novel. Dramatically. Here’s a quick and spoiler-laden recap of the novel’s ending: the shark eats Hooper; Quint harpoons the shark, a la his spirit-hero, Ahab; Quint gets tangled in one of the harpoon ropes, and the shark drags him underwater, where he drowns; Brody is left floating on a seat cushion; he sees the shark coming directly for him, and he knows his end is near; just as the shark is about to bite into Brody, the shark succumbs to its wounds, and begins to sink. End of novel.

So Spielberg passed the pages of his rewritten ending to Benchley. Benchley read as the shark ate Hooper (more on this part later), and then ate Quint. He became incensed when he read that Brody stuck an air tank in the shark’s mouth. And he was aghast when Brody quipped, “Smile, you son of a bitch” and shot the air tank at the very last second.

According to Benchley, he passed the pages back to Spielberg and said, “Steven, this is ridiculous. I’m not even sure if what you’ve written is even possible. I do know for sure that it’s not plausible.”

And then Spielberg said what might be the most important three words in Hollywood history. He looked Peter Benchley right in the eyes and said, “I don’t care.”

Benchley’s soul left his body, and he stared at Spielberg with lifeless eyes.

Spielberg continued: “Peter, I don’t care. It might not be possible, but it doesn’t matter. If they’re buying what we’re selling for two hours, then they’ll buy whatever we’re selling for the last two minutes. With all due respect, your ending isn’t exciting enough. I want people sceaming; I want people crying; I want people applauding; I want people clapping like crazy and jumping on their seats.”

Benchley was now indignant, and, convinced that Spielberg was making a massive mistake, stormed out of Spielberg’s office. (This story reminds me a *little* of this adorable story Mark Hamill tells about Harrison Ford on the Star Wars set.)

Not long after the movies release, Benchley would say, “Steven was right. He was right.”

“You got any better suggestions?!”

Of course he was. We won’t get into the financial weeds of all the box office records Jaws set. We’ll use another metric: they made three sequels to this movie, even though there was zero story rationale for even one. I’ll try not to belabor it here, but come on: we very clearly saw and heard the shark’s detonated carcass sink to the ocean floor.

And the whole deal was that this shark was a one-of-a-kind force of nature. In fact, one of my favorite couplets confirms how singular a menace this shark is. The first part is when Hooper (a creature of science and arrogance) finally shows humility and vulnerability and asks Quint (a creature of experience and arrogance), “Have you ever had one do this before?” In response, Quint also shows humility and vulnerability, and rasps, “No.”

Moments later, Brody tries to ask Hooper the same question he asked Quint, but Hooper, on-edge and exasperated, cuts him off and snarls, “No!”

The structural significance of this couplet is clear: if neither the scientist nor the career shark hunter has ever seen anything like this, then there’s never *been* anything like this.

Nevertheless, the rigors and pressures of Hollywood led to three sequels. All of them are bad—and, not surprisingly, they get worse as they go along. The third and fourth movies are nigh-unwatchable.

In class, I read the sequels’ taglines, and then read them the sequels’ synopses. Here, I’ll link the trailers to the taglines.

(Preface: the tagline for the original was “Just when you thought it was safe to go in the water.”)

Jaws 2: “Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.”

Jaws 3: “The third dimension . . . is terror.”

Jaws: The Revenge: “This time . . . it’s personal.”

When the vagaries of the bell schedule allow, the Jaws: The Revenge synposis provides a fun mic drop. (I’ve called it my favorite two sentences of the semester.) In the movie, Ellen Brody, amid tragedy and trauma, flees Amity and moves to the Caribbean. But, says the synopsis, “She’s not the only one headed to the Caribbean. The shark is after her, and out to kill for revenge.”

Just truly absurd and stupid stuff, and super fun to read and let linger for a few seconds before the bell rings.

My next trick is to manage the next class discussion’s clock so that we end on the hospital scene, when Brody finally gets Vaughn to hire Quint to kill the shark. The key discussion question, of course, is, “How should we feel about Mayor Larry Vaughn in this scene?”

On one hand, his stammering is already press conference-coded—what with all the “acting in the town’s best interests” and such. He’s also on the hook for all the deaths since Chrissy Watkins’.

On the other hand, in his desperation, he utters my favorite line in the movie: “Martin, my kids were on that beach, too!” The way I explain it, there are two ways to read that line. You could, I suppose, hear that line and understand that Vaughn is a different level of villain, that he knew of the danger, and exposed everyone—including his own children—to it, and is now vainly begging for sympathy.

The other reading—one I make sure to point out if it doesn’t come up organically—is far more interesting, far more human. What he’s telling Martin is that he lied so well to himself, and wanted to believe the cover story so much, that he actually came to believe his own lies. I’m not suggesting that this reading makes him a victim; but I do suggest that many of believe our own lies, and believing your own lies doesn’t make you a monster.

To conclude this discussion thread, I ask the students to consider something: however you feel about Mayor Larry Vaughn, you probably should have parallel feelings about the executives who gave the green lights to all the Jaws sequels.

Mic drop. Bell rings.

“Tell ‘em I’m going fishing.”

See you next time, for Part II!