Recently I've been reminiscing over the movies that made up the better part of my childhood and I just realized that Steven Speilberg's films have made up the majority of my childhood movie watching experience. Jaws was one of the first movies to really affect me, and sometimes not in a good way. The way I view this movie someone might think I'm obsessed with it. So what if I am! Its just so good. It reminds me of a quote I heard from Martin Scorsese "If I leave a film remembering the plot, then it was no good. But if I leave a film remembering the moments, than its a success." That quote applies to this movie.
What elevates Jaws above the sloppy and cultish horror flicks that were in their hey day during the seventies is the strength of its actors and not to mention their director. What's his name again... The scene on the Orca late at night when the two men Dreyfus and Shaw, whose characters are both night and day to each other, manage to bond by showing off their scars from sharks. I don't know but that part really absorbed me into the movie, you kind of felt yourself get into the whole thing. The other part that really intrigued me for years was the speech that Shaw made about the infamous Indianapolis sinking during World War II in the Pacific. When I was a kid I never really understood what he was saying, but viewing the movie later I realized what he was talking about and I still marveled at his acting in that scene.
Now remember when I mentioned before how this movie affected me, but not in a good way. I think like most people who first saw this movie I became afraid of the water. I was six or seven years old so that sounds very reasonable, but to this day I still have a problem going to the beach. I mean I can just imagine this dark form gliding through the water silently and then seeing my form playing in the water and then CHOMP! Its got a hold of my torso and its thrashing me around like a pork chop in a dog's mouth trying to rip off a piece of me and swallow it down and then come back for more! Does that sound scary to you! My uncle, who used to go fishing in Upstate New York, stopped his fishing trips because of that movie. Amazing the kind of affect a movie can have on a person, huh!?
Jaws has made it onto my list of movies I can watch over and over again, why? Because of its moments. That's what truly makes a movie fun to watch. Think about it movies like the Sixth Sense and The Usual Suspects all had great and surprising endings, but if that was all they could boast, then you really wouldn't want to see these movies again, would you? There would be nothing to keep you drawn in till the end. Its the moments that kept you going and I know you all have your personal favorites.
Jaws is that kind of film to me. I never get tired of it. I can't even count the number of times I've watched it over and over and over again. It’s still fresh and fun and riveting to watch. I think this movie still affects me because it was one of the movies that lead me down to the road of desensitization. When I saw this, my emotions were like a dry sponge and this movie had a lot of water to begin with. I soaked all this fear and terror inside and that is where it has stayed. Now if you will excuse me I'm off to watch it again.
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