The Drinker Recommends... Jaws

you know serendipity is a wonderful thing when you think about it if i told you about a low budget horror movie from the 1970s about three guys in a boat fighting a rubber shark that kept breaking down and sinking portrayed by a motley crew of dysfunctional actors that regularly fell out on set and helmed by an inexperienced young director whose lack of understanding of the difficulties of shooting at sea caused the production to drag on for nearly six months you'd probably assume i was about to launch into a skating tirade against another piece of cinematic excrement for your viewing pleasure you certainly wouldn't be expecting another installment of the drinker recommends but that's exactly what you're getting because the other day i happened to be idly flicking through the channels in search of something that didn't make me want to shove an ice pick through my brain and wouldn't you know it jaws was just starting now like most of you i've seen this movie a bunch of times in my life but it's been many years since i watched it all the way through and to be honest i'd kind of forgotten half of it i certainly didn't remember it as being particularly special just one of those old classics that people view through very forgiving rose tinted glasses but what the hell i thought to myself maybe i'll watch half an hour to kill some time until that pint of rum kicks in and i can slip into an alcohol-induced super for the rest of the nights anyway two hours later the credits rolled and i sat back on my couch completely captivated by what i'd just seen jaws is a movie that gripped me from the chilling opening scene and didn't let go until the explosive finale employing a perfectly judged combination of suspense action tension foreboding levity memorable characters and an iconic musical score to weave a spell that's just as potent now as it was 45 years ago and i knew right away i just had to talk about the movie that once made everyone afraid to go in the water and try to understand just what it is that makes jaws so special so let's begin our journey shall we here's to swimming with bowlegged women jaws is set in the fictional new england vacation town of amity around the 4th of july weekend the action kicks off with a young woman who goes skinny dipping in the middle of the night and in one of those iconic scenes in cinema gets attacked and killed by an unidentified creature when her remains wash up on the beach the next day the newly appointed chief of police martin brody is brought in to investigate he suspects the shark attack and he wants to close the town's beaches until it can be dealt with but the local mayor is like nah it'll be fine because he doesn't want to start a panic that'll drive much needed tourists away from his town nice suit by the way brody's not convinced by this but he allows himself to be persuaded into keeping it quiet pretty quickly you realize this man isn't your conventional strong-willed hero that does things his own way consequences be damned he's a city cop in a close-knit island community and he doesn't have the self-confidence or the authority to stand up to pressure from the mayor as a result he backs down and capitulates against his better judgments needless to say this turns out to be a bad call and pretty soon another fatal attack happens in the middle of a crowded beach you know there's something really sinister and disturbing about this scene the fact that it happens in broad daylight with hundreds of people around that someone can just vanish right in front of your eyes in a matter of seconds and it's helped by some brilliant cinematography remember that weird reverse zoom effect that you've seen in a million different movies well alfred hitchcock might have invented it for his movie vertigo but steven spielberg made it truly iconic in this scene anyway with the body count rising brody calls in marine biologist matt hooper to help him figure out what they're dealing with hooper is a pretty unassuming guy that most people take no notice of but he knows his stuff when it comes to underwater predators when local fishermen manage to kill a tiger shark and the mayor convinces everyone the crisis is over he's the first to suggest they might be wrong needless to say the others don't listen to him and well guess what happens with multiple people dead and brody's own son traumatized by the latest attack he's determined to hunt down and kill the shark responsible but he can't do it alone enter quint professional shark hunter and part-time shanty singer farewell to you fair spanish ladies received orders for the sale back to boston i had a little drink about an hour ago [Music] i'll talk more about this guy later but suffice to say the dude's a [ __ ] legend and he gets some of the best lines of the entire movie what are you so gonna half-ass astronaut hey hoopa maybe a big yahoo in the lab but out here and just supercar if you don't want to backstroke home you get down here cage goes in the water you go in the water sharks in the water well it proves one thing mr hooper proves that you wealthy college boys don't have the education enough to admit when you're wrong anyway he agrees to kill the shark for a hefty fee and reluctantly allows the two men to accompany him on his boat the orca together they head out to sea with a simple mission find the shark and kill the [ __ ] out of it this is where the movie switches gears into a kind of cat and mouse game between the three men and the monster they're hunting they start out in high spirits as well they should they've got a shark expert on board an experienced hunter and a boat full of weapons and equipment and at first the expedition has the feel of a routine fishing trip the music's upbeat the three of them are swapping banter and they've even got cans of beer on hands but after their first encounter with the shark the tone darkens quickly as it becomes clear they're facing something more dangerous than any of them expected something that may just be hunting them instead as the shark comes after them again and again everything they throw at it fails to stop it their resources become depleted their boat gets damaged and tempers start to fray as their situation becomes increasingly bleak it's wearing them down just like a predator stuck in its prey little by little every layer of protection gets stripped away until they find themselves locked in a desperate battle for survival a battle that only one side is gonna get away from i said before that serendipity played a big part in the success of this film because everything that should have worked against it somehow ended up making it better the mechanical shark that they used during production kept breaking down and sinking forcing steven spielberg to use it sparingly shooting a lot of the attack scenes from the shark's point of view instead most of the time you don't even get to see the thing it's just a dark ominous shape gliding beneath the surface or a fin slicing through the water or the flotation barrels that they harpoon into it in a futile attempt to keep it on the surface i'm a big fan of creeping terror in movies like this the idea of something horrific slowly closing in on you as you fumble to escape or perform some task that should be easy but suddenly becomes a desperate struggle as panic takes hold it's a brilliant way of building the tension and suspense and of course it's helped by that absolutely perfect [Music] soundtrack you don't need to actually see the shark to know that it's out there that it's coming for you and it's the moments when it's not visible that the tension reaches its peak it all ties into the classic horror trope that what we fear most is the unknown when people describe being afraid of the dark or of swimming in the ocean it's not the absence of light or the presence of deep water that frightens them it's the possibility of what might be lurking in that darkness or just beneath the surface when we're presented with a threat but not shown what exactly it is our imaginations concoct all kinds of nameless terrors that are far more horrifying than anything some props department could create which brings me along to one of my few criticisms yeah saying the shark in jaws looks fake is about as obvious as saying that water is wet or the last jedi sucks but it would be remiss of me not to at least acknowledge it so yeah on the rare occasions when the shark does make a full appearance it's very obvious that it's just a big rubber prop and it does steal some of the thunder from what should be a pretty horrific scene otherwise so consider my criticism delivered i guess dodgy special effects aside one of the things that really impressed me about jaws is how it manages to switch effortlessly between emotional tones and even entire genres sometimes in the space of a single scene like here where we go from a light-hearted character moment of two men drunkenly comparing scars and funny stories to a chilling recollection of a real world war ii tragedy and finally to a tense action scene where their boat gets attacked and damaged in the middle of the night oh in the space of like five minutes and it never feels jarring or awkward it's a brilliant example of what happens when writing direction and performances gel perfectly to create a seamless end product on the one hand jaws is a monster movie about a giant shark rising out of the depths and attacking unsuspecting victims on the other it's an action-adventure film with shooting explosions boats getting sunk and cages getting torn open and at other times it's a buddy movie about three misfits having to work together to overcome a dangerous challenge and this is where jaws really shines for me see a lot of people like to say the shark itself is the star of the movie because its presence looms over everything like a giant shadow but the three leads are what make it such a compelling story they feel like real believable people with actual personalities and backstories that logically inform their behavior and little nuances and quirks that help to humanize them quint is very much the alpha male of the group he's belligerent and domineering especially towards hooper who he sees as a spoiled rich kid you've got silly hands mr hooper been counting money all your life all right all right hey i don't need this i don't need this working-class hero crap and the two men quickly get into a pissing contest that lasts for the rest of the film whether it's crushing drinks receptacles comparing old scars in a scene that's been copied so many times it's basically a parody at this point or even arguing about how hard to push the boat's damaged engines i love this scene where he tests hooper by making him tie a complex sail and not and then doesn't even bother to check the results it tells you everything you need to know about the level of respect that quint has for him but despite his aggressive persona there's a more human side to him that he shows from time to time he demonstrates genuine concern for their safety by warning them when they're hurt or in danger and he's relatively forgiving towards brody who clearly doesn't know his way around the boat and therefore presents no threat to his authority at one point he even opens up about his past experiences with sharks delivering what has to be one of the most chilling and compelling monologues that i've ever heard you know the thing about a shark he's got lifeless eyes black eyes like a doll's eye when he comes at you doesn't seem to be living until he bites you and those black eyes roll over white and then oh then you hear that terrible high pitch screaming you just can't take your eyes off the guy when he's speaking and what makes it even more awesome is that robert shaw was actually drunk when he delivered it what a [ __ ] legend hooper on the other hand is a smart and educated man from a wealthy family who went to some expensive ivy league university he's young and enthusiastic and clearly passionate about what he does and the natural assumption would be that he's some clueless bookworm who doesn't have a hint of real-world experience but he quickly proves himself to be a competent and effective sailor a skilled mechanic and a brave man willing to put himself in harm's way for the others all of these things help to make him an effective foil for quint whose knowledge is based entirely on experience rather than education and it results in very different motivations and objectives for the two men quint gradually becomes fixated on killing the shark as his mission devolves into a personal grudge taking increasingly big risks that ultimately seal his fate while hooper is more interested in studying and understanding the animal he recognizes the need to kill it but he's more cautious and pragmatic about it and this difference in approach often brings the two men into conflict stingray get through this piano can you tell me my business again as a little side note robert shaw and richard dreyfuss legit hated each other for most of the shoot and even came close to fighting a few times which did wonders for the antagonism between their two characters another little piece of serendipity that somehow worked in the film's favor take note of this island of dr moreau brody is kind of a bridge between the two men the everyman character that has no real stake in this but got dragged into it because he made a promise to see it through he's basically the voice of the audience here questioning the other character's decisions and helping us to understand what the shark's doing he doesn't know his way around the boat and relies on the others to keep him from injuring himself he's scared of water even more scared of the shark and mostly just wants to get the [ __ ] out of there exactly how we would feel but as his crewmates are killed off or incapacitated he's forced to rise to the occasion and overcome his fears to deliver the killing blow it's a perfect little character arc really the point here is that we're given a trio of characters that are smarter more nuanced and complex than they have any right to be characters that look act and behave like real people with multifaceted personalities and watching them interact with each other makes me kind of nostalgic for a time when screenwriters actually bothered to write films for people with a mental age in double digits not to mention when actors didn't look like they rolled off a [ __ ] assembly line god only knows what these three would be like if jaws were ever remade brody would be an invincible muscle-bound superman that fires a grenade launcher into the shark's mouth hooper would be a comically inept bookworm that trips over his own feet and quint would probably be played by tandy newton you were both a bit late so i went ahead and saved myself [ __ ] off tandy newton ultimately jaws is an absolutely classic movie belonging to a very different time in cinema a time when writing could still be sharp and characters gritty and authentic when suspense and slowly building tension were more effective than cgi explosions and lens flare and when a simple premise done extremely well was enough to craft a compelling and thrilling narrative it's a time in movie making that i can't help but miss a time that i really wish modern filmmakers would actually work to understand and develop instead of blatantly ripping off to try to recapture lost magic so if you haven't ventured into the waters off amity island in a long time i suggest you dust your copy of jaws off and give it another watch for old times sake because the drinker recommends it you'll probably be surprised by just how good it is anyway that's all i have for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 886,134

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Id: 1O9E311Vs9Y

Length: 16min 42sec (1002 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 13 2020