Title: "Jaws"
Director: Steven Spielberg
Producer: D. Brown and R. Zanuck
Editing: Verna Fields
Composer: John Williams
Starring:
- Roy Scheider as Martin Brody
- Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper
- Robert Shaw as Quint
- Lorraine Gray as Ellen Brody
- Murray Hamilton as Larry Vaughn
Plot and Critical Review: During a late night beach party on the fictional Amity Island in New England a young woman named Chrissie Watkins goes skinny dipping alone. She dives into the water where she is suddenly jerked around and then pulled under by an unseen force. The next morning, Amity's new police chief Martin Brody is notified that Chrissie is missing and finds her mutilated remains washed up on the shore. The medical examiner informs Brody that the death was due to a shark attack. Brody plans to close the beaches, but is overruled by the town mayor, Larry Vaughn, who fears that reports of a shark attack will ruin the summer tourist season. The medical examiner reverses his diagnosis and attributes the death to a boating accident. Brody reluctantly goes along with the explanation.
A short time later, a young boy is killed by a shark while swimming off a crowded beach. His mother places a $3,000 bounty on the shark, sparking an amateur shark hunting frenzy and attracting the attention of local professional shark hunter Quint. Brought in by Brody, ichthyologist Matt Hooper conducts an autopsy on Chrissie's remains and concludes she was killed by a shark.
A large tiger shark is caught by a group of fishermen, leading the town to believe the problem is solved, but Hooper is unconvinced the tiger shark is the killer and asks to examine the contents of the shark's stomach. Vaughn refuses to make the "operation" public, so Brody and Hooper return after dark and discover the dead shark does not contain any human remains. Scouting aboard Hooper's boat, they come across the half-sunken wreckage of a fisherman's boat. Hooper dons a wetsuit and while exploring the vessel underwater discovers the fisherman's severed head. Vaughn still refuses to close the beach and on the Fourth of July, numerous tourists arrive. The shark enters an estuary, kills a man, and nearly takes the life of Brody's son. Brody forces a stunned Vaughn to hire Quint. Brody and Hooper join the hunter on his fishing boat, the Orca, and the trio set out to kill the man-eater.
At sea, Brody is given the task of laying a chum line while Quint uses deep-sea fishing tackle to try to hook the shark. As Brody continues chumming, an enormous great white shark suddenly looms up behind the boat. The trio watch the great white circle the Orca and estimate it weighs 3 tons (2.7 metric tons) and is 25 feet (7.5 meters) long. Quint harpoons the shark with a line attached to a flotation barrel, designed to prevent the shark from being able to submerge as well as to track it on the surface, but the shark pulls the barrel under and disappears.
Night falls without another sighting and the men retire to the boat's cabin where Quint tells of his experience with sharks as a survivor of the World War II sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The shark reappears, damages the boat's hull, and then slips away. In the morning, the men make repairs to the engine. Quint destroys the radio to prevent Brody from calling the Coast Guard for help. The shark attacks again and after a long chase Quint harpoons it to another barrel. The men tie the barrels to the stern; but the shark drags the boat backwards, forcing water onto the deck and into the engine, flooding it. Quint harpoons it again, attaching three barrels to the shark which continues to tow them. Quint is about to cut the ropes with his machete when the cleats are pulled off the stern. The shark continues to attack the boat and Quint powers towards shore with the shark in pursuit, hoping to draw the animal into shallow waters where it will be beached and drowned. In his Ahab-like obsession to kill the shark, Quint overtaxes Orca's damaged engine, causing it to seize.
With the boat immobilized, the trio try a desperate approach: Hooper dons his SCUBA gear and enters the ocean inside a shark proof cage to try and stab the shark in the mouth with a hypodermic spear filled with strychnine. The shark instead destroys the cage but gets tangled in the remains, allowing Hooper to hide on the seabed. As Quint and Brody raise the remnants of the cage, the shark throws itself onto the boat, crushing the transom. As the boat starts sinking, Quint slides into the shark's mouth and is killed. Brody retreats to the boat's partly submerged cabin, and forces a pressurized air tank into the shark's mouth. Brody takes Quint's rifle, and climbs the mast of the rapidly sinking vessel. After temporarily driving the shark off with a harpoon, Brody begins shooting at the air tank still wedged in the shark's mouth. He hits the tank and it explodes, blowing the shark to pieces. As the shark's dead body drifts toward the seabed, Hooper reappears on the surface. The survivors cobble together a raft out of debris and paddle back to Amity Island.
Director: Steven Spielberg
Producer: D. Brown and R. Zanuck
Editing: Verna Fields
Composer: John Williams
Starring:
- Roy Scheider as Martin Brody
- Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper
- Robert Shaw as Quint
- Lorraine Gray as Ellen Brody
- Murray Hamilton as Larry Vaughn
Plot and Critical Review: During a late night beach party on the fictional Amity Island in New England a young woman named Chrissie Watkins goes skinny dipping alone. She dives into the water where she is suddenly jerked around and then pulled under by an unseen force. The next morning, Amity's new police chief Martin Brody is notified that Chrissie is missing and finds her mutilated remains washed up on the shore. The medical examiner informs Brody that the death was due to a shark attack. Brody plans to close the beaches, but is overruled by the town mayor, Larry Vaughn, who fears that reports of a shark attack will ruin the summer tourist season. The medical examiner reverses his diagnosis and attributes the death to a boating accident. Brody reluctantly goes along with the explanation.
A short time later, a young boy is killed by a shark while swimming off a crowded beach. His mother places a $3,000 bounty on the shark, sparking an amateur shark hunting frenzy and attracting the attention of local professional shark hunter Quint. Brought in by Brody, ichthyologist Matt Hooper conducts an autopsy on Chrissie's remains and concludes she was killed by a shark.
A large tiger shark is caught by a group of fishermen, leading the town to believe the problem is solved, but Hooper is unconvinced the tiger shark is the killer and asks to examine the contents of the shark's stomach. Vaughn refuses to make the "operation" public, so Brody and Hooper return after dark and discover the dead shark does not contain any human remains. Scouting aboard Hooper's boat, they come across the half-sunken wreckage of a fisherman's boat. Hooper dons a wetsuit and while exploring the vessel underwater discovers the fisherman's severed head. Vaughn still refuses to close the beach and on the Fourth of July, numerous tourists arrive. The shark enters an estuary, kills a man, and nearly takes the life of Brody's son. Brody forces a stunned Vaughn to hire Quint. Brody and Hooper join the hunter on his fishing boat, the Orca, and the trio set out to kill the man-eater.
At sea, Brody is given the task of laying a chum line while Quint uses deep-sea fishing tackle to try to hook the shark. As Brody continues chumming, an enormous great white shark suddenly looms up behind the boat. The trio watch the great white circle the Orca and estimate it weighs 3 tons (2.7 metric tons) and is 25 feet (7.5 meters) long. Quint harpoons the shark with a line attached to a flotation barrel, designed to prevent the shark from being able to submerge as well as to track it on the surface, but the shark pulls the barrel under and disappears.
Night falls without another sighting and the men retire to the boat's cabin where Quint tells of his experience with sharks as a survivor of the World War II sinking of the USS Indianapolis. The shark reappears, damages the boat's hull, and then slips away. In the morning, the men make repairs to the engine. Quint destroys the radio to prevent Brody from calling the Coast Guard for help. The shark attacks again and after a long chase Quint harpoons it to another barrel. The men tie the barrels to the stern; but the shark drags the boat backwards, forcing water onto the deck and into the engine, flooding it. Quint harpoons it again, attaching three barrels to the shark which continues to tow them. Quint is about to cut the ropes with his machete when the cleats are pulled off the stern. The shark continues to attack the boat and Quint powers towards shore with the shark in pursuit, hoping to draw the animal into shallow waters where it will be beached and drowned. In his Ahab-like obsession to kill the shark, Quint overtaxes Orca's damaged engine, causing it to seize.
With the boat immobilized, the trio try a desperate approach: Hooper dons his SCUBA gear and enters the ocean inside a shark proof cage to try and stab the shark in the mouth with a hypodermic spear filled with strychnine. The shark instead destroys the cage but gets tangled in the remains, allowing Hooper to hide on the seabed. As Quint and Brody raise the remnants of the cage, the shark throws itself onto the boat, crushing the transom. As the boat starts sinking, Quint slides into the shark's mouth and is killed. Brody retreats to the boat's partly submerged cabin, and forces a pressurized air tank into the shark's mouth. Brody takes Quint's rifle, and climbs the mast of the rapidly sinking vessel. After temporarily driving the shark off with a harpoon, Brody begins shooting at the air tank still wedged in the shark's mouth. He hits the tank and it explodes, blowing the shark to pieces. As the shark's dead body drifts toward the seabed, Hooper reappears on the surface. The survivors cobble together a raft out of debris and paddle back to Amity Island.
"Jaws" was the first film to be initially released on a "wide" scale. At the time movies were released into a dozen theatres and then, as word spread, the studios would distribute the film to additional cinemas. Along with an enormous (for the time) public relations campaign, Spielberg insisted on a "wide release" for this film. His insistence worked and "Jaws" soared to the highest grossing film of all time (without adjusting for inflation) until it was removed from the #1 spot by "Star Wars" two years later.
"Jaws" remains a standard in the American cinematic repertoire and, combined with "Star Wars" marks the beginning of what cinematic historians call the "New Hollywood" era; an era composed of blockbusters, mega-million dollar budgets, and superstars in every film. "Jaws" earned nominations and won three; Best Sound, Best Score (thanks again, John Williams), and Best Film Editing. It lost Best Picture to "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Next", another industry-standard which won five of the nine Oscars it was nominated for.
My Rating: 8.5/10
Content to Caution:
V-3.5 - Lots of shark-attack related gore and violence.
L-2.5 - No comment.
DU-2 - Drinking and smoking.
RT-1 – No comment.
H/S-4 - The suspense climbs higher and higher as the film progresses.
CH-2 – No comment.
S/N-1 – No comment.
The "Reel Revelation": "A Bigger Boat"
Have you ever been faced with a challenging task and thought to yourself, 'How will I ever complete this?' Instead of encouraging yourself and preparing for the challenge ahead you go through the check-list of all the reasons you aren't suited to perform the task in front of you. If you've ever found yourself in that place, you're not alone, and you're certainly not the first person to feel that way.
Do you remember what happened when God told Moses that his task was to return to Egypt and bring God's people out of slavery and lead them to the Promised Land? Instead of 'Yes, Lord, send me!' Moses said "Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh, and that I should bring the sons of Israel out of Egypt?" (Exodus 3:11). Moses went on to make more excuses about how unprepared, unqualified, and inadequate he was to take on God's task. Instead of babying Moses, God was gracious and met Moses in the midst of his human inadequacies. God gave Moses divine power and brought Aaron alongside Moses to be his mouthpiece as he went to confront Pharaoh. God will meet us in the very same place, where our doubts and fears overwhelm our faith.
Have you ever heard someone (or yourself) say "Why does God keep placing me in front of tasks He knows I can't handle?!" Life can feel that way, can't it; as if God keeps throwing more and more difficult challenges and tasks our way? And that's an honest way to feel; like we simply can't deal with the challenges in front of us. That is precisely why God is God and we are not.
"Now the of God peace, who brought up from the dead the great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the eternal covenant, even Jesus our Lord, equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen." (Hebrews 13:20-21)
For as much as we'd like to believe that we are able to accomplish "every good thing" on our own, this verse reminds us that it is God who equips us to accomplish His will; that it is not by our own doing. And keep in mind that our God is the God of peace, not a God of haste, worry, fear, or anxiety. When we turn to Him we ought to pray that God will replace our fear with faith and our hesitation with his most holy confidence. Perhaps you've heard the popular spiritual one-liner: "If God brings you to it, He'll get you through it!" While somewhat tacky, it's entirely true.
"All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work." (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
God will give you the tools you require to complete any and every task that He has set before you. Be strong in your faith and hold your heart near to Him at all times. Remember, we also face tasks and challenges that are sent from the world and our Enemy, but even they are conquerable with God's gifts. Turn to the Word of God, seek the Face of God, and know God's provision and power in your life during this Lenten season and always, for the glory of Jesus, the Lord.
See you tomorrow - E.T.
No comments:
Post a Comment