And I have heard that "Psycho" changed movie-going inasmuch as previously people did not really bother about arriving at the beginning of the movie. Hence the phrase "this is where we came in" I imagine.
But, I had to post this because of how well I remember the power of Jaws as a movie. After seeing it I was afraid at the beach for a long, long time after. And yes, I did go to the beach on Long Island, but I'm quite sure it wouldn't have mattered.
And just to remember the summer of '75, that's fun!
That scene raised the hair on the back my neck more than any of the shark footage.
While I enjoyed Jaws, and am a movie fanatic, I've never felt strongly about Spielberg's movies at all. I enjoyed a few of them, but almost all of his movies are lukewarm to me--mechanical, inoffensive, unimaginative.
I read an honest book about him that praised his early work and his obvious technical talent (I don't think any director is better at using the tools of cinema; it's the purposes he puts them to that bore me), but the writer put his finger on it when he said Close Encounters was a turning point for him. After that, the childishness prevailed.
Jaws is also a great example of how a director gets all the credit for the fine work of everyone involved, from the composer, to the editor, to the multiple writers, cinematographer, actors. That's Hollywood, tho'.
Somehow, I got stuck watching my 9/10-year old nephew the weekend it opened. I wanted to see the movie, so I took him with me and my girlfriend. He was absolutely terrified and till this day, he won't go into the ocean any father than waist high, if that. I still feel horrible about it.
To the author's point, In addition to the Jazz Singer, I think Gone with the Wind was and remains the "must see" movie of all time. To put it in perspective, adjusting for inflation, GWTW is still the number one movie of all time. Avatar is only 14 or 15. GWTW success is what really led to the "BIG" studio films that would follow.
“Jaws” was an excellent movie. Kept you on the edge of your seat. But..........it was just a much better than average “animal Peril” type movie.
But did you know that Jaws was loosely based on a series of actual shark attacks that occurred along New York’s coast back around 1910?
That was a great movie. And the advertising that ran in the LA Times leading up to its release was truly inspired. It began with a small box that featured the illustration of a young woman swimming. Each succeeding day the ad was the same, except that the empty water area beneath that swimmer would extend downwards a bit further. There was no writing in it at all, just an ever lengthening narrow rectangle with a lone female swimmer at the very top. Every day I’d look for that ad trying to figure out what it was all about. And then one day when the rectangle had grown very tall the entire area below the swimmer was filled with a gigantic shark, mouth wide open to eat the swimmer and the single word JAWS written beneath it. I think it made my hair stand up.
There was no such thing as a “Summer Blockbuster” before the movie Jaws. And that’s a fact.
It was still first-run in the theater a year after opening. It took almost 5 years to be broadcast on television.
It also ushered in the era of mega-merchandising. Jaws t-shirts outsold any previous movie or television title 10-fold.
Of the three main stars, only Richard Dreyfus is still alive.
At 14, Jaws scared me so bad, I had nightmares for 3 weeks. Living on the Gulf coast, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t go to the beach in 1975. I still went back and saw it 6 more times in the theater.
Not sure how it changed Hollywood, but Jaws was the first movie I ever went to with my dad, so it will always have meaning to me.
I’m watching “Jaws, The Inside Story” on the BIO channel now. It’s 2 hrs long and very good. It’s new, 2010.
I was 10 when the movie came out, living in Huntington Beach and wouldn’t go back into the water for quite awhile.
I love the movie. Watch it about once a week.
But Jaws changed everything almost overnight--the movie studios realized it could make a LOT of money during the summer months with the right movie, and the success of Jaws paved the way for Star Wars's gigantic success during the summer of 1977.