Latest / The Kulturecast / Required Viewing 04: Jaws

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Required Viewing 04: Jaws · The Kulturecast

0:04
Speaker 1: We're in Wayne Media. We're in Wayne Media. None of
0:57
Speaker 1: man's fantasies of evil can compare with the reality of Jaws.
1:07
Speaker 1: But I'll catch him. I'll kill him. Did you hear
1:10
Speaker 1: your father? Out of the water now!
1:12
Speaker 2: This shark?
1:13
Speaker 1: Swallow you whole. From the best-selling novel, Jaws, rated PG.
1:19
Speaker 1: Maybe too intense for younger children.
1:20
Speaker 2: We're having a George Lucas. Wouldn't it be nice to know?
1:23
Speaker 2: He just never existed.
1:25
Speaker 1: Where are they now?
1:26
Speaker 2: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Required Viewing, a sub-feed podcast
1:31
Speaker 2: within the CultureCast feed. I am the host of the CultureCast,
1:33
Speaker 2: Chris Tashew, and I am joined by my good friend,
1:36
Speaker 2: all the way from Amityville. It means friend. No, he's
1:41
Speaker 2: actually all the way from West Texas. Your friend and mine.
1:43
Speaker 2: the professor, Dr.
1:45
Speaker 1: David Perlmutter. Howdy, Chris.
1:47
Speaker 2: Well, Dr. Perlmutter, we're here. We're finally talking about a
1:50
Speaker 2: movie that we theoretically, it's one of those films where
1:53
Speaker 2: it's like, what do we have to say about a
1:54
Speaker 2: film like Jaws, a film that's been talked about since
1:57
Speaker 2: it came out in 1975? Well, I feel like we're
2:00
Speaker 2: going to have a lot to talk about with Jaws
2:01
Speaker 2: because Jaws is a film that more or less meets
2:05
Speaker 2: exactly all the requirements of a required viewing film. If
2:08
Speaker 2: you have clicked on this episode, but you do not
2:10
Speaker 2: know what required viewing is, required viewing is a 360
2:14
Speaker 2: degree look at film. It is a 360 degree film
2:17
Speaker 2: analysis from all angles because most films are multifaceted. If not,
2:21
Speaker 2: all films are multifaceted and not every film's success is
2:25
Speaker 2: based on whether or not it made money at the
2:27
Speaker 2: box office. We, uh, We tend to have a different
2:29
Speaker 2: opinion on success and failure and what you can learn
2:32
Speaker 2: from either of those things. And hey, what better of
2:34
Speaker 2: a film to learn from than one of the greatest
2:36
Speaker 2: films ever made? 1975's Steven Spielberg directed Jaws. So the
2:42
Speaker 2: film is directed by Steven Spielberg on a screenplay by
2:45
Speaker 2: Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. Peter Benchley's name might seem
2:49
Speaker 2: familiar because he's also the one who wrote the book Jaws.
2:52
Speaker 2: So he is one half of the screenplay writing credit.
2:55
Speaker 2: Film stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss, Lorraine Gray,
2:59
Speaker 2: and Murray Hamilton. Scheider, Shaw, and Dreyfuss make up the
3:03
Speaker 2: three main characters, Brody, Quint, and Hooper. three men tasked
3:07
Speaker 2: with hunting a shark off of, well, let's just call
3:11
Speaker 2: it what it is. I guess it's Martha's Vineyard, fake
3:14
Speaker 2: Martha's Vineyard. In the summer of the 1970s, they're tasked
3:18
Speaker 2: with hunting a great white shark that has taken up
3:20
Speaker 2: residence in Amityville, which is a place where great white
3:24
Speaker 2: sharks normally are not. It is a film that is
3:27
Speaker 2: plagued by lots of issues, problems, a whole host of
3:31
Speaker 2: things that I'm sure we will bring up and talk about.
3:34
Speaker 2: But it is a film that spawned oh so many sequels,
3:38
Speaker 2: no prequels, and no modern day reboots, surprisingly. But it
3:42
Speaker 2: is a film that has dictated what one might consider
3:44
Speaker 2: to be the summer blockbuster well since this film came out.
3:47
Speaker 2: This film more or less invented the summer blockbuster. So Dr.
3:51
Speaker 1: Perlmutter, I am so curious.
3:53
Speaker 2: Your thoughts on Jaws, a film that no one has
3:56
Speaker 2: ever talked about critically up until this point ever before.
3:59
Speaker 1: Well, thank you, Chris. And I feel that part of
4:03
Speaker 1: our required viewing is to explain why do we look
4:05
Speaker 1: at movies that are older than maybe 90% of the
4:10
Speaker 1: audience and that have been talked about many times before? Well,
4:14
Speaker 1: there's a famous saying that is attributed to a Chinese
4:19
Speaker 1: leader in 1968 that probably he didn't say, but it's
4:24
Speaker 1: a great little observation. he was asked about the French Revolution.
4:29
Speaker 1: And of course, the French Revolution starts back in 1792.
4:32
Speaker 1: So he's asked in 1968 about 1792, and he says,
4:36
Speaker 1: it's too early to tell. And to some extent, it's
4:39
Speaker 1: good to have these many, many years since 1975, because
4:44
Speaker 1: you can look at a film, and you can not
4:46
Speaker 1: only say what is its place in terms of its content,
4:51
Speaker 1: and its effect on future content. I'm right now watching
4:55
Speaker 1: a television series on Apple called Widow's Bay. It's Jaws adjacent.
5:00
Speaker 1: It's making little Jaws references. There's a mayor of a
5:03
Speaker 1: town trying to keep the tourist industry alive, trying to
5:07
Speaker 1: build a tourist industry when horrible things are happening and
5:10
Speaker 1: people are being killed. But in this spin, the mayor
5:13
Speaker 1: is sort of the hero of Trying to defeat the problem.
5:17
Speaker 1: But it was definitely, definitely. And there's a beach scene.
5:21
Speaker 1: There's several beach scenes. There are several scenes taken right
5:24
Speaker 1: out of Jaws. It's a Stephen King tribute. It's a
5:27
Speaker 1: Lovecraft tribute. It's a Parks and Rec writer. Katie Dippel
5:31
Speaker 1: won the Emmy for putting this together. But like Jaws
5:34
Speaker 1: was there. If you watch Jaws, you were going like, oh,
5:37
Speaker 1: this is partly a tribute to Jaws. So that says something.
5:40
Speaker 1: That in 2026, we're still talking about Jaws. We're still
5:43
Speaker 1: showing Jaws on the screen in different ways. So I
5:47
Speaker 1: have been preparing for this podcast since 1975 when a
5:52
Speaker 1: friend of mine came back. And I don't know why
5:55
Speaker 1: I did not watch Jaws for the first time, like
5:57
Speaker 1: when it first came out. But he said, you got
5:59
Speaker 1: to go see this movie. It's the greatest movie ever made. Now,
6:02
Speaker 1: I heard that, by the way, as we've talked about,
6:04
Speaker 1: like Star Wars, my friend said it's the greatest movie
6:07
Speaker 1: ever made. And we all agreed. And Alien, we all agreed.
6:10
Speaker 1: Raiders of the Lost Ark, we all agreed, greatest movie
6:13
Speaker 1: ever made. We were really quick to declare something the
6:15
Speaker 1: greatest movie ever made. But it's good to look back.
6:18
Speaker 1: And I want to start out by just saying, in
6:21
Speaker 1: terms of 360, we look at the film as an event,
6:26
Speaker 1: not just as a pool of content. And I'm a professor,
6:30
Speaker 1: so I'm going to say all these things with the
6:32
Speaker 1: usual caveats of, like, it's not 100%. It's not 100%.
6:35
Speaker 1: One film did all of this. But Jaws, you look
6:39
Speaker 1: up the history of this, and I remember watching it
6:41
Speaker 1: happen because I was alive. Jaws was one of the
6:44
Speaker 1: first movies to be pushed through advertising on television. We
6:49
Speaker 1: always saw movie posters. We saw ads in newspapers back then.
6:54
Speaker 1: Maybe we have to explain what a newspaper is to
6:56
Speaker 1: some of our younger viewers. members of our audience, but
6:58
Speaker 1: magazines we read, but I saw ads on TV, which
7:02
Speaker 1: was a relatively new thing. There'd always been a little
7:04
Speaker 1: bit of tension, a lot of tension between television and
7:08
Speaker 1: movies in the fifties, like movies blame television for taking
7:12
Speaker 1: away part of their audience. So that was, that was
7:13
Speaker 1: a big thing was that Jaws was sold through TV.
7:17
Speaker 1: Then Jaws can be credited, along with other films, just
7:22
Speaker 1: as not quite the inventor of the summer blockbuster. But
7:26
Speaker 1: like the summer wasn't necessarily what it is thought of today.
7:30
Speaker 1: It's like, well, let's let's throw out the big MCU,
7:33
Speaker 1: the big DCU, the big films that, you know, supposed
7:36
Speaker 1: to get a gigantic audience. The kids are out for
7:39
Speaker 1: the summer. People have time to go see. But Jaws really,
7:43
Speaker 1: let's put it this way, established that if you want
7:46
Speaker 1: a gigantic film that's going to get possibly the younger
7:50
Speaker 1: audience in there, summer is a really great time to
7:53
Speaker 1: release it. Then there was also Jaws didn't quite invent,
7:57
Speaker 1: did not invent word of mouth, but invented, I think,
8:01
Speaker 1: the sort of passionate evangelical word of mouth that then
8:06
Speaker 1: became part of what blockbusters are supposed to do until
8:09
Speaker 1: the present era. Because my friend said, you must go
8:13
Speaker 1: see this movie. He even said, I'll pay for it.
8:16
Speaker 1: I want you to see this movie so much. Well,
8:18
Speaker 1: we did go see the movie. We sat through the movie.
8:20
Speaker 1: All of us agreed this was the greatest movie ever made.
8:23
Speaker 1: I'll talk about my present verdict later. But it was
8:25
Speaker 1: the greatest movie ever made. And we went to the
8:28
Speaker 1: bathroom and stayed there until it played again. And we
8:32
Speaker 1: could go into the theater so we wouldn't have to
8:33
Speaker 1: pay twice. That's the only time I've ever done that
8:36
Speaker 1: in my life. I felt guilty about it afterwards. But
8:38
Speaker 1: that's how enthusiastic we were. And I think I did
8:41
Speaker 1: see it in theaters maybe eight or nine times. Just
8:45
Speaker 1: crazy today where, again, movie studios are very happy that
8:50
Speaker 1: a film doesn't decline 20, 30, 40, 50%. on its
8:55
Speaker 1: second week there, jaws went up every week for, for
8:58
Speaker 1: many weeks. Uh, it, it also was a film that
9:02
Speaker 1: really established this primacy of a film being an event, uh,
9:08
Speaker 1: Because that's what that television advertising sold. And that's what
9:11
Speaker 1: they said. It's an event. It's not just like, hey,
9:14
Speaker 1: there's a really good movie. Go watch the movie. But
9:17
Speaker 1: you want to be there with lots of people. In fact,
9:20
Speaker 1: I remember television news doing stories and newspaper and magazine
9:25
Speaker 1: news doing stories about the audience, like people talking in
9:29
Speaker 1: the line. about like, oh my God, we're getting to
9:32
Speaker 1: see Jaws in the theater. This is so exciting. And
9:35
Speaker 1: of course, this is a hope for many movies today.
9:38
Speaker 1: So Jaws sort of established a lot of things that
9:41
Speaker 1: we consider to be either peak blockbuster, peak Hollywood spectacular.
9:47
Speaker 1: It changed the movie industry. Of course, some of the
9:50
Speaker 1: films that were coming soon, like Star Wars and Readers
9:54
Speaker 1: of the Lost Ark and others did the same. But
9:57
Speaker 1: I was there at the beginning and it was it
9:59
Speaker 1: was just this magical moment. And I don't credit Jaws
10:02
Speaker 1: with the fact that I'm still excited about going to
10:05
Speaker 1: movies and seeing movies today. But like it cemented the
10:09
Speaker 1: idea that going to a movie could be a magical experience.
10:13
Speaker 2: You mentioned that you had these moments with your friends
10:17
Speaker 2: where it's like these were This movie's amazing. This is
10:20
Speaker 2: the greatest movie ever made. You mention movies that are
10:23
Speaker 2: not outside of the conversation for business. being the case
10:27
Speaker 2: for that qualifier. Raiders of the Lost Ark is one
10:30
Speaker 2: of the greatest movies ever made. Star Wars is one
10:33
Speaker 2: of the greatest movies ever made. Like, those original films are.
10:36
Speaker 2: They just are. And I would go as far as
10:38
Speaker 2: to say, and I don't think you would disagree with me,
10:41
Speaker 2: I think Jaws is one of the greatest movies ever made.
10:43
Speaker 2: I think that qualifier still holds up to this day.
10:47
Speaker 2: And every time I rewatch this movie, I'm reminded of why...
10:52
Speaker 2: That is the case. It checks every single box in
10:55
Speaker 2: terms of telling a compelling story with compelling characters. There
10:59
Speaker 2: is some friction both within the narrative and both outside
11:04
Speaker 2: of the narrative in terms of the things that are
11:06
Speaker 2: going on within the narrative, i.e. there's a shark, but
11:09
Speaker 2: there's also the idiot mayor of the town. So there's
11:12
Speaker 2: multiple directions that the narrative is coming at the kind
11:15
Speaker 2: of conflict from. You then have, again, great acting. You
11:20
Speaker 2: have what I would consider to be the one and
11:23
Speaker 2: only time anyone has ever really attempted to make a
11:25
Speaker 2: film like this with an underwater animatronic. that actually doesn't
11:31
Speaker 2: work but it does work at the same time that
11:34
Speaker 2: it doesn't work it does work i guess is how
11:36
Speaker 2: i would put it if you watch jaws you'll see
11:39
Speaker 2: exactly what i mean it does not look like a
11:41
Speaker 2: real shark but steven spielberg and benchley and gottlieb do
11:45
Speaker 2: such a good job with the storytelling and the just
11:47
Speaker 2: everything the entire film that you kind of forget that
11:51
Speaker 2: it's a fake shark and it seems like a real
11:53
Speaker 2: shark even in those slight moments where the shark breaches
11:57
Speaker 2: onto the boat and eats Richard or Robert Shaw and
12:01
Speaker 2: tries to eat Richard Dreyfuss in the cage underwater, which
12:03
Speaker 2: is just, you know, cutaway shots to literal real people
12:07
Speaker 2: with smaller sharks in cages. Like there's a lot of
12:09
Speaker 2: stuff in this movie that is what now would be
12:12
Speaker 2: considered a hodgepodge of things being cut together to try
12:16
Speaker 2: and make the best of a, in a lot of ways,
12:18
Speaker 2: bad situation. The making of this movie is notorious in
12:22
Speaker 2: terms of how much trouble the shark puppet was to
12:27
Speaker 2: get working and to be consistently working. I mean, this
12:30
Speaker 2: is the film that this is the film that almost
12:31
Speaker 2: broke Steven Spielberg. And it was like, you know, it
12:35
Speaker 2: was so early on in his career, the fact that
12:37
Speaker 2: this is the film that almost broke Steven Spielberg, that
12:40
Speaker 2: I think speaks to the level of dedication that someone
12:43
Speaker 2: like Steven Spielberg has as a filmmaker. Because if this
12:46
Speaker 2: was your first film, for most people, this would have
12:49
Speaker 2: been their last film. given the amount of kind of
12:52
Speaker 2: strife and just everything surrounding the release and creation of
12:56
Speaker 2: this film. And a lot of it is self, you know,
12:59
Speaker 2: a lot of it is self-involved. Like they, you know,
13:02
Speaker 2: you make a movie about a shark in the water,
13:04
Speaker 2: you gotta have a shark in the water. But they
13:07
Speaker 2: make the best of a bad situation where you don't
13:09
Speaker 2: see the shark at all. And that ends up becoming
13:12
Speaker 2: yet another part of the mythos and mystique of this
13:15
Speaker 2: film is don't show, by not showing the shark, we
13:19
Speaker 2: make the shark scarier. and way scarier than it ever
13:22
Speaker 2: could have been by showing it over and over again because, again,
13:25
Speaker 2: they get so much mileage out of the first two-thirds
13:29
Speaker 2: of this movie not really showing the shark that by
13:31
Speaker 2: the time they show the shark at the end of
13:33
Speaker 2: the movie, you kind of give the film a pass
13:36
Speaker 2: because it's done such a good job of making the
13:39
Speaker 2: most out of what most other filmmakers would consider to
13:42
Speaker 2: be a bad situation, if not the worst situation. That
13:45
Speaker 2: the movie, again, it succeeds like gangbusters where other movies
13:49
Speaker 2: would have failed. Because I think, again, the dedication to
13:52
Speaker 2: the craft of Steven Spielberg. And I think, again, there
13:57
Speaker 2: is a reputation that this movie carries with it. That
14:00
Speaker 2: it was a movie that was deeply flawed getting to
14:03
Speaker 2: the screen. And it was a deeply problematic production. And
14:06
Speaker 2: that was, again, not anyone's specific fault. This is not
14:10
Speaker 2: like a Herzog-Kinsky situation. where one of the people on
14:14
Speaker 2: set was just the biggest diva known to man and
14:17
Speaker 2: was hard to wrangle in. This is the diva was
14:19
Speaker 2: a giant shark that the entire movie is based around,
14:22
Speaker 2: and you can't avoid it. You can't avoid it.
14:25
Speaker 1: It'd be like Star Wars.
14:25
Speaker 2: It'd be like in Star Wars, well, we're not doing
14:28
Speaker 2: any of the exterior shots with the models.
14:30
Speaker 1: What?
14:30
Speaker 2: Like, we're not doing that. Like, that's not realistic. And
14:34
Speaker 2: that's the thing with Jaws is when you signed up
14:37
Speaker 2: to make this film, Steven Spielberg, you accepted the risk of,
14:41
Speaker 2: The Jaws puppet not, you know, the shark puppet possibly
14:44
Speaker 2: not working. And he dealt with so much of that that, again,
14:48
Speaker 2: this movie should not have worked. And yet it did work.
14:51
Speaker 2: And the fact that it works as well as it
14:53
Speaker 2: does is the most surprising part. Because, again, for me,
14:57
Speaker 2: I watched this movie earlier this year when I was
14:58
Speaker 2: putting together, of all things, the Lego Jaws set that
15:02
Speaker 2: I was given for Christmas last year by my family.
15:05
Speaker 1: Which is a real.
15:06
Speaker 2: Thing you can buy, and I think that that speaks
15:08
Speaker 2: to the level of pop culture influence that this film has.
15:12
Speaker 2: It is a Lego set of the orca with Quint, Brady,
15:16
Speaker 2: and Hooper, and a shark breaching onto the back of
15:19
Speaker 2: the boat. That's iconic imagery that has not gone away
15:23
Speaker 2: and will not go away, and again, it's a plastic
15:26
Speaker 2: shark it is a giant plastic shark jumping onto the
15:30
Speaker 2: back of a boat but it is so compelling that
15:33
Speaker 2: you forget it's a plastic shark and I think that
15:35
Speaker 2: like I said just as the opening salvo here like
15:38
Speaker 2: this is this is I think for me pure cinema
15:43
Speaker 2: like I would say like pure cinema like technique on
15:46
Speaker 2: top of just well written story and and fantastic acting.
15:52
Speaker 2: There is so much technique in this film and so much,
15:55
Speaker 2: I guess, early prowess in filmmaking that if you watch
15:59
Speaker 2: this film, you would not think this is the director's
16:02
Speaker 2: effectively first Hollywood film. which is insanity on top of
16:07
Speaker 2: everything else. This is not a film by someone who
16:11
Speaker 2: you would think that's their first film, but effectively Jaws
16:14
Speaker 2: is really Spielberg's first film on top of everything else.
16:18
Speaker 2: You would be lucky if you made this film and
16:20
Speaker 2: this was the only film you ever made. And it
16:22
Speaker 2: was the last film you made as a director because
16:24
Speaker 2: it's the culmination of your ability as a director. But
16:27
Speaker 2: it's the first film that Steven Spielberg makes. We've already
16:30
Speaker 2: mentioned several of the other films that he makes that
16:33
Speaker 2: are in conversation for best films of all time. Most
16:36
Speaker 2: directors don't even have one, let alone one or two
16:39
Speaker 2: or possibly three or four. And Spielberg, I think, sits
16:42
Speaker 2: somewhere in the ballpark of like three or four, at
16:45
Speaker 2: least maybe even more than that in terms of greatest
16:47
Speaker 2: movies ever made or perfect films. And I think, you know,
16:52
Speaker 2: if you if you can't tell by any of the
16:53
Speaker 2: things I just mentioned as to why we're talking about
16:55
Speaker 2: this movie, the other reason we're talking about this movie
16:58
Speaker 2: is there are shockingly few well done shark movies. On
17:03
Speaker 2: top of even now, that's not a thing that's well done.
17:06
Speaker 2: Like there are shockingly few good shark movies. And we
17:09
Speaker 2: will go even further to say there are shockingly few
17:12
Speaker 2: well done shark movies with practical effects, because that's the
17:15
Speaker 2: other kind of big stumbling block of this film, once again,
17:18
Speaker 2: is the practical effects of it all. Like now you
17:21
Speaker 2: just do this with CGI and say we're not dealing
17:23
Speaker 2: with a giant shark puppet. But 1975 was such a
17:25
Speaker 2: different time. I I'm glad this was made in 75
17:30
Speaker 2: when they were like, well, we have to make a
17:31
Speaker 2: giant shark puppet.
17:32
Speaker 1: Okay. On a gimbal arm.
17:34
Speaker 2: And everything like, all right, like this is never going
17:37
Speaker 2: to work, but we'll do it anyways. Like, you know,
17:39
Speaker 2: I can see the strings, but yet I don't care,
17:41
Speaker 2: I guess is the way is the right way of
17:43
Speaker 2: putting it.
17:43
Speaker 1: Yeah. There's so much to unpack here, especially since so
17:46
Speaker 1: much time has passed and you can see the waves,
17:50
Speaker 1: the ripples of jaws affecting, as I said, TV series
17:54
Speaker 1: are on the air toys. There are people are still buying,
17:57
Speaker 1: you know, You didn't go see the movie in 1975.
18:00
Speaker 1: You weren't around then, but you're still putting together a
18:04
Speaker 1: Jaws toy. When we say jointly that there's a really
18:09
Speaker 1: strong case to be made this the greatest movie ever
18:11
Speaker 1: made or among the greatest movies ever made. We want
18:13
Speaker 1: to be clear that it's okay to have, and this
18:17
Speaker 1: is something I emphasize to my students, it's okay to
18:19
Speaker 1: have categories, right? So if you said to me, what
18:23
Speaker 1: is the best cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare? I would say,
18:28
Speaker 1: you know, for me, just judging on all my categories,
18:32
Speaker 1: that would be Akira Kurosawa, Throne of Blood, or Akira Kurosawa, Ran. OK,
18:38
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't say, well, let's compare Jaws to Rands.
18:42
Speaker 1: I would say they're in different categories of achievement. It's
18:46
Speaker 1: to me, even though they technically consist of like they
18:49
Speaker 1: are motion pictures. When I say movie, I mean sort
18:53
Speaker 1: of the big, fun spectacle where we're not supposed to
18:59
Speaker 1: get any any deep life lessons or anything. messages. Although
19:04
Speaker 1: I think that there are some really heartfelt, intelligent, thoughtful
19:08
Speaker 1: moments in this film. It's not like it's just an
19:10
Speaker 1: empty bubblegum machine of chewing sugar. But today, Hollywood is
19:16
Speaker 1: struggling to produce a film that has what? First of all,
19:21
Speaker 1: the entire family can see the film. Honestly, there's nothing
19:25
Speaker 1: in this movie that grandma, except for a few seconds, maybe,
19:29
Speaker 1: you know, I mean, If you recall the poster, the
19:33
Speaker 1: poster of the film and the trailer was a little
19:38
Speaker 1: bit risque trying to attract, I think, the younger boy crowd.
19:42
Speaker 1: But there's nothing really, really here compared to modern movies
19:46
Speaker 1: that would make any member of a family walk out
19:49
Speaker 1: in disgust. So it was family accessible. Maybe grandma didn't
19:52
Speaker 1: go back to watch the film eight times, but like
19:55
Speaker 1: grandma could have taken some younger kids there and maybe
19:58
Speaker 1: covered their eyes for like, 30 seconds and they would
20:01
Speaker 1: have just as much enjoyed the film and then you
20:04
Speaker 1: mentioned the troika now i in 1975 i was also
20:09
Speaker 1: watching reruns of a television show which i loved called
20:13
Speaker 1: star trek and one of the great strengths of star
20:16
Speaker 1: trek was a plots but also b they had this
20:20
Speaker 1: troika of kirk spock and mccoy who sort of embodied
20:25
Speaker 1: different parts of the human psyche and mind you know
20:29
Speaker 1: sort of Action, decisiveness, logic and reason and empathy and
20:35
Speaker 1: sympathy and humanity. And I even remember in my very
20:40
Speaker 1: unadvanced film critical stance of 1975 going like, wow, these
20:45
Speaker 1: three characters played by these three actors, they play off
20:49
Speaker 1: against each other so well. Like the one plus one
20:54
Speaker 1: plus one equals sixty three. in terms of resonance with
20:58
Speaker 1: like I understand the motivation of this character and everybody
21:01
Speaker 1: gets their little speech of course famous Quint's speech there
21:04
Speaker 1: but everybody gets their Dustin Hoffman's character comes off as
21:08
Speaker 1: a jerk at first but you realize he's just a
21:09
Speaker 1: really super focused scientist and like The police chief has
21:13
Speaker 1: his own worries, like is the town going to go bankrupt,
21:16
Speaker 1: but he's responsible for people. You don't get a huge backstory.
21:20
Speaker 1: Quint is really the only backstory you get only for
21:24
Speaker 1: five minutes, probably the most famous five minutes of exposition
21:28
Speaker 1: maybe in the history of movies, right? Yeah. of why
21:31
Speaker 1: I'm here.
21:33
Speaker 2: I would agree with that. I mean, there's so many
21:38
Speaker 2: directions that this movie has been aped and influences drawn from,
21:45
Speaker 2: and that scene is one of them. I can think
21:47
Speaker 2: of at least two or three movies just offhand that
21:50
Speaker 2: have done a version of that scene. And not in
21:53
Speaker 2: another movie where it's people hunting after sharks. I mean,
21:56
Speaker 2: one of the ones I always think of is Kevin
21:58
Speaker 2: Smith in Chasing Amy. literally has a scene where it's
22:01
Speaker 2: people comparing scars, but it's from sexual encounters as opposed
22:06
Speaker 2: to encounters with wild animals. And it's like, again, like
22:09
Speaker 2: you can see where people look at one aspect of
22:13
Speaker 2: this movie and take away from it. It's, that's not
22:15
Speaker 2: even the whole movie. That's just like you said, like,
22:17
Speaker 2: One scene taken out of complete context, but the understanding of,
22:21
Speaker 2: like you said, if you want to humanize characters very quickly,
22:24
Speaker 2: here's an easy way to do it. And it humanizes
22:27
Speaker 2: everyone immediately. I mean, genuinely, characters that might have seemed
22:32
Speaker 2: unsavory beforehand, after that scene, you are rooting for them
22:36
Speaker 2: more or less the rest.
22:37
Speaker 1: Of the film. Yes, it's also a reminder, and this
22:39
Speaker 1: is why looking at it 50 plus years later is interesting,
22:43
Speaker 1: because it's hard to do it right. I mean, you
22:46
Speaker 1: can take script writing 101 and, okay, yeah, you know,
22:50
Speaker 1: in order to give the audience a sense of who
22:54
Speaker 1: the character is and sort of sympathy for the character,
22:57
Speaker 1: even though they're sort of gruff and tough and maybe
23:00
Speaker 1: don't come off as sympathetic right away, I'll give them...
23:03
Speaker 1: a sad backstory. And how many hundred films have we watched?
23:08
Speaker 1: What really felt like a forced backstory, you know, like,
23:12
Speaker 1: and yeah, I was orphaned because something happened or whatever.
23:16
Speaker 1: It just, maybe it's the writing. Maybe it's the acting.
23:19
Speaker 1: Maybe it's the backdrop, but like that moment there where
23:23
Speaker 1: Quint is talking about a real life event. I feel
23:27
Speaker 1: as a historian, I have to, we'll talk about this more.
23:30
Speaker 1: There's so many problems with that as history. As a
23:35
Speaker 1: historian once said, the only thing historically correct in that
23:38
Speaker 1: speech is the ship did sink.
23:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's about it, folks. But it makes for fun
23:47
Speaker 2: storytelling out of context, right?
23:49
Speaker 1: It works. And this goes back to this idea of
23:51
Speaker 1: like a movie, a complete movie. And my sort of
23:56
Speaker 1: starter position of required viewing is like, okay, we say, hey,
24:02
Speaker 1: Tom– Stitchu is the best boy and Daryl Stimp is
24:08
Speaker 1: the grip. And boy, the grip in this film and
24:11
Speaker 1: the best boy did a fantastic job, right? And then
24:14
Speaker 1: we can move on to the director and the screenwriter's
24:17
Speaker 1: But like everybody, I have not over the years, I've read,
24:21
Speaker 1: it's funny, at the time I went back and I
24:24
Speaker 1: tried to find like Time Magazine, New York Times, things
24:27
Speaker 1: like that. I don't think there was a completely negative review,
24:32
Speaker 1: like this is a bad movie. I think there were
24:34
Speaker 1: some people who, you know, there were some people who
24:37
Speaker 1: just at that time just couldn't accept it. Like any
24:40
Speaker 1: violence in a movie or child being hurt in a movie.
24:45
Speaker 1: I don't think any negative point about this film has
24:51
Speaker 1: sustained itself after all these years. Nobody still says, well, yeah,
24:55
Speaker 1: it was a perfect movie except for the performance of so-and-so.
24:58
Speaker 1: And even the one flaw that's talked, I put it
25:02
Speaker 1: in your quotes, the flaw that's talked about, this goes
25:05
Speaker 1: to this idea of, like, do we really care, except
25:10
Speaker 1: as interesting backstory about the production of art, or do
25:15
Speaker 1: we only care what's in the gallery, right? So, like,
25:18
Speaker 1: if I go to a museum, as we did with
25:20
Speaker 1: the movie A Care of Carol's House Dreams, which we
25:23
Speaker 1: also reviewed, and a character goes to an art museum,
25:26
Speaker 1: and sees a Van Gogh painting, they may have heard
25:29
Speaker 1: stories like, oh, Van Gogh, you know, he was so troubled,
25:33
Speaker 1: and he eventually probably killed himself, and things like that.
25:36
Speaker 1: And that does affect our viewing to some extent. But
25:40
Speaker 1: the art is still the art. And our review of Waterworld,
25:44
Speaker 1: does being troubled actually mean anything? Because we know so
25:49
Speaker 1: much great art in the history of the world, whether
25:51
Speaker 1: it's great novels, or great paintings was not produced by
25:56
Speaker 1: happy people working nine to five, enjoying themselves and just
26:02
Speaker 1: doing the art without any difficulties or stress or strain.
26:05
Speaker 1: Great art is often the result of crisis. And Why
26:10
Speaker 1: can't filmmaking be like that? Why can't we just say, oh, yeah,
26:15
Speaker 1: it was the effect. Maybe the word he troubled should
26:18
Speaker 1: be banned. It should be just like, yeah, it was
26:21
Speaker 1: a tough gig trying to make that film. But look
26:23
Speaker 1: what's on the screen. I mean, at the end of
26:25
Speaker 1: the day, that's what we should be doing.
26:26
Speaker 2: Right.
26:26
Speaker 1: Look what's on the screen.
26:28
Speaker 2: Well, and that's I think you're to your point, like
26:30
Speaker 2: at the end of the day, there are so many
26:32
Speaker 2: films that we can talk about that are troubled and
26:35
Speaker 2: then they come out and they're amazing. And it didn't
26:37
Speaker 2: matter that there was a troubled production and there are
26:40
Speaker 2: troubled anything. And I don't I don't disagree with you.
26:43
Speaker 2: I think the word troubled ultimately serves no purpose in
26:45
Speaker 2: terms of making art. Because I think, you know, I
26:50
Speaker 2: think it's more surprising if there isn't anything troubling about it.
26:54
Speaker 2: Because then it's like, well, what was the motivator then
26:58
Speaker 2: for making art in that capacity? Because like you said,
27:01
Speaker 2: I have always heard and I've always kind of assumed,
27:03
Speaker 2: based on just my lifetime as a 36-year-old, good art
27:07
Speaker 2: comes from bad times. The best art comes from bad times.
27:11
Speaker 2: When things are good, I don't know what people really
27:13
Speaker 2: have to complain about. Broadly, I mean, again, you know,
27:16
Speaker 2: it's hard because again, like, Time's good and bad is
27:19
Speaker 2: so subjective now, but in a broad sentiment, look at post-9-11.
27:24
Speaker 2: A lot of really interesting, exciting art came out that
27:27
Speaker 2: was coming out because of the time and place that
27:30
Speaker 2: it was coming out in, and I don't know if
27:31
Speaker 2: some of those things would have existed the way that
27:33
Speaker 2: they did if not for the... time and place that
27:37
Speaker 2: this country was dealing with then in in the early
27:40
Speaker 2: 2000s and i think that that's you know i think
27:43
Speaker 2: that's unfair for a film like jaws to have a
27:47
Speaker 2: you know it was troubled being part of its explanation
27:51
Speaker 2: for why it may not have been good but it
27:52
Speaker 2: also again like you said if we're going to have
27:54
Speaker 2: to talk about it then we have to talk about
27:56
Speaker 2: the fact that it being troubled doesn't matter in this case.
28:00
Speaker 2: It actually seems more of a further justification or qualification
28:04
Speaker 2: of the quality of the film. Because this film, like
28:08
Speaker 2: I said, it's not one of those things where it's like, well,
28:10
Speaker 2: it was in development hell for 15 years and it
28:13
Speaker 2: had 300 screenwriters attached to it and four different directors
28:17
Speaker 2: and three different leads and it finally came out and
28:19
Speaker 2: it ended up being pretty good. But Look at how
28:22
Speaker 2: many people were involved. And, you know, I've had that
28:24
Speaker 2: conversation before where it's the too many cooks in the
28:26
Speaker 2: kitchen conversation. And we've all, we can talk about movies
28:30
Speaker 2: that are like that, that have like eight names on
28:31
Speaker 2: the script. And they're just a complete mess. I think
28:34
Speaker 2: it's something like you spoke about Stephen King, that Dark
28:37
Speaker 2: Tower film that came out a couple of years ago
28:40
Speaker 2: that was supposed to be directed by Ron Howard. And
28:42
Speaker 2: then it wasn't directed by Ron Howard. And it was
28:44
Speaker 2: supposed to have somebody else in it. And then Ed
28:45
Speaker 2: Idris Elba. And it's just like, Jesus, like, you know...
28:48
Speaker 2: The movie came out and it was awful and nobody
28:50
Speaker 2: was surprised because it took like 10 years for the
28:52
Speaker 2: movie to be made and there were like 8 million
28:54
Speaker 2: different people involved. And that's a that's a different kind
28:57
Speaker 2: of trouble. Like the kind of troubled with Jaws is
29:01
Speaker 2: the kind of trouble that I would say is more
29:03
Speaker 2: akin to like an apocalypse now where it's like what
29:05
Speaker 2: they were doing to make the film was the stressor point.
29:10
Speaker 2: And it wasn't the kind of behind the scenes shenanigans,
29:13
Speaker 2: which does happen from time to time. This was a
29:16
Speaker 2: kind of in front of the camera. Everybody was seeing
29:18
Speaker 2: this happening. This wasn't like a unknown quantity. And that's, oh,
29:23
Speaker 2: we don't understand what was going on. Like there was,
29:25
Speaker 2: you know, behind the scenes trouble and tension between people. No,
29:29
Speaker 2: the shark wasn't working in the film. The shark was
29:31
Speaker 2: notoriously not working. And it was working. It was not
29:35
Speaker 2: working to a capacity where they had to, like we've
29:38
Speaker 2: already talked about, work around. around it and use it
29:41
Speaker 2: as somewhat of a limitation for the shark. the filmmaking. I,
29:45
Speaker 2: you know, it's funny. I, I've been watching a lot
29:47
Speaker 2: of Godzilla films and next month, uh, I'm going to
29:50
Speaker 2: be covering Godzilla minus one and minus zero for October
29:55
Speaker 2: and 2014's Godzilla actually takes a lot from Jaws, which
30:00
Speaker 2: is very funny because that film has a massive budget.
30:03
Speaker 2: There's no reason or need to not show Godzilla, but
30:06
Speaker 2: yet that movie takes takes the Jaws route and doesn't
30:09
Speaker 2: show Godzilla for like the first hour of the movie.
30:12
Speaker 2: And it's funny, like I have mixed feelings about that
30:15
Speaker 2: movie because I don't think that movie there's a lot
30:17
Speaker 2: of problems with that movie. I'm not a big fan, honestly,
30:21
Speaker 2: of Aaron Taylor Johnson, and I don't really like the
30:23
Speaker 2: American version of Godzilla. But what's very funny to me
30:26
Speaker 2: is the reason Jaws did that is because of a
30:29
Speaker 2: limitation that existed organically within the creation of this movie.
30:34
Speaker 2: Not because it was a choice that Steven Spielberg made.
30:36
Speaker 2: It was because we can't get the shark to work
30:39
Speaker 2: as much as we want it. So we just kind
30:41
Speaker 2: of have to work around it. And what's funny is
30:43
Speaker 2: you look at that Godzilla film from 2014. It's like, well,
30:46
Speaker 2: we're inspired by Jaws. We're inspired by Jaws. So that's
30:49
Speaker 2: why we're not showing Godzilla. You have like a $ 200
30:52
Speaker 2: million budget. Show Godzilla. I appreciate that you're inspired by Jaws,
30:56
Speaker 2: but Jaws was doing that not by choice, but by
31:00
Speaker 2: organic creation. And it's stuff like that where it's like
31:03
Speaker 2: we have lionized and kind of canonized these things that
31:06
Speaker 2: have happened in these movies from the 70s and 80s.
31:09
Speaker 2: that have now become kind of filmic shorthand in terms
31:13
Speaker 2: of having a discussion about a monster movie. Well, they're
31:16
Speaker 2: not going to show the monster for two-thirds of the film.
31:18
Speaker 2: That's just like Jaws. But Jaws doing that was organic.
31:22
Speaker 2: It wasn't intentional. It was intentional, but it wasn't a
31:25
Speaker 2: choice that they wanted to make. It was a choice
31:27
Speaker 2: they had to make. And that, again, I think goes
31:29
Speaker 2: back to why we're talking about this movie. This movie
31:32
Speaker 2: has multiple layers of kind of meta-influence, influence and meta-influence
31:38
Speaker 2: on the industry as a whole, because again, I just
31:41
Speaker 2: sat and talked for several minutes about the meta nature
31:44
Speaker 2: of introducing a shark in this movie that was then
31:46
Speaker 2: copied and aped by other creature feature movies that have
31:49
Speaker 2: come out in the subsequent 50 years since. That has
31:53
Speaker 2: nothing to do with more or less anything that the
31:55
Speaker 2: movie is talking about specifically, but more a thing that
31:58
Speaker 2: the movie has chosen to do because of the corner
32:01
Speaker 2: that Spielberg and the rest of the filmmaking team was
32:05
Speaker 2: backed into because a giant plastic shark wouldn't.
32:08
Speaker 1: Yeah. And you mentioned earlier about how we really haven't
32:13
Speaker 1: had a successful shark movie since then. I mean, we've
32:17
Speaker 1: had some variations of it like Megalodon movie we've had
32:23
Speaker 1: there was a sort of unintentionally hilarious Richard Harris movie
32:27
Speaker 1: orca where they had a killer whale.
32:30
Speaker 2: Which I would love to talk about, by the way.
32:32
Speaker 2: I saw the preview for it a couple weeks ago,
32:34
Speaker 2: and I was like, what is this movie? It looks insane.
32:38
Speaker 1: It is insane. Part of it is, and this is
32:42
Speaker 1: also something we can look back as the years go
32:45
Speaker 1: by there, our attitude has changed. And Peter Benchley, for example,
32:52
Speaker 1: has expressed tremendous regret because millions of sharks died needlessly.
32:58
Speaker 1: because of this movie. He was an appreciator of the
33:02
Speaker 1: natural world. He didn't mean to say like, you know,
33:05
Speaker 1: everybody has to be terrified of sharks. This is something
33:08
Speaker 1: maybe we have to remind people is that like, wow,
33:12
Speaker 1: everybody was seeing a shark. I mean, people swimming everywhere
33:15
Speaker 1: were seeing a shark and suddenly shark attacks became massive news.
33:21
Speaker 1: I mean, there were shark attacks and and every year
33:24
Speaker 1: there are people killed by sharks, but gosh, how many
33:27
Speaker 1: people are killed by car accidents compared to how many
33:30
Speaker 1: people are killed by sharks and how many millions of
33:32
Speaker 1: sharks have been killed for no reason or for some
33:36
Speaker 1: delicacy food? I think part of what we need to
33:40
Speaker 1: address is that there's an attitude that has changed towards animals.
33:45
Speaker 1: And the way you can see that is if you
33:47
Speaker 1: go back and look at the pulps, the pulp stories
33:52
Speaker 1: and pulp books of the 1920s and 30s. I'm thinking
33:55
Speaker 1: of like Robert E. Howard and Conan and that kind
33:59
Speaker 1: of genre. It's almost all the time, the moment your
34:04
Speaker 1: hero sees like a tiger or an ape or an
34:08
Speaker 1: elephant immediately gets into a battle to the death, right?
34:13
Speaker 1: And audiences back then saw it. the giant snake or
34:17
Speaker 1: the giant anything as like the enemy of man. And yeah,
34:21
Speaker 1: I gave you go back in human history enough. And today,
34:24
Speaker 1: you know, there are people who are killed by wild
34:26
Speaker 1: tigers today in India. And there, there are people who
34:29
Speaker 1: are killed by sharks, but I think it looking back
34:33
Speaker 1: through the lens now, like, We're sympathetic for the animal.
34:37
Speaker 1: The animal is just doing what it's programmed to do.
34:41
Speaker 1: And so it was a film of its time. I
34:45
Speaker 1: think you'd have to have some sort of alien monster,
34:49
Speaker 1: you know, or something like that, like came out of
34:51
Speaker 1: a spaceship. I don't remember my psyche. Maybe I was
34:56
Speaker 1: an animal lover at the time, too. In fact... There
34:58
Speaker 1: was one person in my friend group, and she said,
35:02
Speaker 1: why do they have to kill the shark? Why can't
35:03
Speaker 1: they just keep everybody out of the water and let
35:06
Speaker 1: it wander away or something like that? Which actually is
35:09
Speaker 1: the recommendation, I believe, today. It's why you hear about
35:13
Speaker 1: very few shark attacks. So it was a film of
35:16
Speaker 1: its time, and this is not a flaw, but it
35:20
Speaker 1: It is an example of like it is a sub
35:23
Speaker 1: genre of one because, yeah, we have monster movies today.
35:27
Speaker 1: We've had over the years giant. I mean, after Jaws,
35:30
Speaker 1: they tried everything right. The giant bear, the giant giant orca,
35:34
Speaker 1: you know, whatever rampaging this. Oh, my gosh. There was
35:38
Speaker 1: a film with Charles Bronson, The White Buffalo. You know,
35:41
Speaker 1: with like a ghost giant buffalo.
35:43
Speaker 2: And they made how many more Jaws films after this
35:47
Speaker 2: one of, again, a giant shark menacing either Roy Scheider
35:52
Speaker 2: or other people in other films. And those films go
35:57
Speaker 2: over like a wet fart, like a literal wet fart
36:00
Speaker 2: in church.
36:01
Speaker 1: That is very interesting, isn't it? Like there are some
36:04
Speaker 1: films which have, I mean, for good or bad, I
36:07
Speaker 1: actually think for good, there were two more Star Wars movies.
36:10
Speaker 1: And then for me, there was actually only, you know,
36:13
Speaker 1: only Rogue One, which I hope we get a chance
36:15
Speaker 1: to talk about at some point, was the only thing
36:18
Speaker 1: that added. And he said, and after that, the franchise
36:21
Speaker 1: faded away. For me, as a Star Wars early fan,
36:24
Speaker 1: for Jaws, I think Jaws was complete. And that's something
36:28
Speaker 1: else to say is that sometimes a piece of art
36:31
Speaker 1: is complete. Like they're, It was simply a cash grab
36:35
Speaker 1: to have Jaws 2 or Jaws 3 or Orca or
36:40
Speaker 1: the other variations thereof. There was nothing new to say
36:44
Speaker 1: or add. I mean, I think, I don't know, somebody,
36:48
Speaker 1: maybe it wasn't me, made a joke in like after
36:51
Speaker 1: Jaws 4? Was it? Yeah. Was there a 4?
36:54
Speaker 2: I was about to say, you are forgetting that there
36:57
Speaker 2: was a fourth Jaws that featured Michael Caine in the
37:00
Speaker 2: Bahamas of all places.
37:00
Speaker 1: Oh, right, right, right, in the Bahamas or something. Like,
37:03
Speaker 1: oh my God.
37:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.
37:04
Speaker 1: And I think I made a joke back then. I
37:08
Speaker 1: don't know where I did. Maybe I made it in
37:09
Speaker 1: class that, yeah, what we need is an origin story, right?
37:14
Speaker 1: Like Quint and Hooper and those guys are like seven-year-olds
37:20
Speaker 1: and there's a baby shark. Did they get into a
37:23
Speaker 1: tussle with, I mean, it.
37:24
Speaker 2: Just, I mean, I'm kind of surprised given the glut
37:27
Speaker 2: of those origin story films we got in the early
37:30
Speaker 2: two thousands post something like phantom menace that we didn't
37:34
Speaker 2: get a jaws origin story. I mean, we got origin
37:36
Speaker 2: stories for practically everything else. We got origin stories for
37:40
Speaker 2: Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter and it's like, I, we,
37:44
Speaker 2: every character that has ever lived, every villain of note
37:47
Speaker 2: does not need an origin story to, just to explain
37:51
Speaker 2: why they are the way that they are, the way
37:52
Speaker 2: that they are in some of these cases is completely
37:56
Speaker 2: just part of their nature. Like you said, in this movie,
37:59
Speaker 2: the shark is just doing what sharks do. Maybe it's
38:02
Speaker 2: being a tad more aggressive than a real life shark
38:05
Speaker 2: would be. And, you know, that's kind of up for debate,
38:08
Speaker 2: I guess. I mean, again, I think the shark in
38:10
Speaker 2: this movie is seemingly more aggressive than one might assume
38:13
Speaker 2: a shark would be. Like you said, It's very easy.
38:16
Speaker 2: We know now with science how to avoid shark attacks
38:19
Speaker 2: with not like scientific precision, but it's easier now to
38:22
Speaker 2: understand how to avoid shark attacks in 1975. Again, like
38:27
Speaker 2: it's such a weird movie in a way, because like
38:29
Speaker 2: you said, it's it's a it's a film about man
38:31
Speaker 2: versus the natural world and man conquers the natural world
38:36
Speaker 2: in the end. But I feel like that's maybe like
38:39
Speaker 2: the one thing about this movie that I don't It's
38:41
Speaker 2: not that I would hold against it, but it's like
38:43
Speaker 2: that is the Spielberg of it all is there's no
38:45
Speaker 2: cynicism in this movie whatsoever. Like man conquers the natural
38:49
Speaker 2: world in the end. And that's that. Like there's no
38:52
Speaker 2: complexity to that ending in Jaws. Like man conquers the
38:55
Speaker 2: natural world and puts the natural world in its place.
38:58
Speaker 2: And sure, he took one lick along the way, but
39:01
Speaker 2: ultimately two of the three characters survives, which means they
39:04
Speaker 2: came out on top. They blew the shark up. The
39:07
Speaker 2: shark is now dead. Sure, does a shark come back
39:09
Speaker 2: in Jaws 2 and 3 and 4?
39:11
Speaker 1: Yeah.
39:11
Speaker 2: But like you said, Jaws is such a complete experience
39:16
Speaker 2: that there was no point at the at any point
39:18
Speaker 2: in Jaws where I was like, I want to know
39:20
Speaker 2: what happens after. Like, tell me about more about what
39:23
Speaker 2: happens like after after this film. I'm like, I understand whatever. Like,
39:26
Speaker 2: there doesn't need to be anything else here. I understand
39:29
Speaker 2: what the film was getting. me to. And that's the
39:31
Speaker 2: other thing. Like, I think what makes this film such
39:33
Speaker 2: a success is that it's not that it's an uncomplex film,
39:38
Speaker 2: but it is a film that is existing for, I
39:41
Speaker 2: wouldn't say the lowest common denominator, but if we're going
39:43
Speaker 2: to use a mathematical term, It is trying to appeal
39:46
Speaker 2: to the broadest audience possible, which is what makes it
39:50
Speaker 2: the proto Hollywood blockbuster. And and, you know, you mentioned
39:53
Speaker 2: and I wanted to circle back to this. You mentioned
39:56
Speaker 2: were there any negative reviews at the time? So there
39:59
Speaker 2: there weren't really. But the usual kind of people come
40:03
Speaker 2: to mind. Pauline Kael had a mixed review of the film. Shocking.
40:07
Speaker 2: said no one. Because again, she was kind of lamenting
40:11
Speaker 2: the fact that this was setting the tone for future films, a.k.a. blockbusters.
40:16
Speaker 2: Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times said, quote, a
40:20
Speaker 2: coarse-grained and exploitative work which depends on excess for its impact. Quote,
40:26
Speaker 2: assure it is a bore, awkwardly staged and lumpily written.
40:30
Speaker 2: A lot of the criticism for the film that I
40:33
Speaker 2: could find really takes to task the human being. of
40:37
Speaker 2: the film and not really the shark parts. The shark
40:40
Speaker 2: parts of the film are the interesting part. The parts
40:42
Speaker 2: on the island with the human drama is the least
40:45
Speaker 2: interesting part. William Pector of Commentary said, a mind-numbing riposte
40:51
Speaker 2: of sensated gluttons was his description of Jaws. Which, I mean, again,
40:56
Speaker 2: I feel like some of this is also just that
40:58
Speaker 2: I refuse to allow myself to be entertained notion that
41:02
Speaker 2: some critics just inhabit. It's like, I will... I will
41:05
Speaker 2: deride a film for one of its goals being entertaining
41:08
Speaker 2: and it being successful at entertaining is something I can
41:11
Speaker 2: deride it for. Because somehow something's goal of being entertaining
41:17
Speaker 2: means it can't be heady or complex. And I'm not
41:20
Speaker 2: saying Jaws isn't heady or complex. I'm not sure it is.
41:22
Speaker 2: But I don't think being entertaining disqualifies something from being deep.
41:28
Speaker 2: But I have seen that criticism by certain critics where
41:31
Speaker 2: it's like, well, this is a popcorn movie. And it's like,
41:33
Speaker 2: and if that was the intention of the film, why
41:35
Speaker 2: is that a failure?
41:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's funny. You're reading those reviews. And I was
41:40
Speaker 1: thinking about how We largely don't have the highbrow movie
41:46
Speaker 1: critic anymore as a phenomenon. I mean, I'm sure somebody
41:50
Speaker 1: still writes the reviews for The New York Times and
41:52
Speaker 1: The Washington Post and Wall Street Journal and things like that.
41:56
Speaker 1: But the cultural impact of a review by a major
42:01
Speaker 1: newspaper critic. is nil now compared to a youtuber who
42:06
Speaker 1: has three million people watching so we've sort of there's
42:10
Speaker 1: all this the french revolution occurred in 1975 you could
42:14
Speaker 1: say in that jaws was what you could argue was
42:17
Speaker 1: one of the first critic proof movies right i mean
42:21
Speaker 1: did any 12 year old boy go oh i see
42:24
Speaker 1: charles champlain of the los angeles times said oh well
42:28
Speaker 1: i i can't watch this movie i wouldn't be seen
42:31
Speaker 1: there with my school chums you know i'd be seen
42:34
Speaker 1: as uh declasse or something that as a category that
42:40
Speaker 1: that's that's what gets me is i think a lot
42:43
Speaker 1: of those people in paul and kill especially was had
42:46
Speaker 1: this problem where i don't think she recognized that there
42:49
Speaker 1: were things as genres or that they were movies aimed
42:53
Speaker 1: at different audiences which weren't her and her friends you
42:56
Speaker 1: know she's very famous for this comment that she made
43:00
Speaker 1: after Richard Nixon was, I forgot whether it was elected
43:04
Speaker 1: or reelected, and she said, I don't understand how Nixon won.
43:07
Speaker 1: Nobody I know voted for Nixon. And to some extent,
43:10
Speaker 1: that was her problem as a film reviewer, is that
43:13
Speaker 1: it's not like she went to the movie theater and
43:16
Speaker 1: saw me and 12 of my friends there and said, hey, kids,
43:20
Speaker 1: I'm sort of curious, why did you like this movie?
43:23
Speaker 1: She just had her Friday tea, you know, with her
43:26
Speaker 1: New York Soho friends and, you know, tried to be
43:31
Speaker 1: as highbrow as possible. I don't mean to to slander
43:37
Speaker 1: the dead, but I don't think she was reviewing the
43:40
Speaker 1: movie as much as what she thought people wanted her
43:44
Speaker 1: to say about the movie. And maybe that's another development,
43:47
Speaker 1: is that we, and I think it's a positive one,
43:50
Speaker 1: is we're willing to accept that there are small art
43:54
Speaker 1: house movies that succeed in one way and we're willing
43:58
Speaker 1: to accept that there are large big screen movies that
44:03
Speaker 1: succeed in another way. As I've said before, I don't
44:08
Speaker 1: think I want to watch the Minecraft movie, but I
44:10
Speaker 1: salute the Minecraft movie for being fabulously successful for the
44:14
Speaker 1: 12-year-old boy audience in a way that movies haven't been
44:18
Speaker 1: for quite some time and congratulations.
44:21
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, I would say the same thing about, you know,
44:23
Speaker 2: to look at something like Five Nights at Freddy's, that
44:26
Speaker 2: the first film that came out a couple of years ago,
44:28
Speaker 2: critically panned into the ground. I don't think a single
44:31
Speaker 2: critic enjoyed it for the most part. It made so
44:34
Speaker 2: much money, they made a sequel. And then they made
44:36
Speaker 2: another sequel that made a ton of money and wasn't
44:39
Speaker 2: any more well-reviewed than the first film. And they're going
44:41
Speaker 2: to make a third film because the second and the
44:42
Speaker 2: first film made a bunch of money. How can you
44:45
Speaker 2: say that that film is a failure? I used to
44:47
Speaker 2: sit and lament the Transformers films as lowbrow filmmaking. And
44:51
Speaker 2: I'm not saying they're highbrow filmmaking, but if the intention
44:54
Speaker 2: of the filmmaker is to make a film that's entertaining,
44:57
Speaker 2: that makes money, that appeals to the summer blockbuster crowd,
45:02
Speaker 2: I don't think at any point I could say that
45:04
Speaker 2: those films weren't successful until they just stopped making money,
45:08
Speaker 2: which was the intention of the filmmakers. I'm not saying
45:11
Speaker 2: that a film whose intention is to make money is
45:14
Speaker 2: not art or doesn't have artistic value, but there are
45:18
Speaker 2: plenty of reasons why people make art and not every
45:21
Speaker 2: reason is The pursuit of artistic integrity. I can tell
45:25
Speaker 2: you that with absolute certainty that when we talked about
45:28
Speaker 2: Disclosure Day earlier this year, I was not trying to
45:31
Speaker 2: pursue artistic integrity by talking about that film. I knew
45:35
Speaker 2: that people would want to hear about it because it
45:36
Speaker 2: was a brand new movie. And I'm not a dingus.
45:39
Speaker 2: I know that a Steven Spielberg film that comes out
45:42
Speaker 2: in 2026 might have some people interested in hearing what
45:44
Speaker 2: I have to say about it. I'm not going to
45:46
Speaker 2: sit here and pretend like there was any other reason
45:48
Speaker 2: that I wanted to cover Disclosure Day because it wasn't
45:50
Speaker 2: because I wanted to see it. That's for sure. And
45:53
Speaker 2: that's my point about something like Jaws or, again, other
45:57
Speaker 2: summer blockbusters. So many critics could not get out of
46:01
Speaker 2: their own way for summer blockbuster films because, again, you can't...
46:05
Speaker 2: I'm not saying... And I think you kind of put
46:07
Speaker 2: it pretty well. I'm not saying that you can't critically review...
46:12
Speaker 2: a summer blockbuster but that kind of isn't the point
46:15
Speaker 2: like i guess for me a well-reviewed summer blockbuster probably
46:20
Speaker 2: has longer legs than a non-well-reviewed summer blockbuster does and
46:24
Speaker 2: especially of a certain time and place but a summer
46:28
Speaker 2: blockbuster being poorly reviewed does not mean it's not going
46:30
Speaker 2: to make money because a lot of those transformers films
46:34
Speaker 2: a lot of the marvel films Did not get good
46:36
Speaker 2: reviews and they still made a lot of money and
46:39
Speaker 2: that didn't stop people from showing up. Maybe it stopped
46:42
Speaker 2: some people, but those people are like swing voters. They
46:45
Speaker 2: were going to be on the fence anyways. The people
46:47
Speaker 2: that were going to see it are not influenced by
46:50
Speaker 2: the critics. The people that weren't going to see it
46:52
Speaker 2: might use the critics review as an example for why
46:57
Speaker 2: they didn't go see it. But again, in this time
47:00
Speaker 2: and place, like that's that is less. I guess it's
47:03
Speaker 2: maybe more a thing now than it was then. I
47:06
Speaker 2: don't know.
47:06
Speaker 1: I don't know.
47:08
Speaker 2: The space was so small. Then maybe it was a
47:10
Speaker 2: bigger deal. Then I feel now the reach is more
47:13
Speaker 2: that you as a critic can reach more people than
47:17
Speaker 2: those critics ever could. And so you do have more
47:20
Speaker 2: influence now. But back then, the pool was much smaller
47:23
Speaker 2: and pretty much the only people that were ever considered
47:25
Speaker 2: film critics were people that wrote for magazines or newspapers.
47:29
Speaker 2: That was it. There was no other. course of recourse
47:32
Speaker 2: to be a film critic, that there was no movie podcasting.
47:35
Speaker 2: So it was a film critic for a magazine or
47:38
Speaker 2: a newspaper or a newsletter or something like that. And
47:40
Speaker 2: that's about it. Or you made your own zine, but
47:44
Speaker 2: there was no place to share your opinions about film
47:47
Speaker 2: in a back and forth capacity like this. Even it
47:49
Speaker 2: was like you said, more or less a one sided conversation.
47:52
Speaker 2: And often with some critics, they They weren't looking to
47:57
Speaker 2: have a conversation as much as tell you what they thought.
48:00
Speaker 2: And that's that. They didn't want you to engage with
48:02
Speaker 2: their thinking at all. It's just this is how I feel.
48:06
Speaker 2: And this is what you should think as well. And
48:07
Speaker 2: that's that. It's like, all right, Pauline Kael. or Vincent
48:11
Speaker 2: Canby for that matter. Those are the two examples I
48:13
Speaker 2: always think of when it's like they, Cale, and then Canby,
48:16
Speaker 2: but Cale more so, couldn't get out of their own
48:19
Speaker 2: way because it was more important, like you said, to
48:21
Speaker 2: share what it is I feel about the film more
48:24
Speaker 2: than what the film is trying to get me to
48:27
Speaker 2: feel on its terms.
48:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as I grew older and I sort of
48:31
Speaker 1: aspired to do this myself and ended up doing it,
48:34
Speaker 1: I appreciated a well-written, well-thought-out criticism But it's interesting, by
48:41
Speaker 1: the standards of today, you could say, and I'm remembering
48:44
Speaker 1: people like Gene Shalit and then, of course, Siskel and
48:47
Speaker 1: Ebert at the movies on television. And I seem to
48:50
Speaker 1: remember there were some film reviewers on radio as well
48:53
Speaker 1: as magazine newspapers. To some extent, they were really limited. Whereas, like,
48:59
Speaker 1: for example, here, you and I are together. We can
49:02
Speaker 1: talk for two hours and cover a lot of subjects.
49:05
Speaker 1: You know, they only had, like, I don't know, 1,500
49:08
Speaker 1: words at most. That was a long review. Siskel and
49:12
Speaker 1: Ebert would review, I don't know, what was it, five
49:14
Speaker 1: to six movies for their half hour show and and
49:18
Speaker 1: which is a lot that's a lot of movies they
49:20
Speaker 1: have to sum up their thought i mean that's not
49:22
Speaker 1: really deep i mean you could say i mean again
49:25
Speaker 1: i respect them all of them did the again they
49:29
Speaker 1: had a genre right and they did what they felt
49:33
Speaker 1: they had to do within that genre uh.
49:36
Speaker 2: They were doing a certain thing by the end of
49:38
Speaker 2: their time as critics where people had an expectation of
49:41
Speaker 2: what they were doing and they were having to meet
49:43
Speaker 2: that expectation. There wasn't always an expectation with with Siskel
49:47
Speaker 2: and Ebert. But once the thumbs up, thumbs down started,
49:50
Speaker 2: that was the expectation. And that I have found thumbs up,
49:53
Speaker 2: thumbs down to be extremely regressive in terms of a
49:57
Speaker 2: rating system.
49:58
Speaker 1: We have much longer. We also have I wrote a
50:01
Speaker 1: book in 2008 called Blog Wars about the rise of
50:05
Speaker 1: social media in politics. And I was talking about that. Yeah,
50:09
Speaker 1: there's there. There are obviously many negatives and we see
50:12
Speaker 1: many of them today. But there it is something that
50:15
Speaker 1: before the only people who could speak on political issues.
50:19
Speaker 1: were people who owned the press or who were in
50:22
Speaker 1: government or running for office or worked for a political party,
50:26
Speaker 1: for good and ill, you know, pretty much anybody can
50:29
Speaker 1: post whatever the hell they want. Sorry for using that term.
50:34
Speaker 1: And that's good and ill. There's bad parts about that.
50:36
Speaker 1: But we are supposed to be in a democracy. And so...
50:40
Speaker 1: people getting to speak their mind can't be all bad.
50:44
Speaker 1: And in terms of film, what I like is that,
50:48
Speaker 1: you know, if you watched one of those reviews, like
50:50
Speaker 1: if I, I, I remember watching Cisco and Ebert review
50:54
Speaker 1: John Carpenter's, the thing in 1982, 1982. Yeah. And they,
51:00
Speaker 1: they gave it a really searingly bad review. Like they
51:04
Speaker 1: shredded that movie, as I recall, both of them. And
51:07
Speaker 1: I had seen it and I liked it. I was,
51:13
Speaker 1: I think, a college student at that. And I was
51:15
Speaker 1: taking film classes. And I wanted to write to them
51:19
Speaker 1: and say, well, you know, I think there's some things
51:20
Speaker 1: you missed in that movie. And there wasn't really a
51:23
Speaker 1: venue to do that unless I wanted to write my
51:26
Speaker 1: own article and try to submit it to a paper
51:29
Speaker 1: or something like that. So I just, I feel to
51:31
Speaker 1: some extent we're at a time where people can go
51:34
Speaker 1: back and forth and, and somebody can, you know, in
51:37
Speaker 1: the wide world of podcasting or the wild world of
51:39
Speaker 1: YouTube reviews, people can make up their own mind. I
51:42
Speaker 1: do want to emphasize that JAWS created this template that
51:47
Speaker 1: to some extent we can't follow anymore because of the
51:51
Speaker 1: nature of the change of the industry. I go back to, yeah, they,
51:57
Speaker 1: Jaws was popular and was a blockbuster, but it did
52:02
Speaker 1: so in a way that the formula seems to have
52:06
Speaker 1: been lost. Like how many movies today, like I will
52:09
Speaker 1: go online and I'll see people like, or really love
52:13
Speaker 1: a big, big budget movie that came out that maybe
52:16
Speaker 1: I didn't. But then I noticed when I look at
52:20
Speaker 1: each week, the box office, it's down 30, 40%. So
52:26
Speaker 1: what does that mean? That means that the people who
52:28
Speaker 1: say they love this movie, maybe, maybe went to see
52:32
Speaker 1: it once and then never saw it again, except maybe
52:36
Speaker 1: they waited for it to come out on streaming. So
52:39
Speaker 1: it's like the word love had a different meaning in
52:43
Speaker 1: 1975 than apparently it does today. And I've stood in
52:46
Speaker 1: front of a class of students And of course, we
52:49
Speaker 1: have students of all ages. But for my 18-year-old students,
52:52
Speaker 1: I've said, what's the last movie that you really loved,
52:56
Speaker 1: that you just thought was amazing? And of course, they're
52:59
Speaker 1: happy to talk about that. And I said, how many
53:01
Speaker 1: times did you go back to the theater to watch
53:04
Speaker 1: that movie again? Or if you saw it on streaming,
53:06
Speaker 1: how many times did you watch it again right away
53:09
Speaker 1: after you saw it? And very few people did that.
53:13
Speaker 1: I had a maximum of three or four And that
53:16
Speaker 1: was like five people out of 400. And even on streaming,
53:20
Speaker 1: people would say, I didn't watch it more than a
53:22
Speaker 1: couple of times. In fact, they were looking at me like,
53:25
Speaker 1: why would anybody re-watch that quickly? Over time, I've seen
53:30
Speaker 1: Jaws maybe 20 times now, because every four or five years,
53:34
Speaker 1: since the first time I saw it six or seven times,
53:37
Speaker 1: I've gone like, oh, let's see. I think I'll watch
53:38
Speaker 1: Jaws again. But it's interesting to me how the engagement...
53:43
Speaker 1: definitions have changed over these long long time and you know.
53:48
Speaker 2: I i went and i i looked at a list
53:51
Speaker 2: of films that have come out uh since and i
53:56
Speaker 2: i went and did some research on the kind of
53:58
Speaker 2: blockbusters that have come out since and the ones that
54:02
Speaker 2: have kind of come out in that mold of jaws
54:04
Speaker 2: where They came out, they're well-reviewed critically, and they're immensely
54:09
Speaker 2: successful financially. And so what's funny is 1976, there isn't
54:14
Speaker 2: really anything. Outlaw Josie Wales, maybe. But then from 77 on,
54:19
Speaker 2: it is a literal who's who of some of the most,
54:23
Speaker 2: I wouldn't say important movies, in some cases important, but
54:27
Speaker 2: some of the most notable films of all time.
54:29
Speaker 1: 77, Star Wars.
54:29
Speaker 2: 78, Grease.
54:29
Speaker 1: 79, Alien.
54:30
Speaker 2: 80, Empire Strikes Back. Technically also Airplane. 81, Raiders of
54:40
Speaker 2: the Lost Ark. 82, E.T., 83, Return of the Jedi, 84, Ghostbust, 85,
54:47
Speaker 2: Back to the Future, 86, Aliens, 87, Untouchables, 88, Who
54:52
Speaker 2: Framed Roger Rabbit, 89, The Last Crusade, aka Indiana Jones
54:56
Speaker 2: and the Last Crusade, and then 1990, Total Recall and
55:00
Speaker 2: Ghost as well, technically. And that's just into the 90s.
55:03
Speaker 2: It goes even further than that. A lot of those
55:07
Speaker 2: movies I just mentioned, on top of the fact that
55:09
Speaker 2: they're directed by Steven Spielberg, which is the crazy part,
55:11
Speaker 2: are movies that are still talked about, referenced, and given
55:15
Speaker 2: a large birth today, especially something like Ghostbusters or Star
55:20
Speaker 2: Wars or Indiana Jones or the Alien franchise. Those are
55:23
Speaker 2: still things that have a place in pop culture today,
55:27
Speaker 2: Which is crazy in and of itself because Jaws has
55:30
Speaker 2: no pop culture relevance in this day and age.
55:33
Speaker 1: Zero.
55:33
Speaker 2: Like, I mean, I'm not saying it's irrelevant, but it's
55:36
Speaker 2: a good movie. What relevancy does it have anymore is
55:39
Speaker 2: my question. That's the weird thing about Jaws. It's kind
55:43
Speaker 2: of like Back to the Future or E.T. I'm not
55:45
Speaker 2: sure what it's influencing anymore other than maybe... filmmaking as
55:49
Speaker 2: a whole. But there's not another Jaws film coming out.
55:53
Speaker 2: There's not another E.T. film coming out. Jaws as a
55:56
Speaker 2: franchise is just it. You know, you see some things
55:59
Speaker 2: from time to time, shark merchandise or other smaller things.
56:03
Speaker 2: But there's not Jaws Day every year like there is
56:06
Speaker 2: with Star Wars or Alien or all these other things
56:09
Speaker 2: like it's weird that Jaws in the pop culture conversation
56:13
Speaker 2: of 2026 doesn't really have a place for as successful
56:17
Speaker 2: and important as it is to filmmaking as a whole.
56:21
Speaker 2: It's not something that's mentioned now. And it's not because
56:24
Speaker 2: it's not a successful film or one that's not worth watching.
56:26
Speaker 2: It's just it seemingly doesn't have a place in the
56:29
Speaker 2: conversation anymore. because I think it's almost like it diffused
56:33
Speaker 2: into filmmaking and just kind of influences everything. And so
56:36
Speaker 2: if you want to point at any one thing, that's
56:38
Speaker 2: kind of hard to do now, I guess.
56:40
Speaker 1: I don't know.
56:40
Speaker 2: I want your take on that, because Jaws isn't talked
56:43
Speaker 2: about the way some of these other franchises still are.
56:46
Speaker 1: Your last summing up of Jaws' influence, I think, is
56:51
Speaker 1: the one that I take. I mean, I can see
56:54
Speaker 1: on this hit series that won a whole bunch of Emmys,
56:58
Speaker 1: Jaws influence with it, with those Bay, you got a toy,
57:01
Speaker 1: you know, somebody bought you, you a 36 year old man,
57:04
Speaker 1: a toy for, for Jaws. So you can see some
57:07
Speaker 1: like fit, you can see some influential elements in like
57:10
Speaker 1: plots that are adjacent or, or, referential, things like that.
57:16
Speaker 1: I think the last part of what you said is
57:18
Speaker 1: what's most important, especially in assessing, and we keep talking about, like, okay,
57:23
Speaker 1: what was the influence of the French Revolution, right? Essay question.
57:28
Speaker 1: That you may not be able to point and say, oh,
57:32
Speaker 1: you see in this movie, they're having, you know, Jason Bourne,
57:36
Speaker 1: and he's attacked by a giant shark. It isn't this
57:39
Speaker 1: sort of one-to-one thing. exemplar physical thing. It's more what
57:44
Speaker 1: you said of like a general influence on, I think
57:48
Speaker 1: that If you make a movie where there are protagonists
57:53
Speaker 1: who have to defeat a monster or some threat, you
57:57
Speaker 1: really have to sweat the characters of your troika or
58:01
Speaker 1: your central group. And it's a big problem to me
58:04
Speaker 1: that so many movies have very indifferent, lackluster, often boring
58:11
Speaker 1: sets of main characters who are just what they do.
58:14
Speaker 1: There's Joe, the guy with explosives, and Cindy, who's an
58:18
Speaker 1: amazing knife expert, and you can't name them. You can't
58:22
Speaker 1: name who they are. I can still tell you who
58:26
Speaker 1: Dustin Hoffman was playing. I can guess things about his
58:29
Speaker 1: character that we weren't told because the the delineation of
58:34
Speaker 1: the characters were so sharp. And likewise, the, the idea, like,
58:38
Speaker 1: I think even if a young filmmaker has never seen Jaws,
58:42
Speaker 1: the question of like, Hey, we, we have a monster.
58:44
Speaker 1: When should we show the monster? Should like the monster
58:47
Speaker 1: attack the teenagers in scene one? Or like, should we
58:50
Speaker 1: wait for 45 minutes and then reveal the monster? I
58:53
Speaker 1: think they may not have seen Jaws. It goes back
58:56
Speaker 1: to this famous observation by Sir Terry Pratchett, the great,
59:01
Speaker 1: humor fantasy writer who did the Discworld series, 40 books
59:05
Speaker 1: or something. And he said this thing about how Tolkien
59:09
Speaker 1: was for the world of fantasy, like Mount Fuji was
59:13
Speaker 1: in Japanese art, where in Japanese art for a certain period,
59:17
Speaker 1: you either made a painting of Mount Fuji or you
59:21
Speaker 1: referred to Mount Fuji, or if the absence of Mount
59:23
Speaker 1: Fuji was in itself a commentary on Mount Fuji. And Jaws,
59:29
Speaker 1: I think in anything that falls into the, I don't
59:32
Speaker 1: even know how to call the, but the terror-threatening monster genre,
59:39
Speaker 1: the adventure thriller genre where there's something beyond other people
59:44
Speaker 1: that we're fighting, Jaws is still there. And it may
59:47
Speaker 1: not be in the front of somebody's head creating, it
59:51
Speaker 1: may not even be in the back of their head,
59:53
Speaker 1: but it's in the water. That they're drinking and they're
59:56
Speaker 1: still responding to Jaws or rejecting Jaws, but it's still there.
1:00:02
Speaker 1: But you're absolutely right. It's not like in film class or...
1:00:07
Speaker 1: In a movie itself, they're saying in the foreground, hey, everybody,
1:00:11
Speaker 1: let's all remember Jaws.
1:00:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be Airplane 2 that does that at
1:00:15
Speaker 2: the beginning with the with the with the fin, with
1:00:19
Speaker 2: the with the fin of the I guess it's the
1:00:21
Speaker 2: the fin of the airplane is meant to mimic the
1:00:24
Speaker 2: fin of the shark and Jaws. I think it's like
1:00:26
Speaker 2: I always think of that great scene in Goodfellas where
1:00:28
Speaker 2: they talk about the cutting the garlic so thin that
1:00:31
Speaker 2: it just liquefies into the pan. That's what happened to Jaws.
1:00:34
Speaker 2: It just kind of it. It became one with filmmaking
1:00:37
Speaker 2: as as it were. And I think that that I
1:00:40
Speaker 2: think for me is what makes this such an important
1:00:43
Speaker 2: film is it is become part of the filmic language
1:00:46
Speaker 2: as a whole. And if I'm a filmmaker, there are
1:00:49
Speaker 2: many ways to quantify my film as a success, but
1:00:53
Speaker 2: But I think an ultimate success as a filmmaker is
1:00:56
Speaker 2: making something that lives on long beyond your ability to
1:00:59
Speaker 2: make film as a filmmaker. or your importance as a filmmaker.
1:01:02
Speaker 2: And not everybody has the long tail of a career
1:01:05
Speaker 2: that Steven Spielberg does. There are so many filmmakers out
1:01:08
Speaker 2: there that make one film and that's it. And they
1:01:10
Speaker 2: never make anything else. But their film has as much
1:01:12
Speaker 2: influence as Jaws does. But Steven Spielberg made a film
1:01:16
Speaker 2: that has essentially become part of just filmmaking as a whole.
1:01:20
Speaker 2: And if I'm a filmmaker, I don't know what's more
1:01:23
Speaker 2: successful than Jaws. Making a film that's so successful, other
1:01:26
Speaker 2: filmmakers are influenced by it forever without having to mention
1:01:30
Speaker 2: it specifically or reference it specifically. They're paying homage or
1:01:36
Speaker 2: being influenced by the choices that were made at a
1:01:39
Speaker 2: time where, again, it's not that they were or weren't
1:01:41
Speaker 2: being made intentionally, but they were being made out of necessity.
1:01:45
Speaker 2: is the more important thing. And now those choices are
1:01:47
Speaker 2: being viewed as like, well, this is the way we
1:01:49
Speaker 2: do things. I was like, well, that was just being
1:01:51
Speaker 2: done out of necessity initially. Now it's being done as
1:01:54
Speaker 2: a choice. It's very interesting how things kind of changed post-Jaws.
1:01:59
Speaker 2: I mean, Jaws is an inflection point in filmmaking history.
1:02:03
Speaker 2: It showed that a blockbuster could be a well-reviewed film.
1:02:07
Speaker 2: A blockbuster could be a film that had critical value,
1:02:10
Speaker 2: at least to the quote, film cognoscente as it were,
1:02:14
Speaker 2: which at the time I think was the critics. Like
1:02:16
Speaker 2: the critics kind of did hold the door open or
1:02:19
Speaker 2: closed in a way for films. And, you know, that's
1:02:22
Speaker 2: not the case so much anymore. Like I think the
1:02:24
Speaker 2: democratization of film analysis and criticism has been really bolstered
1:02:29
Speaker 2: by the internet. And that's a good thing. It's taken
1:02:31
Speaker 2: the power away from the critics as a kind of
1:02:34
Speaker 2: group and put it back into the hands of the people,
1:02:37
Speaker 2: ourselves included. Because again, all I ever wanted to be
1:02:39
Speaker 2: growing up was either a filmmaker or a film critic.
1:02:43
Speaker 2: And most film critics are just really frustrated filmmakers or
1:02:47
Speaker 2: actors or writers or directors or what have you. Because
1:02:50
Speaker 2: most people that talk about film want to make film
1:02:52
Speaker 2: as well. I've run into very few people who talk
1:02:55
Speaker 2: about film that don't want to make their own film
1:02:57
Speaker 2: or wouldn't want to be involved in the filmmaking process,
1:02:59
Speaker 2: more so than just talking about it. And... Something like
1:03:03
Speaker 2: Jaws took the power away from the critics because even
1:03:06
Speaker 2: if the critics had given it a bad review, which
1:03:08
Speaker 2: pretty much none did, I think to your point, it
1:03:11
Speaker 2: is one of those films that is just genuinely unimpeachable. Like,
1:03:15
Speaker 2: it's just, there's, yeah, there are maybe some issues that
1:03:18
Speaker 2: you could personally have with the film, but I think
1:03:21
Speaker 2: that in terms of it being a film that cost,
1:03:23
Speaker 2: by the way, the thing that I think is the
1:03:25
Speaker 2: craziest about this movie, the film cost $ 10 million.
1:03:27
Speaker 1: What? Like what?
1:03:30
Speaker 2: That's that's the but that's the budget of the catering
1:03:33
Speaker 2: for the dog stars, by the way. Right.
1:03:35
Speaker 1: Inflated, even inflated for today, it would still be a
1:03:39
Speaker 1: low budget movie.
1:03:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be an indie film. You know, we
1:03:43
Speaker 2: talked about that Ridley Scott, the dog stars film. And,
1:03:45
Speaker 2: you know, I joke that it's the catering budget of
1:03:48
Speaker 2: that film. But that film was like one hundred and
1:03:49
Speaker 2: ten million dollars, like ten times the budget of this film.
1:03:53
Speaker 2: And it will be remembered. It's not even remembered a
1:03:56
Speaker 2: month and a half after it came out. And this
1:03:57
Speaker 2: film is still being talked about decades after it came out.
1:04:01
Speaker 2: And that's, you know, I think and that's a that's
1:04:04
Speaker 2: a filmmaker whose film I mentioned on the list of
1:04:06
Speaker 2: blockbusters that came out subsequent to Jaws coming out. that
1:04:09
Speaker 2: was influenced by Jaws. Because Alien exists in a post-Jaws universe.
1:04:13
Speaker 2: Alien exists as a film that cops from Jaws. How
1:04:17
Speaker 2: long into Alien does it take to see the alien?
1:04:20
Speaker 2: Go watch that film and tell me. It takes quite
1:04:23
Speaker 2: some time. The alien is not hopping around in the
1:04:26
Speaker 2: first five minutes of the movie.
1:04:27
Speaker 1: Solution there, the solution they had was the alien changes, right?
1:04:32
Speaker 1: It's a different alien. Right. We meet it. I think
1:04:37
Speaker 1: going back to the beginning here, I will stand by
1:04:40
Speaker 1: Jaws is one of the greatest movies, emphasis on the
1:04:44
Speaker 1: word movie, ever made. It's still, we can still watch
1:04:48
Speaker 1: it today. It's not an artifact. It's not like a
1:04:50
Speaker 1: historical thing where you go back and you'd watch a
1:04:52
Speaker 1: movie and go like, ah, yeah, that's back then. That's
1:04:55
Speaker 1: how they made movies. It's still just as entertaining in
1:04:58
Speaker 1: 2026 as it was in 1975. The characterizations are still
1:05:00
Speaker 1: as finely etched, the tension, the music, everything is still there.
1:05:10
Speaker 1: And then after saying it's one of the great movies, yeah,
1:05:14
Speaker 1: I have no problem saying it belongs in the art
1:05:17
Speaker 1: museum because how do you, what's one criterion of great
1:05:21
Speaker 1: art is it's incredibly hard to replicate, right? I mean, yes,
1:05:26
Speaker 1: you can go get a poster of the Sistine Chapel
1:05:30
Speaker 1: and you can go get a little poster sculpture of
1:05:35
Speaker 1: some famous sculpture Rodin's The Thinker or something like that
1:05:38
Speaker 1: and put it on your desk but it's not the
1:05:40
Speaker 1: same thing right and it's interesting in that list you
1:05:43
Speaker 1: had it wasn't like you listed 30 movies every year
1:05:46
Speaker 1: and even today we have entire years where there really
1:05:51
Speaker 1: wasn't a film that was first critically accepted generally by
1:05:56
Speaker 1: most critics as a great movie second that showed True love,
1:06:02
Speaker 1: which is going back and seeing it again and again
1:06:04
Speaker 1: and again and evangelizing the film. And third, that was
1:06:09
Speaker 1: accessible to the whole family. It wasn't divided by race
1:06:13
Speaker 1: or gender or demographic or ideology or something like that.
1:06:17
Speaker 1: It was truly a general audience film. And like how
1:06:22
Speaker 1: many movies are made even today? I mean, we've had
1:06:25
Speaker 1: the formula for a long time. We can't make the soup. regularly,
1:06:30
Speaker 1: no matter how much money we spend.
1:06:31
Speaker 2: I think that goes back to just the sometimes sometimes
1:06:35
Speaker 2: the soup is just, you know, the recipe dies with
1:06:39
Speaker 2: the soup maker. And I'm not saying Steven Spielberg's ability
1:06:42
Speaker 2: to make films died with him because he's still alive.
1:06:45
Speaker 2: But even he doesn't have it anymore. Disclosure Day came
1:06:49
Speaker 2: out and it was not well received. It's not going
1:06:51
Speaker 2: to live on as a Jaws-level film 10 years from now.
1:06:56
Speaker 2: I don't even know if 10 years from now anyone's
1:06:57
Speaker 2: going to be talking about Disclosure Day, genuinely. But we're
1:07:00
Speaker 2: talking about Jaws 50 years later. That should speak volumes
1:07:04
Speaker 2: to the kind of film that Jaws is today. in
1:07:07
Speaker 2: terms of being able to create a lasting effect on audiences,
1:07:13
Speaker 2: the industry. I mean, you know, we didn't really talk
1:07:16
Speaker 2: about it, but you hear that, but that is part
1:07:19
Speaker 2: of the lasting effect, is just the two notes, the
1:07:22
Speaker 2: John Williams two notes of this film. I mean, again,
1:07:25
Speaker 2: to go back to another thing about this movie, John Williams,
1:07:28
Speaker 2: Steven Spielberg working together, another... group of people that would
1:07:32
Speaker 2: create some of the most well-known themes ever known to
1:07:37
Speaker 2: cinema in terms of Jurassic Park and Raiders of the
1:07:40
Speaker 2: Lost Ark. And then he would work with George Lucas
1:07:43
Speaker 2: on Star Wars. There is so much that happens in
1:07:46
Speaker 2: this movie that goes on to affect what I would
1:07:50
Speaker 2: consider to be the pop culture makeup of our world now.
1:07:53
Speaker 2: We're living in a world of Steven Spielberg's creation in
1:07:56
Speaker 2: terms of pop culture.
1:07:57
Speaker 1: He has.
1:07:58
Speaker 2: affected so much at so many levels. And I think
1:08:02
Speaker 2: his resiliency as a filmmaker is really the thing that
1:08:06
Speaker 2: early on for me when I was becoming a student
1:08:09
Speaker 2: of film and watching film, Jaws was a film I
1:08:12
Speaker 2: watched a lot growing up. And that's because one of
1:08:14
Speaker 2: those stories that I always took away from Jaws is
1:08:17
Speaker 2: just the resiliency of Steven Spielberg as a filmmaker and
1:08:20
Speaker 2: as a director and as someone who was so motivated
1:08:24
Speaker 2: that it didn't matter if the shark kept breaking, he
1:08:26
Speaker 2: was going to get the film done. And we barely
1:08:28
Speaker 2: even talked about that in terms of, what this movie
1:08:31
Speaker 2: is in terms of just a story of making the film,
1:08:35
Speaker 2: it kind of mirrors the film itself. The great white
1:08:39
Speaker 2: whale of this film is the shark that Quint is
1:08:43
Speaker 2: trying to kill, but the great white whale of making
1:08:45
Speaker 2: this movie was getting the shark to work. When they
1:08:49
Speaker 2: got the shark to work, they took advantage of it
1:08:51
Speaker 2: because the shark wasn't working all the time. And that is, again,
1:08:55
Speaker 2: just in and of itself, very ironic that the movie
1:08:57
Speaker 2: is about chasing after a massive shark and, you know,
1:09:00
Speaker 2: taking it down. But the movie also ends up being about,
1:09:03
Speaker 2: in a meta sense, trying to get the shark to
1:09:05
Speaker 2: cooperate to begin with because it's just not working. And
1:09:09
Speaker 2: Steven Spielberg, as a director, I think it deserves a
1:09:12
Speaker 2: lot of credit and respect as someone who's able to
1:09:15
Speaker 2: weather the storm of a production that would cause most
1:09:19
Speaker 2: people to quiver in fear because you're having your ability
1:09:23
Speaker 2: to be a professional filmmaker criticized more or less on
1:09:26
Speaker 2: a daily basis because you can't get a mechanical shark
1:09:28
Speaker 2: to work and that is not a place that anybody
1:09:31
Speaker 2: wants to be in at the behest of mechanical pieces
1:09:35
Speaker 2: and parts underwater but yet that is what steven spielberg
1:09:38
Speaker 2: in his first directorial you know like big budget debut
1:09:42
Speaker 2: has to deal with and yet this film you would
1:09:45
Speaker 2: never know. You would never know that there were problems
1:09:48
Speaker 2: in the making of this movie with the technical aspects
1:09:50
Speaker 2: of it. And that, again, is a testament to the
1:09:52
Speaker 2: quality of this movie that I'm not looking into why
1:09:55
Speaker 2: things are the way that they are. Everything seems intentional,
1:09:58
Speaker 2: even when things were just being done out of necessity.
1:10:01
Speaker 2: And that, again, I think for me, is another sign
1:10:03
Speaker 2: of a successful film, is that this film is able
1:10:06
Speaker 2: to weather all of those things and still create a
1:10:09
Speaker 2: film that is lasting. And not only lasting, but I
1:10:12
Speaker 2: would wager that 50 years from now, people will still
1:10:15
Speaker 2: be talking about Jaws.
1:10:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think earlier, did I say Dustin Hoffman instead
1:10:19
Speaker 1: of Richard Dreyfuss? I think I did that. I think
1:10:21
Speaker 1: you did. Well, again, another measurement of film, which I see, gosh,
1:10:29
Speaker 1: I just saw one the other day, and I was going,
1:10:31
Speaker 1: I need to remember this, was the memization, where it
1:10:35
Speaker 1: becomes part of popular culture outside of the unit of film.
1:10:39
Speaker 1: And I was watching just like a TikTok reel, and
1:10:43
Speaker 1: somebody said, I think they said, we're going to need
1:10:45
Speaker 1: a bigger fork. because they saw some food that they liked.
1:10:49
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, did you actually watch Jaws? That just
1:10:52
Speaker 1: has survived in the culture. We're going to need it bigger.
1:10:56
Speaker 1: And these characters there, again, Roy Scheider, Roy Scheider went
1:11:01
Speaker 1: on to succeed. He never quite made it as like
1:11:05
Speaker 1: the super action hero that we think of today, but
1:11:09
Speaker 1: he still had a You know, successful career. Robert Shaw, unfortunately,
1:11:13
Speaker 1: died very young. I think he was 48 or something
1:11:17
Speaker 1: like that. Richard Dreyfuss, of course, had a very successful
1:11:20
Speaker 1: career to this day. They were just so right. And
1:11:26
Speaker 1: just if you go down, like all the decisions they
1:11:29
Speaker 1: had to make, where do we put this film? Like physically,
1:11:34
Speaker 1: where do we put it? And the town, the town
1:11:37
Speaker 1: was a character in the film, right? Because the mayor,
1:11:42
Speaker 1: my young boy self saw the mayor as an unalloyed,
1:11:48
Speaker 1: bad guy like why is he saying like you know
1:11:50
Speaker 1: we should go ahead with tourist season because like there's
1:11:54
Speaker 1: a shark out there and it might kill people and
1:11:56
Speaker 1: now I'm older and I'm going like yeah that guy
1:11:59
Speaker 1: is thinking we're all going to be on welfare every
1:12:02
Speaker 1: single person in this town is going to be on
1:12:04
Speaker 1: welfare if we don't have the summer season And you
1:12:07
Speaker 1: can sort of see the pressure that he was under.
1:12:10
Speaker 1: There's just nuances that... Another sign to me of art
1:12:15
Speaker 1: is that the sort of patina, as you get closer
1:12:18
Speaker 1: to the painting and you look at it again and
1:12:20
Speaker 1: again and again, you see things that maybe you didn't
1:12:23
Speaker 1: see the first time. Part of it is your own maturation.
1:12:27
Speaker 1: And those three characters just represented so many different aspects
1:12:32
Speaker 1: of the human soul and I think at my young age,
1:12:35
Speaker 1: I was focusing on the action. But now, the last
1:12:38
Speaker 1: time I rewatched this film, which was about, I think
1:12:41
Speaker 1: about a month ago, I was paying more attention to
1:12:43
Speaker 1: the characterizations. And even if there hadn't been a shark,
1:12:47
Speaker 1: they were fascinating themselves, those people. I wanted them to
1:12:51
Speaker 1: keep talking, especially to each other.
1:12:53
Speaker 2: No, I think you're right. Like you said, this film
1:12:56
Speaker 2: can be... Every time I watch it, I take away
1:12:59
Speaker 2: something different. Every time I watch it, I feel... like
1:13:02
Speaker 2: I've gotten something else from it, a little something else,
1:13:05
Speaker 2: a little new thing. And most recently, my takeaway was,
1:13:09
Speaker 2: like you said with Roy Scheider, he never really became
1:13:12
Speaker 2: an action star, but also his character in this movie
1:13:15
Speaker 2: is meant to be, in a lot of ways, John
1:13:17
Speaker 2: McClane in Die Hard. Like he just finds himself in
1:13:20
Speaker 2: this situation and has to deal with it. He's not
1:13:24
Speaker 2: necessarily meant to be in this situation. It's somewhat Shakespearean
1:13:27
Speaker 2: that the guy who doesn't like water has to go
1:13:29
Speaker 2: out onto the water to to deal with a shark.
1:13:32
Speaker 2: Like that's that kind of the faded nature of Chief
1:13:35
Speaker 2: Brody is that he hates the water, but he has
1:13:37
Speaker 2: to then go out onto the water to kind of
1:13:39
Speaker 2: deal with his fears, as it were, of not being
1:13:43
Speaker 2: able to go out into the water, even though he
1:13:45
Speaker 2: works on an island. That, again, that put-upon-ness with Brody
1:13:49
Speaker 2: is what makes his character so interesting versus the man
1:13:52
Speaker 2: of action that is Quint or the man of science
1:13:55
Speaker 2: that is Hooper. And then you have just the man,
1:13:58
Speaker 2: the common man, the everyman that is Brody. And Again,
1:14:02
Speaker 2: it speaks to a different success of the film, which
1:14:04
Speaker 2: is you have a character that is the everyman that
1:14:07
Speaker 2: doesn't feel like the everyman that succeeded in doing something
1:14:11
Speaker 2: that a lot of other blockbusters would do, which is
1:14:14
Speaker 2: having the kind of eyes of the audience present in
1:14:17
Speaker 2: every scene through one of the characters. But at the
1:14:20
Speaker 2: same time. This film also knows that giving that character
1:14:24
Speaker 2: some characterization is important as well because they cannot afford
1:14:27
Speaker 2: to get lost in the shuffle. They cannot be a cipher.
1:14:32
Speaker 2: That is the thing that I think gets lost in
1:14:33
Speaker 2: a lot of Hollywood blockbusters. Like you've alluded to is
1:14:36
Speaker 2: they don't give us characters to care about. These characters
1:14:38
Speaker 2: are just, you know, oh, they're the demolitions expert or
1:14:41
Speaker 2: they're this or they're that. And it's like that kind
1:14:44
Speaker 2: of filmmaking is not long lasting because you're not giving
1:14:47
Speaker 2: the audience anything. multiple things to hang on to multiple
1:14:50
Speaker 2: things to grab on multiple things to enjoy. And Jaws
1:14:54
Speaker 2: is so multifaceted that you could watch this movie 10 times.
1:14:58
Speaker 2: And I think each time focus on something different and
1:15:01
Speaker 2: enjoy something different. And I think you would take away
1:15:03
Speaker 2: something different every time. Cause like you said, I watched
1:15:06
Speaker 2: this film once every couple of years, if not once,
1:15:09
Speaker 2: sometimes it's multiple times a year like this year, but
1:15:11
Speaker 2: I always walk away from it with something different. And
1:15:14
Speaker 2: it's not, I'm, not convinced it's always something that Steven
1:15:17
Speaker 2: Spielberg intended I walk away from the film with, but
1:15:21
Speaker 2: it is something where it now adds to the intentional
1:15:25
Speaker 2: or unintentional or meta nature of the success of the movie.
1:15:29
Speaker 2: And this is a movie that I genuinely love. It
1:15:32
Speaker 2: is not often that we talk about things that I
1:15:34
Speaker 2: like or I resonate with or things that I am
1:15:37
Speaker 2: a fan of. But Jaws is a film that I
1:15:39
Speaker 2: can say is probably in my top 10 films of
1:15:41
Speaker 2: all time. Genuine. Because every time I watch it, I'm like, man,
1:15:44
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that there is a better three person
1:15:47
Speaker 2: cast in a film than the three of them on
1:15:50
Speaker 2: the boat together. And I know that this might sound crazy,
1:15:53
Speaker 2: but one of the few places if I could jump
1:15:55
Speaker 2: into a film would be onto the orca with the
1:15:58
Speaker 2: three of them. Now, yes, I know that there's a
1:16:00
Speaker 2: big shark. And yes, I know that one of us
1:16:02
Speaker 2: might die. But the camaraderie and just kind of the
1:16:05
Speaker 2: weird chemistry between Shaw, Dreyfuss and Scheider is so kind
1:16:10
Speaker 2: of not infectious, but you want to be part of it.
1:16:13
Speaker 2: And you like you said, you just want to be
1:16:15
Speaker 2: with the characters doing what they're doing. And I think
1:16:17
Speaker 2: that that, again, is just another success of a movie
1:16:20
Speaker 2: that is multifaceted in what makes it a success and
1:16:24
Speaker 2: if you have never seen Jaws you should have watched
1:16:27
Speaker 2: it by now I would hope if nothing we've said
1:16:29
Speaker 2: to this point has convinced you to watch it But
1:16:31
Speaker 2: I would say it's very interesting because I would not,
1:16:35
Speaker 2: similarly to Jurassic Park, I would not condone watching anything
1:16:38
Speaker 2: further than this one because I'm not sure any of
1:16:40
Speaker 2: the other films have said anything more so than this
1:16:44
Speaker 2: movie already did. And that I think is the sign
1:16:47
Speaker 2: of a good film is that it is unimpeachable from
1:16:50
Speaker 2: a bunch of different directions, including all the films that
1:16:53
Speaker 2: came out after this one that were named similarly to
1:16:56
Speaker 2: this one don't say anything more than this film had
1:16:59
Speaker 2: to say about Which is to say this film, like
1:17:02
Speaker 2: I said, stands alone and is somewhat there is nothing
1:17:05
Speaker 2: that this film says that any of the other films
1:17:08
Speaker 2: say that it didn't do better the first time around.
1:17:12
Speaker 2: And that, again, is very hard. There are film franchises
1:17:15
Speaker 2: where there are better films further down the road than
1:17:17
Speaker 2: the first one. this franchise is not one of them.
1:17:19
Speaker 2: And frankly, to call this a franchise is just to
1:17:23
Speaker 2: just pretend like it isn't in a lot of ways, really. Like,
1:17:25
Speaker 2: I know that that's kind of dismissive, but there's not
1:17:28
Speaker 2: much to like beyond Jaws 1. There really is not.
1:17:31
Speaker 2: And that's unfortunate, but that's what makes this the secret
1:17:35
Speaker 2: sauce of a film is like, I don't know what
1:17:37
Speaker 2: it is, what one thing it is, because it's not
1:17:40
Speaker 2: just one. It's all of it together. And that's Rare,
1:17:44
Speaker 2: very rare. Apparently Steven Spielberg figured it out, but it
1:17:47
Speaker 2: is still rare broadly as a film to be successful
1:17:52
Speaker 2: in multiple different avenues.
1:17:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess my wrap-up comment, and I hope people
1:17:57
Speaker 1: have stopped at some point and go watch the movie.
1:17:59
Speaker 1: If they have not, it is quite an old movie,
1:18:02
Speaker 1: so I'm hoping most people have seen it at least once.
1:18:06
Speaker 1: I was sort of interested in how many students I had. Yeah,
1:18:10
Speaker 1: I have seen Jaws. But the other part which I feel, again,
1:18:14
Speaker 1: it's some sort of recipe and formula that is just
1:18:17
Speaker 1: so hard to repeat. It's hard to repeat even for
1:18:19
Speaker 1: the people that made it. And that's it. The film had,
1:18:23
Speaker 1: and I wish the highbrow critics of the time had
1:18:27
Speaker 1: recognized this. And I want to talk about one particular scene.
1:18:30
Speaker 1: And this is my sort of, my last statement, unless
1:18:33
Speaker 1: we do like a six part series on Jaws, because
1:18:36
Speaker 1: there's so much to talk about. The film had moral
1:18:40
Speaker 1: depth to call it just a popcorn film. Just the
1:18:44
Speaker 1: sort of cliche in the 70s and 80s was that
1:18:47
Speaker 1: the studio would always want somebody to say, it's the
1:18:51
Speaker 1: roller coaster ride of the summer, and they could use
1:18:53
Speaker 1: that quote on the advertising, right? But it's not just
1:18:58
Speaker 1: a popcorn film. And I want to talk about one
1:19:00
Speaker 1: particular scene, and it shows off the best of Roy
1:19:04
Speaker 1: Scheider and the best of Steven Spielberg and the best
1:19:07
Speaker 1: of the screenwriting team, the Peter Benchley and his novel.
1:19:11
Speaker 1: Roy Scheider has to make a decision. And the decision,
1:19:15
Speaker 1: there's no way to spin it, cost the life of
1:19:18
Speaker 1: a young boy. And There's a scene there where the
1:19:21
Speaker 1: mother of the boy, this is done so well. It's
1:19:25
Speaker 1: not done with thundering music. It's not done with like
1:19:30
Speaker 1: commentary and lots of people talking about it. She marches
1:19:35
Speaker 1: up and basically identifies Chief Brody, Roy Scheider's like, you know,
1:19:40
Speaker 1: you're the one that let my son into the water.
1:19:42
Speaker 1: And he was killed. And she slaps him and then
1:19:45
Speaker 1: walks away. And that was done so well. And I
1:19:48
Speaker 1: was thinking, how many movies today would they turn that
1:19:52
Speaker 1: into a massive production? And then they'd have, you know,
1:19:56
Speaker 1: 12 scenes where Brody is trying to, you know, go
1:19:59
Speaker 1: to a psychologist. I don't know how to say it,
1:20:01
Speaker 1: but it was just, I remember sitting in the movie
1:20:03
Speaker 1: theater going like, oh, this is not just a shark,
1:20:06
Speaker 1: you know. attack adventure right there's there's actual i don't
1:20:10
Speaker 1: think i use the term moral depth at my age
1:20:13
Speaker 1: then but like there's something there and that's that's an
1:20:16
Speaker 1: element again that man it's not in the recipe book
1:20:20
Speaker 1: it has to be felt it has to be executed
1:20:23
Speaker 1: and it isn't that well but boy this film reminds
1:20:27
Speaker 1: us of what is achieved when it.
1:20:29
Speaker 2: Is I think that's what might be coined the Steven
1:20:33
Speaker 2: Spielberg effect. I think that he just understands and is
1:20:37
Speaker 2: able to tap into the human condition better than some
1:20:39
Speaker 2: directors are able to. I mean, we always think about
1:20:41
Speaker 2: Steven Spielberg as a director who has created a lot
1:20:44
Speaker 2: of convincing and relatable family dynamics in films like E.T.,
1:20:50
Speaker 2: like War of the Worlds. I mean, you could even
1:20:52
Speaker 2: say Disclosure Day if you really wanted to. or Meet
1:20:55
Speaker 2: the Fablemans. There's a lot of films that are about
1:20:58
Speaker 2: the family dynamic, Jurassic Park even, I would say. And
1:21:02
Speaker 2: this is a different kind of family, but it is
1:21:04
Speaker 2: a family dynamic that, again, I think Steven Spielberg is
1:21:08
Speaker 2: uniquely suited to telling stories about groups of people that
1:21:11
Speaker 2: have an interesting familial relationship or dynamic. And for whatever reason,
1:21:15
Speaker 2: Spielberg just gets that. It's like David Lynch understood the
1:21:19
Speaker 2: surreal of Americana and the bizarre of Americana and Steven Spielberg,
1:21:23
Speaker 2: I think understands the kind of genuine humanity of, of
1:21:27
Speaker 2: kind of just the being of human existence. And, and
1:21:30
Speaker 2: his films are deeply humanistic. I feel like Steven Spielberg,
1:21:33
Speaker 2: even if it's a film about robots in the future
1:21:36
Speaker 2: that can tell when you're going to commit a crime or,
1:21:39
Speaker 2: I mean, again, any number of things like Steven Spielberg
1:21:42
Speaker 2: is able to create human characters that are lasting, that
1:21:47
Speaker 2: people feel a lot of affection and, uh, relate to
1:21:52
Speaker 2: or resonate with. And I think Jaws lives and dies
1:21:54
Speaker 2: by the three main leads. And I think that that's again,
1:21:57
Speaker 2: that's what Steven Spielberg brings to this, that, like you said,
1:22:00
Speaker 2: it's just the intangible quality of things that might not
1:22:03
Speaker 2: have existed if this had been a Cassavetes or a
1:22:05
Speaker 2: Peckinpah film. If this had been any another director, we
1:22:09
Speaker 2: might not be having a conversation about this because it
1:22:11
Speaker 2: might have been like an orca. or something like that,
1:22:14
Speaker 2: where it's just kind of a weird footnote in film history,
1:22:17
Speaker 2: but it doesn't move the needle a substantial amount. And
1:22:21
Speaker 2: credit to Steven Spielberg and everybody involved with the film
1:22:23
Speaker 2: that this film has that lasting place in the conversation. Uh,
1:22:29
Speaker 2: this again, like we haven't, it's not that we haven't
1:22:31
Speaker 2: talked about amazing films yet on required viewing, but this,
1:22:34
Speaker 2: I think is kind of in a different league of
1:22:36
Speaker 2: films than what we've talked about in required viewing, because
1:22:39
Speaker 2: unlike Barry Lyndon, this film was well-received by everybody and
1:22:43
Speaker 2: wasn't being, you know, for the most part, it wasn't
1:22:44
Speaker 2: being called boring. You know, Barry Lyndon, I think, has
1:22:47
Speaker 2: had a reappraisal as time has gone on. I think
1:22:50
Speaker 2: Jaws started at the high watermark and never came down.
1:22:53
Speaker 2: Barry Lyndon started at a different spot and has kind
1:22:55
Speaker 2: of gotten back up to that point in the years
1:22:57
Speaker 2: since its release. So this is the first film we've
1:23:00
Speaker 2: talked about on Required Viewing where it was like it
1:23:02
Speaker 2: just came out and worked like gangbusters and everybody was
1:23:05
Speaker 2: on board the moment it came out like that. That's
1:23:07
Speaker 2: a different kind of success, but it's a success worth
1:23:10
Speaker 2: kind of talking about and definitely appreciated. So if you
1:23:13
Speaker 2: want to hear Dr. Perlmutter and I talking further about
1:23:16
Speaker 2: films that we consider to be required viewing for one
1:23:19
Speaker 2: reason or another, you got to come listen and find
1:23:20
Speaker 2: out why. Head on over to weirdingwaymedia.com where this show
1:23:24
Speaker 2: and so many other shows can be found. But more importantly,
1:23:27
Speaker 2: if you're looking for Dr. Perlmutter and I, the culture
1:23:29
Speaker 2: cast and required viewing are the two places that you
1:23:32
Speaker 2: can find myself and the professor. Like, rate, and review
1:23:35
Speaker 2: the show over on iTunes, then Spotify, please, in that order.
1:23:39
Speaker 2: That's the order that it helps out the most. Patreon.com
1:23:42
Speaker 2: slash CultureCast is where you can go to kick a
1:23:44
Speaker 2: couple dollars my way. Every little bit helps, but I
1:23:46
Speaker 2: understand if you don't want to help out financially, just like, rate,
1:23:49
Speaker 2: and review the show on iTunes and Spotify. That's where
1:23:52
Speaker 2: it helps the most. And yeah, come on back for
1:23:55
Speaker 2: the next episode of Required Viewing, where we're definitely not
1:23:57
Speaker 2: talking about a film that has a shark in.
1:24:02
Speaker 1: It. Thank you.