Jaws

The birth of the summer blockbuster, Jaws is a tense psychological thriller that, for the most part, lives up to the hype. As a story, Jaws is kind of basic. The writing itself takes no real liberties to differentiate it from any other film of the time, but what made Jaws stand out was the way everything is shot. The scenes filmed from the shark’s perspective are probably some of the most iconic shots in Hollywood. The shots were so impactful that it changed the way I looked at the movie itself. I started looking at those shots of all those people’s bare legs on a beach like it was a restaurant menu. Given the technological boundaries, it’s miraculous Spielberg managed to pull a movie like Jaws off. Rather than having the actual Jaws animatronic in every shot, the music and angles of the shot tell the story to the audience. This kind of film making is something missing in modern cinema, and it’s a shame that it isn’t quite this prominent more often. Another thing that is amazing on the technical side of this movie is the way Spielberg worked around the fact that everything was filmed around water. While this was used to the advantage of the film, it also dragged it back some. While the building of the universe in the first act is made quite well. The way that the protagonists beat the shark is prolonged, eventually, I got somewhat tired of it. This kind of movie where the story is mediocre, but the visual and technical aspects are incredibly impactful is the summer blockbuster at its core. While the story was just okay, it’s important to understand how important Jaws is to the history of film making, so, I will give it a 7.9/10