Why Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" still amazes.

My father once said to me, “When the damn music played, I would never find you in the room."

Long ago, I can’t say when exactly, I remember watching Spielberg’s 1975 classic Jaws for the very first time. Back then, action movies appealed to me for obvious reasons. And when I heard the story idea of Jaws from my father, I thought it was utterly preposterous to make some kind of a suspenseful-horror film in which the antagonist is played by a teeth-baring, beastly shark who attacks people going for a harmless swim in the sea. Why would anyone want to tamper with the good ol’ action flicks which show you a good time by blowing up cars and buildings? But then, action flicks often value your popcorn above your intellect, you know.

I've always had this perception that horror films habitually abandon logic for giving us our money's worth of cheap scares. That often translates into thunderous sound effects, gory visuals and obnoxious monsters, not to mention the plots that are laughably awful.

Jaws had none of those. 

To tell you the truth, I wasn't completely sold to the story when I first watched it. I mean, how many kids would want the protagonist to be middle-aged, scrawny and bespectacled man who almost fits the definition of a wimpish character, really? And then, I was always on the lookout for the shark, who, by the way, disappointed me by not showing up till the end. So, my first reaction to the film was of antipathy. 

Jaws had its moments though. John Williams backed up the suspense beautifully with his emotive score that haunted my nights more than the shark did with its fangs. The build-up to the murder scenes was one for the ages. The music communicated what was about to happen, and just when you wait for the shark to sneak up on a poor sod, the scene would anti-climax by showcasing a gory image of a ripped limb. Maybe one of the reasons I wasn't an instant fan of the film was because another Spielberg film, Jurassic Park, which was also one of the first Hollywood films I had watched, had succeeded in wallowing me in a world that had scared me a fair bit. Needless to say, my first viewing of Jaws had left me more amused than spooked.

Years later, while I was flipping through the channels on television, there was one playing Jaws. Indian television is notorious for being family-friendly, maybe a little too much. And when you end up on a channel which is playing a movie equally notorious for being gory, you can't help but be intrigued. Time had taken its toll though, which is why I couldn't recall much about Jaws. But time had also done me a favor. My choices and likeness in films had gradually matured over the years, and I had a marginally better understanding of what works in a film and what doesn't.

The second viewing of Jaws knocked the wind out of me.

I couldn't figure out why it hadn't clicked on the first go. I began to look at the most obvious points differently. Really, how many antagonists in films have been sharks? Before Jaws worked its magic on the audiences, no one would've even thought that a thing like that could make sense. Not only did I appreciate Jaws for its pulpy plot, intelligently-written script, but I also found myself agreeing that the decision of keeping the shark hidden till the very end was a wise one. Jaws is one of those films that strives purely on palpable tension, a rarity.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat," a deeply shaken Brody says to Quint, at the most crucial point in the film. I couldn't interpret why exactly brief laughter rang out through the room at those words when I first watched Jaws. Could Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, who had adapted the screenplay from the book by Peter Benchley, have envisioned the bludgeoning impact of those words when they wrote them? A line that's truly worth a million bucks but one that sounds like a simple line on paper. When you watch it being quoted on-screen, the feeling of realization of how profound it really is is truly remarkable.

After repeated viewings, I have come to fully appreciate Steven Spielberg's Jaws. Sure, it might have a few niggles, but a film of such prodigious power should be treasured and relished.

You know what? The damn music still keeps me out of the room. And that's the beauty of it.