While we continue to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the “jaws”, cinema lovers can be poetic waxing on the impact of the film as a sponsor of modern blockbuster. The 1975 major screen adaptation of the novel of the same name of Peter Benchley not only captured the public and scared them to visit the beach that summer, but it also served as a ultimate business card for the filmmaker who would be king: Steven Spielberg. After making his long debut with his “DUEL” television and his theater beginnings with “The Sugarland Express”, Spielberg ventured into unexplored waters with “Jaws”, which was a notoriously difficult production for him.
“Jaws” was a cultural mastodon, becoming the most profitable film of all time at the time of its release (a record that Spielberg himself would break twice with “and the extraterrestrial” and “Jurassic Park”). Adjusted for the inflation of ticket prices, it is the 7th most profitable film in history, according to Box Office Mojo. “Jaws” was going to receive four nominations at 48th Academy Awards, notably: Best Picture (Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, producers), the best original partition (John Williams), the best cinematographic editing (Verna Fields) and the best sound (Robert L. Hoyt, Roger Heman, Earl Madeer and John Carter). The film lost the best film against “One flew over the nest du cuckoo”, but won in all the other categories for which it was nominated.
But even if it may have come out victorious with three Oscar victories, there were some categories where the Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences slipped the film in a delightfully snubbed.
Jaws did not receive appointments for the best director and the best suitable scenario
Perhaps the most notable snob of the Oscars of them was in the category of the best director, where Steven Spielberg missed the boat. Since Spielberg has endured one of the most tumultuous productions in Hollywood history and still managed to create a film as convincing as he, his snob still stings to date. Spielberg has not only controlled the chills and the tension of the story, especially in the most horrible sequences of the film, but he also found humanity in the main characters of the film, bringing out excellent distribution performance.
Spielberg’s raw reaction to get Snobed was captured on the film, where he expressed his conviction that he was “beaten by [Federico] Fellini “for one of the nominating creneals. The story is clearly on the side of Steven Spielberg, but to play the Devil defender, the Best Director category at the 48th Academy Awards presented one of the wildest lists in the history of the ceremony: Federico Fellini for” Amarord “, Stanley Kubrick for” Barry Lyndon ” For “Dog Day afternoon,” Robert Altman for “Nashville”, and the winner of the category, Miloš Forman for “One flew over the nest of cuckoo”.
With Steven Spielberg’s snob, “Jaws” was ignored in the most suitable scenario category. The nominated films that year included “Barry Lyndon”, “The Man Who What Be King”, “Profumo di Donna”, “The Sunshine Boys” and The Winner, “One flew over the Nid du cuckoo”. While “Jaws” is often discussed as a director’s success, we must not forget the remarkable scenario that was credited to Peter Benchley, who wrote the first drafts of the script based on his book, and Carl Gottlieb, who rewritten him during the main photography.
The script of “Jaws” explores the timeless themes of political corruption and capitalism prevailing on public security, while telling a human and personal story through the eyes of a Martin Brody (Roy Scheider). The essence of Brody with his work as chief of the police of Amity Island is juxtaposed in his family life and conquer his ocean phobia plays in the human attraction inherent in the stories of overcoming fear. While the public initially flocked in the rooms to see a killer shark, it is ultimately human history at the heart of the “jaws” who hung people to see it repeatedly.
No appointments for Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw
A large part of what made “jaws” one of the most captivating films of the 20th century is that, in the middle of the exciting show of a free killer shark, the film is finally carried by the three central performances, which all deserved the recognition of the Academy. The chief of Roy Scheider, Martin Brody, is the protagonist and the Avatar public of the film, and he is the perfect man in this story. While he deals with the stress of a killer shark, as well as the number of growing bodies, some of the most memorable scenes in the film are on the quieter side. In one of the most tender moments that perfectly presents Spielbergian Magic, Brody gets his morale at the dinner table when his son Sean (Jay Mello) imitates his actions.
The marine biologist, Matt Hooper, is extraordinarily well brought back by Richard Dreyfuss, whose affability and charm bring a very necessary lightness at the most tense moments of the film. However, the remarkable performance of the film comes from Robert Shaw as a Quint, the eccentric and obsessed shark hunter. The role of Quint in “Jaws” is linked both by one of the biggest entrances to a character and one of the most overwhelming outings in cinematographic history, and all of this is sold by Shaw.
The performances of Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw are raised to the status of legend in the third act of “Jaws”, consolidating them as one of the seminal trios of all the cinema. The tension which permeates them by navigating on the orca is so palpable, a large part of which can be attributed to the real quarrel between Dreyfuss and Shaw, whose mutual aversion of each other played perfectly in their performances. The performances and experiences of the rotating trio “Jaws” were dramatized in the original play, “The Shark Is Broken”, which was written by Shaw’s real son, Ian Shaw (who also played his father in production) and Joseph Nixon.
