Jaws: After 50 years, Bruce is still one fine shark, Chief
Now that the summer is here, I am sure that you are wondering what the common link is between queues that wrap around a whole block, the progressive repetition of the notes E and F, megalodons, shallow waters, and tornados filled with sharks. For the answer, however, I am afraid you’re going to need a bigger boat, because Jaws is more than a story about a killer shark - it’s a film that almost didn’t happen, it’s an example of the collaborative nature of filmmaking, and it’s the beginning of a new genre of films that has made people scared of swimming in open waters for the last 50 years.
After releasing the hit TV movie Duel (1971) and the financially underwhelming The Sugarland Express (1974), Steven Spielberg was looking (and needing) a project that would truly put him on the map. Approached to adapt Peter Benchley’s successful novel of the same name, Jaws became the project that could make-or-break Spielberg’s career. Although we now know it was a launching platform for the director, the shark thriller had everything to be a box office disaster.
Scheduled for the Spring of 1974, the production of Jaws, on the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, was planned to last just under two months and to cost up to four million US dollars. However, due to bad weather, clashes between the cast, and a faulty mechanical shark (named Bruce), it took Spielberg, and his crew triple the time (shooting for over 150 days in total) and over double the initial budget. Arguably, it was these constraints that shaped Jaws into the fantastic film it is - a proof of this lies in how the score was used to elevate both the emotional impact of the film and Bruce, at times, replacing the latter completely. As Spielberg has noted on several occasions, we were meant to see a lot more shark action in Jaws than we do; however, Bruce would often miss his call sheet, constantly being in the “shark shed” getting fixed. This forced Spielberg to be creative. As it is now, Jaws is a film of genius foreshadowing, of brief glimpses, of an unsettling absence that leads audiences to project their biggest fears into the apparently simple yet brilliant score by John Williams.
What could have been the end of a short directorial career, Jaws quickly became a box office success and a show business phenomenon. Bruce marked the whole summer of 1975 with a widespread fear of open water, and queues to buy cinema tickets wrapping around whole blocks (cementing the term blockbuster). Since then, sharks started to populate cinema screens and televisions ever more often, with sequels and spin-offs. And when one shark wasn’t enough, Bruce transformed: becoming three in Deep Blue Sea (1999); embodying one of his gigantic prehistoric ancestors in Meg (2018); or even multiplying and starting to populate tornados in Sharknado (2013).
Although he was just one, Bruce was the first, and arguably the scariest. So, this summer, even if you aren’t wondering how the inhabitants of Amity Island survived a killer shark in 1975, know that the ocean is a mysterious place, and even in his fifties, Bruce is still out there (at least in this writer’s heart)! Dunnnn dunnn... duuuunnnn dun... duuunnnnnnnn dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dunnnnnnnn dunnnnn!!
Written by João Eduardo Lima Belchior
Join us for this original summer blockbuster from Friday 29th August to Tuesday 2nd September.
