10 Best Jaws Moments
Jaws (1975) begins with a body. A body the audience knows was attacked by a shark. But the people of Amity Island, sun-dazed and chilled out, are going to take a little convincing. Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is the local law enforcement and seemingly the only person around with any sense. Enter Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and Quint (Robert Shaw), two opposing forces ready to battle the beast.
The beast in question is a great white unlike any ordinary shark.
The film doesn’t concern itself too much with ichthyological facts like how often a shark eats, how much effort they are willing to put into a meal, and how conniving they are or are not. This fish is smart, malevolent, and does not take kindly to being harpooned. He’s as effective a villain as any boogie man, vampire or mask-wearing killer.
Brody is one of the most reluctant heroes in cinema. Not only does he have to deal with a man-eating great white, but he also has a mayor who refuses to put public safety before financial gain, a fear of water, a populace that won’t listen, and a man hell-bent on exacting revenge, to contend with. It’s a heavy burden to bear. He’s gonna need bigger shoulders.
Jaws was an instant hit and has remained a classic for nearly 50 years. It cemented Steven Spielberg as a household name. Revered for its acting, story, music and camera techniques, it is often ranked amongst the greatest films ever made, let alone greatest horrors. It has suspense, gore, and jump scares, and caused a whole generation of filmgoers to avoid the water.
So, grab your flippers as we at The Film Magazine dive into the scariest, most dramatic, and most iconic moments from Steven Spielberg’s enduring classic, for this: the 10 Best Jaws Moments.
10. Hooper’s Reappearance
Brody has just destroyed the shark – blown up in a ridiculously over the top Hollywood ending. This is the only part of the film that is less effective than its counterpart in the original Peter Benchley novel (1974), but is powerful nonetheless. Brody’s joy is tinged with the sadness over his fallen comrades, the scent of Quint’s blood probably still lingering in the air.
Brody’s obvious delight when Matt Hooper (also presumed dead until this point) rises to the surface is the true happy ending of the piece. The two men and their budding friendship is the much-needed human touch that propels the film forwards and emphasises the otherness, the non-humanness, of the shark, so their partnership restoration wraps up the film in a thematic as well as a literal sense.
Recommended for you: Where to Start with Steven Spielberg
9. The Prank
Two young boys face a row of police weaponry as they emerge from the water with a fake fin strapped to their backs. The prank the boys play is one of the ways director Steven Spielberg uses warmth and humour to further emphasise the horror.
The undercurrent of complacency, of ‘oh that won’t happen to us’, is a real tension builder in Jaws. No one seems scared of this shark. But we are. Humanity’s inability to take nature seriously is the driving force behind a whole genre of natural disaster and horror movies, and it is central to Jaws.
Great choices! To this day it’s a movie my dad and I can pretty much quote word for word to each other.