- This article is about the movie; for other uses of the term, see jaws (disambiguation).
Jaws (1975) is an American film which tells the story of a resort town's sheriff who tries to protect beachgoers from the predations of a huge great white shark by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the town council. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Lorraine Gary.
The screenplay was based on the novel by Peter Benchley, and was adapted from the book by Benchley, Carl Gottlieb, John Milius (uncredited), Howard Sackler (uncredited) and Robert Shaw (uncredited).
It won Academy Awards for Best Film Editing, Best Music (Original Score) and Best Sound. It was also nominated for Best Picture. The film is consistently on the Internet Movie Database's list of top 250 films and was #48 on American Film Institute's 100 Years, 100 Movies and #2 on its 100 Years, 100 Thrills. The shark was also appointed #18 on AFI's 100 Years, 100 Heroes and Villians, opposite Robin Hood. In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.
It was filmed at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. In a bit of serendipity, the mechanical shark didn't work most of the time so Spielberg was forced to shoot many of the scenes with the shark only hinted at. This is widely thought to have increased the suspense of many scenes. The mechanical shark was nicknamed "Bruce" by the production team, a piece of trivia that has been cited in a number of shark-related stories (such as the appearance of the shark in 2003's Finding Nemo). Spielberg referred to it as "the turd" on a British programme about famous horror scenes and confessed that they had even less flattering names for it throughout filming.
Another key factor to the film's success was John Williams' acclaimed film score, especially the main theme that became a classic piece of suspense music, synoynmous with approaching danger, especially concerning dangerous aquatic animals, in particular, sharks.
Upon its release, the film was the first to reach more than $100 million in box-office receipts, a feat not matched until Star Wars, two years later in 1977.
Jaws was followed by three sequels: Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983) and Jaws: The Revenge (1987).
Though a horror classic (voted to have the scariest scenes ever by a Bravo Halloween TV special), the film is widely recognized to be responsible for many fearful stereotypes about sharks. Benchley is quoted as saying that he never would've written the original novel had he known what sharks are really like in the wild.
The film is also noted for a monologue delivered by the character Quint (portrayed by Shaw) which revived popular interest in the fate of the USS Indianapolis.
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