Posted on 07/05/2015 8:32:58 AM PDT by JoeProBono
Forty years ago Saturday saw the release of Jaws, an adaptation of a beach-read made by a promising but relatively untested young director, Steven Spielberg. Forty years later, Jaws‘ impact can be felt across moviegoing. The shark tale is perhaps most notable for its box-office success; Jaws became the top-grossing film of all time after its release (and did so more quickly than had its predecessors, with a marketing plan based on blanket advertising rather than a slow rollout).
Jaws, with its technical mastery and ability to manipulate the audience into fearing something that for so much of the film’s running time they could not see, was a movie that demanded to be seen as soon as one could, just like later blockbusters including Star Wars (which, two years after Jaws, replaced it at the top of the all-time box office list).
(Excerpt) Read more at time.com ...
Jaws certainly gets my vote as one of the scariest films ever. It’s the only film I’ve seen in the theater where the audience stood en mass and cheered as the closing credits rolled. Simply amazing.
Try watching the movie like this ... https://www.facebook.com/121990546910/photos/a.126441966910.116720.121990546910/10153007672821911/?type=1&theater
I went to see the movie with my dad. I was so scared I ran out to the lobby and ended up in the ladies’ restroom, holding hands with some crying black ladies, praying with them. They were so sweet and just as scared as I was! The parts of the movie I saw gave me nightmares for a long time.
Best summer ever. Finally got my driver’s license.
That scene began my love affair with the M1 Garand.
I will never forget the summer of 1975. I begged my parents for weeks to take me to that movie. Then finally my father took me on a hot summer night. I can still remember the lines wrapping around the cinema and people pushing and shoving to get near the front of the line. I never saw anything like it. I think the movie house we went to had three theatres - this was before the age of multiplexes - and all of them were showing Jaws. We stood in the muggy air outside for over two hours before we finally got into one of the showings.
Audiences were not as jaded as they are today, so during the movie, everybody was screaming at the scary parts and some were running from the theatre. I ended up seeing that movie two more times that summer.
“The film is regarded as one of the greatest films of all time; it has placed in the top ten of the American Film Institute’s list of top 100.” from Wikipedia
No, the man wrote that Jaws was the first blockbuster, and my point was, he is wrong. I’ve seen documentaries; people went crazy over that GWTW; long lines, etc. Factor in inflation and percent of population, it probably still is the most seen movie and highest grossing movie ever. And, no one will remember Jaws that much, other than that warning music. I saw it; it was hyped so much it was disappointing. It came out in ‘39, rather than ‘38.
One cousin said that after “Jaws”, she started always looking back down into the toilet before she sat down on it to do her business. (Guess she still does.)
Reminds me of the movie “Psycho”. There are generations of Americans who still get nervous stepping into a shower and closing the curtain.
There’s a difference between a movie that made a lot of money and a blockbuster. Blockbusters make big money fast. When GWTW came out you actually couldn’t have a blockbuster, they didn’t make enough prints, movies wended their way around the country. Jaws was one of the first big steps to the wide release model we have today (though even it went out “phased” with some cities getting it one week and then expanding over the next month). Also Jaws was the first big summer hit, prior to then summer was a dump zone because Hollywood figured nobody would want to see movies during the nice weather. The modern summer blockbuster tent-pole system exists because of Jaws and Star Wars (which proved Jaws wasn’t a fluke).
So yes, Jaws is the first blockbuster. Even with GWTW making more adjusted money.
I checked out the experts at Wikipedia to see what how it was defined:
“Before Jaws set box office records in the summer of 1975, successful films, such as Quo Vadis, The Ten Commandments, Gone With the Wind, and Ben-Hur, were called blockbusters based purely on the amount of money earned at the box office. Jaws is regarded as the first film of New Hollywood’s “blockbuster era” with its current meaning, implying a film genre.[4] It also consolidated the “summer blockbuster” trend, through which major film studios and distributors planned their entire annual marketing strategy around a big release by July 4.[5]”
So evidently the two definitions are separated by “Old Hollywood” and “New Hollywood” demarcation. New Hollywood differs in that it relies on carnival type hype.
Not necessarily carnival hype, but speed. Averaging 3.5 major releases a week they just don’t have time for movies to sit around and build an audience, they need movies to hit hard, make a bunch of money, then get the hell out of the way because even the massive multiplexes just don’t have the room for lingerers. New Hollywood is a ravenous beast that needs $100 million openings constantly.
I always thought that a lot of its success can be attributed to the music. Actually won an Academy Award for its score.
I think I have seen it at least 40 times. Never get sick of it. :-)
Joe.....YOU ARE KILLING ME ..............AHHHHH/ :)
Jaws is one of- if not the best ‘horror’ film ever made.
Masterful.
It needed no obscene monsters, gory bloody scenes, no graphic sex or ‘F’ bombs every sentence the characters uttered.
The opening scene, a beautiful woman is seen treading water on a lovely moonlit, still bay. A buoy bell dings gently not far away. She laughs and calls to her boyfriend to join her, but he has passed out on the beach.
The camera does a sharks point of view beneath the girls legs, treading water. The camera gets closer, the music gets louder,
Suddenly she feels a tug at her body from beneath the water.
A expression of shock spreads over her face before she is pulled under.
She surfaces and her gurgling water logged screams are blood curdling. But there is no one to hear.
Again she is pulled under, but this time she does not resurface.
The water calms in the moonlight. The buoy continues its
gentle chimes- as though nothing had ever happened.
You have seen nothing. No monster. Nothing.
No need. The mind can conjure up images much worse than any movie maker could.
The primal fear of what is unknown in the water, is one of the factors that makes that scene so effective.
Spielburg uses fear instead of gore to scare the viewer
Few films are perfect. This one almost is. Jaws is the rarefied movie that can weather intensive scrutiny of each of its sum parts, and still emerge from this analysis as a clearly superior work in every aspect of its production. The acting is top-notch, and each of its characters are perfectly cast and essayed.
The score is superlative, and as key to the horror within as the shark. The story itself is deceptively simple, yet powerful enough to remain both timely and timeless. The camera work and use of environment to create tension are unparalleled in the film medium, and every frame carries an implied menace, even when the shark is nowhere in sight. Every detail of the film-making process is performed here with such groundbreaking precision that the film almost becomes a textbook.
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