Jaws

This week on That '70s Movie Podcast, Michael and Jonathan jump in the ocean for the 1975 thriller, "Jaws."

Though we usually see eye to eye (or at least close to it), it was "disagreement" week on the podcast. Michael argued that Jaws is peak joyride filmmaking, with great character development, director Steven Spielberg's masterful ratcheting up of suspense and tension, and the film's bravura set-pieces. Jonathan praised the editing and cinematography, but found the movie a bit bloated and unrealistic. Both agreed, however, that Jaws forever changed 70s filmmaking -- and not necessarily for the better.

So grab two bottles of wine, check your scars for authenticity, and give this week's episode a listen!

Please take a moment to subscribe, leave a comment, or buy us a ⁠cup of coffee ⁠(or even do all three).

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Very first lag, Chief. Sharks come cruising. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. Kinda like old squares in a battle legging. You see in a calendar like the battle of what a loot, and the idea was a shark comes to the nearest man and when he steps pounding and hollering and screaming. Sometimes the shark can go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark gets right in the end of your eyes. Nothing but a shark. Lightless eyes. Black eyes down eye. He comes out of here. Don't seem to be living. Until he bites you. And those black eyes roll over white and then. Oh, and you hear that terrible high-pitched screaming. The ocean turns red. Despite all the pound and the holler and they all come in. Rip you to pieces.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Welcome everybody to the latest episode of That 70s Movie Podcast. I'm your host, Michael A. Cohen, joined by my co-host, Jonathan Kirshner. Jonathan, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_02 2:03

A little more chipper than usual. I had a long work trip and I survived it, and that usually puts me in a good mood. Well, the surviving it or the work trip? The surviving a long work trip. I mean it was a good trip. It was a very successful event, but nevertheless, I'm I'm not what you call a robust or hearty traveler. And so on a long work trip, I'm just happy to be on the other side of it. I hear that.

SPEAKER_01 2:23

I have one at work trip tomorrow. I just came back from vacation, so I'm feeling pretty relaxed, although weather today in New York is, how shall we say, frightful. All right. So we have lots of talk about today. I just want to first mention uh well, before I get into today's movie, Jonathan, have you seen anything good recently?

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yeah, I've seen two things uh pretty good recently. One is One Fine Morning, the 2022 movie by Mia Hansen Love that I'm watching, and I'm realizing, oh, I watched this before. I just didn't enter it in my notes. But nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was really good. I'm very fond of fond of her work in general. And then on Alark, uh just watched a little documentary called Nightclubbing, The Birth of Punk Rock in New York City, which is a very deceptive title. What it is is a documentary about Maxis Kansas City, uh the hangout in New York City in the 70s, which is sacred space for some of us. And so, I mean, I was never in Maxis myself, but yeah, I have reverence for the institution. And so watching a tight short doc about it was a real thrill.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Well, I think it's very funny that you mentioned One Fine Morning, because I was going to mention something I saw this week, a movie that you and I both love called One False Move, which is a 19, I think '91 or '92. Yeah, it depends on when you what release you go by. Okay, fair enough. Action thriller directed by Carl Franklin. This is a great movie. This is a great early 90s neon movie. I know you love this movie. Why do you love this movie so much?

SPEAKER_02 3:54

It is a monumentally great movie for so many reasons. Aside from the fact that, of course, it's brilliantly written, brilliantly directed, and brilliantly acted, all the pieces just fall into place. There's so much going on. It is a movie that doesn't really talk about race, that has so much to say about race in America in such a sophisticated and thoughtful way, um, that the pacing is marvelous, and it does the kind of thing that I really appreciate. There's an outburst of violence at the beginning, and it's brutal, brutal violence. I don't like that much violence in the movie. It's too much for me. But then, aside from one or two episodes later on, and of course at the very end, there's not a lot of actual violence that takes place, but the initial act of violence hangs over the movie, infusing it with tension throughout. This is one of the great American films of the 1990s. And the phrase one false move can refer to at least three things. I'm not going to go on and talk about that now, but if we ever talk about this movie on this podcast, it's another one of those spectacular titles where there are several crucial choices made by characters during the narrative and actually not during the narrative that the entire picture hinges on. I cannot praise this movie highly enough. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah, I think that's all right. I mean, I agree with everything you said. I think it's a really beautifully paced movie. The violence, as you said, is really brutal, very much uh 90s kind of violence, but it is it it sort of it colors the entire film and everything that comes after that. Aaron Powell Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

And I also want to contrast this with a lot of that 90s violence like Robocop or Tarantino. Carl Frankman has talked a lot about this and about how uncomfortable he was with some of the violence. Franklin is the writer-director of the film. And I remember in part of the commentary there was this strange beach in a moment in the film, and he said, I just wanted to pause there to note the passing of a human life. And that's not something you get from the other types of 90s blood-soaked films.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Well, I want to just say about Robocop. That's 87, and I will go on the record of saying I think Robocop is a fantastic movie. But I'm guessing we might disagree on that point. I saw it once upon release and didn't look back, so I really can't speak to it. I watched it again. I saw it again a couple years ago, and I must say I it held up better than I even remembered. And I remember at the time I saw it, I think I was like 16 or 17 thinking it was just over-the-top violin. But actually, it's really good. Um I also saw another 90s movie called The Last Seduction, directed by John Dahl, starring uh Linda Ferrentino. This is a great movie. It's one of my other favorites from the 90s. And Linda Ferrantino in a in an uh phenomenal performance, one of the great femme fatales of 90s filmmaking.

SPEAKER_02 6:39

And it has a very strong reputation, so you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, it does uh well deserved. It's uh interesting. It it it she was denied an Oscar nomination because the movie was released on TV before it was released in the movies. Um but again, it is uh it's a great film. I can't uh I cannot recommend it enough. So that's the two things I've seen this week, really. I've also mentioned earlier, I am re-watching The Sopranos and we just watched college. Oh, that is a great episode. Man, that show is so good. You forget how good that show is. It's good to have experience of watching it again.

SPEAKER_03 7:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Um okay, so before I get into today's movie, just want to uh remind everybody that uh if you haven't subscribed to that 70s film uh podcast, please do it right now. Just click on the button, click on the little arrow there, and say you are subscribing. And maybe please give us a give us a thumbs up, give us a good comment, buy us a cup of coffee. All of that is appreciated, all of that keeps us going and keeps um the podcast chugging along. Uh I want to just mention a comment we got from new listener, uh Alice Kermick, the person we recorded with uh last week. He said something about the um our Woody Allen episode. He said they were definitely fun movies to watch, but I can't help but feel Alan's humor shines the most against a darker backdrop. Crimes and misdemeanors FTW. Great conversation, guys. I kind of agree with him, right? I think that I think the the humor in crimes and misdemeanors hits a little harder because it's a serious movie.

SPEAKER_02 8:06

Aaron Ross Powell Yes. I mean that's I think that's a general rule, not just for Alan, that that there are serious moments work in funny movies and humorous moments work in serious movies because they're cutting against the grain of what you're otherwise experiencing. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right. I just want to say the record.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

It's 45 minutes of drivel and then like a couple minutes of humor. It's like you're going to take that, right? Not you, but other professors, obviously. Um appreciate the comment. I agree, Crimex Misdemeanor is one of those movies that I think is one of his funnier movies, actually. There's some great, great jokes in that movie. Not one of his funniest. I mean, not as funny as the comedy, as a Bulls or Broadway or Manhattan Murder Mystery, but there's some really, really good moments in that film. Um okay, so now that we've gotten that out of the way, it is on to the main attraction, the main event, if you will. Today we are talking about the 1975 action horror thriller Jaws. What is it about? A New England beach town is terrorized by a massive man-eating great white shark, and dun dun dun, chaos ensues. Directed by Steven Spielberg, screenplay by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, based on the novel by Peter Benchley. Uh, cinematography is Bill Butler, edited by Werner Fields, music by John Williams. And I guess you mentioned the music, but the score in this movie is legendary. Who does it star? Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfus, I think our first Richard Dreyfus film, Lorraine Gary, and Murray Hamilton, and a whole bunch of locals from Martha's Vineyard where this movie was filmed. Um, as far as the Oscars, it won three Oscars for best original score for John Williams, best film editing for Werner Fields, and Best Sound for a collection of individuals. I'm going to leave nameless. You can check it out on Wikipedia if you're really curious. Uh, it ranks number 56 on the AFI list of greatest 100 American movies. In the IndieWire list of best movies of the 70s, it ranks number 36. So it has indie cred. But the big question now that all of you are wondering about, does it have Kirschner cred? So, Jonathan, here it comes the moment we've all been waiting for. Jaws, is this a good movie? Is this a bad movie? Or is this a great movie?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Well, once again, I'm gonna go off the menu and I'm gonna do to our podcast listeners what my dad used to always do to me. Because I used to, you know, I showed my parents a lot of movies, not surprisingly. My interest in movies goes way back. And when I showed him something I I wanted him to love, and he could see that it was somehow understandable as a good movie, but it wasn't really his cup of tea. He would sit back and he would say, you know, that was an extremely well-made movie, which I knew was his m the highest criticism he could ever offer of a film, calling it extremely well-made. And and it was, and and Jaws is extremely well made. Tremendous amount of talent attached that you've already noted, but I want to give, you know, also Bill Butler, the cinematographer, and camera operator, Michael Chapman, who very soon after, you know, would be the uh director of photography on Chinatown and many other important 70s films. And I I do think the in-scit in this film is extremely strong. Verna Fields was the editor, and I think her work was surely critical. You have the boys you mentioned, uh all fine actors each. I also have a soft spot, I don't think you mentioned him, Murray Hamilton. Uh I mentioned Murray. Oh, you did. Oh, yeah. So I I I marginalized Murray unintentionally because I think he is too often too marginalized. Uh he often shows up as a a character actor in a relatively small role. This is one of the bigger roles I think he had in a major film, and I I always appreciate uh his presence. However, you knew the however was coming. I knew it was coming. And at the risk of fomenting an internet riot. Um you know, you know what Jimmy Carter said to the American people. He said, he said, I will never lie to you. And and I just gotta tell you, this movie it simply does not sing for me. I think it's an old-fashioned monster movie. It's extremely well executed. I'm not a monster movie guy. I do have a soft spot for Godzilla, who doesn't, but aside from that, it's just it's it's not a movie that was made for a person like me.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

Okay. You know, I was thinking a lot about this. I knew this was coming. I knew that you were going to say this. And I've been thinking a lot about how do I how do I respond to this. I'm gonna say something I've never said before on this podcast, right? And I probably never will say it after this. You know, one of the credos of this podcast is that we don't judge other people for not liking a movie. I'm gonna make an exception here. On this point, Jonathan, you're wrong. This is a great movie. Unqualified, absolutely, this is a not I'm sorry, not a great movie. This is a phenomenal movie. This is a fantastic movie. This is about as good as movie making gets, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_02 13:15

Well, I'm gonna go to our guest spot on.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Actually, not in my opinion. That's a fact. That's a fact.

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Go ahead. I'm gonna go to our guest spot on another woman for the for the podcast we did, and I'm just gonna have to say I accept your condemnation.

SPEAKER_01 13:31

That was a perfect response, by the way. I mean, I'm joking, obviously, although not completely. I am j- I I guess I am joking, but but I do think this movie is simply fantastic. And I've seen this movie a whole bunch of times, and I remember when I first saw it being I mean, do you remember how old you were when you first saw this film?

SPEAKER_02 13:52

No, I'm very confused because I assumed I saw it in my youth, but when I started watching it a couple of times because I knew you wanted to talk about it, when I watched it maybe six months ago or a year ago, when I first realized we were definitely going to be talking about it and I had to review it, I there were I recognized many things in it less than I thought I would, and I'm suddenly scratching my head, wondering if either I'd completely forgot it or I never actually saw it in my youth, which would have been probably a much better experience. And I since watched it a couple of times very recently from our discussion today.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

I mean, I gotta be honest with you, uh, this is a this is a just playing this out here. I I don't like monster movies. I don't like horror movies, I don't like scary movies. I just I don't like them. I don't like it. I don't like gory movies. I they really just don't appeal to me. So I do not remember when I saw this for the first time. I have a very strong memory of the the image of the man's leg when he got bitten off in the boat. It was a stunt man, actually. Yeah, bummer. That I remembered. So I must have seen it when I was like in my teens, and I don't I can't remember when. You know, it came out when I was like four or five, so I wouldn't have seen it then. But I I at least I hope not. But I definitely saw it at some point. I remember that. And I I don't remember not loving the movie and then seeing it again, I don't know how long ago, maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago, and being like, wow, that's really freaking good. And then taking my daughter to see it like five years ago and she loved it, and being really impressed by it. And I've seen it now every July 4th now. It's a little tradition. Uh I used to do with my kids. Now I did it this weekend. I did it with uh with Alexis. We watched it together with her family. It's like a little July 4th. I I have like two movie holiday traditions. I do Jaws in July 4th, I do planes, trans, automobiles on Thanksgiving. Those are my two big traditions, yeah. Uh and I just think this is such a good movie, and every time I see it, I'm more impressed by it. Um but it's interesting because before we got on online, you said you thought there was a lot of um you said bloated. And you weren't talking about the shark. You said the movie was bloated. I actually came across, came came away from this viewing thinking there is very little flab in this movie. That this movie actually everything is there for a reason, everything makes sense for a reason. Um so I'm curious what I know you sort of divide the movie into two parts. You talk a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Well, first I want to say I or I have three things to say. One is I recognize I'm in the vanishing minority view when it comes to this movie, and and that's okay. Um and the whole monster movie thing, I mean, there are a lot of very classic monster movie tropes here, best done often not with a monster by Hitchcock, which is the classic false alarm, relax, and then sudden threat. I mean, they do that about four times in this movie, which I thought was a little excessive. But yes, I think this is two movies. And I do think the second movie is a very good movie. The first half of the movie, when they're kind of in the town and debating stuff and wandering around, there I was mostly bored. And I thought that the writing was the weak part in this movie, and I suspect that the source material, the Benchley novel, uh, was not great. And Benchley was had the first drafts of this, and this guy, what was his name? You mentioned him earlier. I I've forgotten his name already. But I was very pleased to note that he wrote an episode of The Odd Couple, which is very high praise from me. But I do think the writing uh when I emphasized all the things that I said about it being extremely well done, I omitted the writing from that. And I think that shows more in the first half than the second half. I found most of the interpersonal relationships a little odd and flat, and I was reminded of my pet peeve about Steven Spielberg, which is I never believe him when he presents us an intimate relationship between a man and a woman. They always seem to have a certain emotional distance from each other. And it might be because, and this is maybe great for a filmmaker, but he has the kind of soul of a of a boy, of a young boy who doesn't think in those terms. He does think in terms of action more than I think he thinks in terms of romance. But I don't want to go dump on Steven Spielberg, one of the monumentally talented filmmakers of our time, you know, and I'm just here blabbering on about, you know, the films he's made. I mean, there's a rather important distinction to be made between those two roles in life. But the second half of the movie, this is accomplished. It's a limited location thriller, effectively done. And here you have a million Hitchcock's type tricks. Uh like Hitchcock and Notorious when they're walking uh Ingrid Bergman down the staircase at the very end of the movie. He added stairs. He added stairs to the staircase to make though the walk down longer. And similarly, in this movie, like with water on the boat or things like that, there's a lot of added stairs in there to kind of extend the suspense, and it's very successfully done. But you've got a three, you know, the three players, isolated location, and that's again very effective. But, and here's my problem, uh but it's just Moby Dick. And truth in advertising, uh the movie you like is the movie you like. I did not like the book Moby Dick. I know it's one of the greatest books ever written, but it it was it did not attract my attention. And the underlying story here of the hunt and the obsession, it's Moby Dick.

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Okay, so let me step back here for a second, because I think I like what you did here. You divided the movie into two parts. And I actually am gonna really push back hard on the because so so I I I always look at this when I watch this movie. The first Okay, so the movie basically is is um fish against man is the first like hour and twelve minutes of this movie. The last 50 minutes is man trying to kill fish. All right, but there's a lot of annoying town folk in the first hour of the movie, too. Now, see, now that's interesting that you mentioned the town folk because that's actually one of my favorite aspects of the movie. This movie is a very and and I I was thinking about this. Is this really a 70s movie? Uh in in sort of the new Hollywood ethos. And it is and it isn't. Um I do think there's a very naturalistic feel to this movie that is captured in part by the fact that most of the actors in the movie are not actors, they're locals um who that they basically brought on to take on, you know, not big roles, but like small the kids are like local actors and the kids have some somewhat important roles, but you know, there's a lot of like local practice Martha's vineyard people. Um so I do think there's a very naturalistic feel to it. I want to say also that the first hour of the film, too, I think is uh spectacular. And two things in that I want to mention about this, right? One is the opening scene of the movie. Because uh first of all, I thought you'd appreciate the night night filming a little bit, I guess not. But what happens, right? They're they're they're on the you see, first of all, first you see this opening, great opening of the I guess of the shark, you know, swimming in the water, and you hear the music, the famous dun dun dun dun dun dun music from you know the draws music. And then you get into the scene on the beach, they're having a little bonfire, girl and guy, they exchange glances, she runs off, jumps her clothes off, jumps in the water, and he says after her, but he's too drunk, and he casts out. What happens to her? She's in the water, and she gets killed. We don't see we don't we don't know that. Well, we do know the title of the movie. We know the title of the movie, so we know, and we've seen it before, so we know. But what I think is so great about this is you don't actually see how she dies. You see her begging for her life, which by the way, I mean, watching it again, she's like, I don't want to die, I don't want to die. It's like really emotional to watch, actually. She's being moved back and forth by the shark. She's struggling, she's struggling. You hear her screaming, and then you hear the music, and then all of a sudden she goes under the water and it's silence.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

Yeah. You know when the young girl says, I don't want to die, I don't want to die. You know what my mother in law would say? She would say, Why I need to see such things? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Because that's what the movie's about. I I'm

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Have her eaten by the shark without having her beg for her life from the shark who's not going to give her a moment's notice.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I disagree. I think that you need I mean, you said this earlier about one false move that you know you do you it actually brings some humanity to her. It's what takes it above being just a monster movie, actually. And in fact, all of the deaths here, except for the guy who gets his leg bitten off, like all the deaths here are memorialized, sentimentalized. They are seeing as a tragedy that it is. I I I you of all the people who love you the consequences of violence, you have this here.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

In the spirit of the loyal opposition, as you want to walk through this perfect first hour of the movie, the the teen party on the beach. I was a teenager. I thought that was shot by somebody who had not been to a lot of those parties. Interesting. I thought it was a little kind of flat and artificial. And as if, you know, here are some young people, a couple of them are smoking pot and they're young and it's dark and they're sitting by a fire. But I I I I really thought it it was, you know, shot by as if it was shot by a much older person.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

That's interesting. I don't I'll be honest with you, I've never paid a lot of attention to the bonfire stuff because I mostly is getting into the the action of the uh which quickly develops uh with the and I look I wasn't around in the 70s, I don't know how bonfires were in the 70s. These two these two seem to pair off pretty quickly, I will give you that much. Um I think it's a brilliant scene, we're able to set up the movie. And then, you know, there's a couple different set pieces. Um the second one being the scene where the little boy is eaten, Alex Kittner is eaten. That is a brutal scene, but it's also incredibly well filmed. He uses the old Hitchcock thing where he does a zoom-in focus on Scheiter. He uses the what's it called? The diometer. I can't remember what it's um the De Palma used it a lot in in uh in Blowout. What is it called?

SPEAKER_02 23:47

It's uh a split focus diopter.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

Yeah, split focus diopter, which is um So on the same lens you can get foreground and background and focus. Right, right. So it's it's yeah, exactly. As you said, the foreground and the background all in focus. I just think that's a brilliantly puppet done scene. And again, this is what this is what we talked about with dual in Spielberg, is like he's so good at rationing up the tension. He's so good at building suspense, you know, and there's so and there are a lot of false starts in that scene. Um and then, of course, you see the false starts, you're not sure if anything's gonna happen, all of a sudden you see the shark underneath, you hear the music, and then you see the little boy struggling and the blood going everywhere. And I gotta say, for the record, like this is why this is not your ordinary, you know, blockbuster action film. They killed an eight-year-old boy. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

So I do want to give the movie some credit for that because I don't like dead children in the movies. No. Nobody does. Well, some people seem to roll have it roll off their backs. But in this particular movie, it does place more moral weight on Scheider's character sh character's shoulders because he never should have let the beach be reopened in the first place. And so, you know, a dead baby really drives that home in a way that maybe a dead adult wouldn't have had that same visceral uh uh kind of power of the audience's reaction. And then you get the grieving mom who can slap Scheider around a few hundred.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

Which again is another incredibly brutal scene. And I again not something I think you expect to see in a movie like this. Because again, you know, look, this is a m this is Scheider is your sort of hero figure in the film. He's like the everyman. He's the person you are the, I think, the root for the most in this movie. Um and yet, very early in the film, his moral fail not moral failure, his failure as a police officer is exposed. And he's slapped in the face. And when it happens, I think it's I think it's Dreyfus who says, like, you didn't deserve that, and he basically says, Yes, I did. Yes. He takes responsibility. And I mean it's a little unfair because really the mayor is the one who forces him to open keep the beaches open, but but he accedes to it. He does. He does. Uh I I don't know. I just thought it was really interesting that that that Spielberg went there with A killing a child, but also that he was willing to really just sort of, you know, put the moral onus on Scheider's character, a character that again is like the hero of the movie. So that's why this movie to me feels sort of 70s-ish. Even though it's the first blockbuster movie, it does still maintain some elements. Maybe I'm breaching here, but you tell me. It does maintain some elements of the new Hollywood. By the way, I also think for the record, one thing I was rec I had noticed until this watching is how much overlapping dialogue there is in this movie. Like when they're having the meeting where they introduced to Quint, everyone's talking over each other. Uh it's very like Altman-esque in some ways. It's kind of weird. Like there's a lot of overarching dialogue. Again, something feels naturalistic and feels like 70s kind of movies.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

To me, this movie gestures at the 70s mostly because it's kind of a Watergate-y movie. And you get that with the mayor and Murray Hamilton, and and you have that sense of the kind of corruption of the institutions and of government and that sort of a thing. But I that's as far as I can go with with really with 70s action here.

SPEAKER_01 27:10

I don't know. I think that's a little unfair. I do think there is a there is a naturalistic feel to this movie that is uh uh feels of its era. I don't know that you would it would be made like that today. I think it would be a lot cheesier. I think this I think for all the point about the script, the script would be a lot weaker if it was written today. I think there is more there is more well, let me get to that point. I think there's much deeper characterization in this this film. I think you've got a richer sense of the characters. And another thing that I love a lot is when you're first introduced to Hooper's character, that's Richard Dreyfus, who plays this marine biologist who comes in and his job is to, you know, he's he's the expert uh to help them understand what exactly is going on. And uh he comes over to Brody's house. This is after Brody's been slapped in the face, he's feeling a little down, uh, and he comes and he brings two bottles of wine. I wasn't sure what you were eating, and then he just starts eating Brody's dinner because he's not eating it. Which is like, you know, you just don't do that, right?

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Look, and he comes I will give you this. I mean, for me, Richard Dreyfus shows up 30 minutes into the movie, he's like a brush of a breath of fresh air. But I you see depth in all the characters. His was the his was the only character that I found really interesting. And I thought that the scenes of the movie that I liked were the scenes that he was in. I thought that he was alive and multidimensional in a way that the other characters were not. I really revere Roy Scheider as an actor, but I didn't think he had a lot to do in this movie other than to sort of be shocked and be afraid of the water whilst Fallon's hearing Tupark on an island.

SPEAKER_01 28:43

I mean, I think that's fair. I I think he is he's a foil in some respects for Hooper and for Quint. I have to disagree with you on Quint. I do think he's a great character. I think we can talk a little bit later about some of his motivations. I mean, yes, he's a bit of a caricature, but I actually think there's a lot of more depth to Quint's character than maybe you're giving credit for. He comes this he comes this close to saying R in the first time in the first day.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

He does say it. He does.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

But I think when you see, and we'll talk about it later, the Indianapolis speech, I do think you see there's a lot, there's something else going on with him. Certainly. Um and I and I actually appreciate that. I think you actually find these characters compelling. Um and I think that's a bit maybe unusual for some of these kinds of action movies. Um that and I also think the the the interplay between them is really good. Now I know if you you know the story on this is that apparently Shaw and Dreyfus kind of hate each other. And Shaw kept like pushing him and pushing him and like kind of tweaking him and like getting under his skin, which he does in the movie also, by the way. I wasn't sure. I wonder if he was like trying to art imitate or life imitating art or something like that. But um I I I don't know. I find the character is like compelling enough, more compelling than I think you'd ordin ordinarily get in a movie like this.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

I was most entertained when Dreyfus was on screen.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Now you mentioned one scene in particular you liked a lot, which is the Dreyfus and Scheider going out on the boat together.

SPEAKER_02 30:09

Yeah, that's about minute 40, and it's after that dinner you mentioned, which is a funny dinner. Then they go, cut the shark open, find out there's no dead little boy in there, so it's the wrong shark. So Dreyfus wants to go out. And there you get, it's like four or five minutes long, and it's the two of them on the boat. Of course, Scheider's character, Afraid of the Water. And there you get some glorious night-for-night shooting, and there you get some for me very attractive suspense. And it's not sharky suspense, right? You're just out in a boat in the pitch black night, and you're looking for something. What are you looking for? You don't know. And then Dreyfus goes and does a little underwater excursion and and sees uh the evidence of a previous shark attack. It's four or five minutes long, it's just the two of them, and as I said, I tended to enjoy the movie more when Dreyfus was fully engaged. And if you step that scene outside of the movie, for me, yeah, I mean that's one of the high points of the film. I thought it was extremely well executed. And as I've said, so much tau detached here. And I'm sure, you know, the editing and the performances and the cinematography. Maybe that wasn't Bill Butler, because they probably had a separate cinematographer for scenes shot on water.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Yeah, no, this actually that scene was shot in post-production. It was shot after the fact, I think in somebody's pool. Um and in part that Spielberg felt that just need they needed like one more sort of suspenseful scene. Uh, and that's why they added that with the head.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

See, I you almost had me. I thought they were gonna I was gonna say Spielberg thought they needed one more human scene. I mean, there is where the characters are interacting with each other in a way that I was I was able to appreciate as as my kind of movie type of thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

That's interesting. I mean, I it's funny. I don't remember that like it was any of that scene is that Scheider, you do get a feel for why he's there. He says something about how that in New York it's all crime and murder and so forth, and here you can you can make a difference, and it's it's like maybe some sort of explanation for him, but I didn't find that terribly compelling.

SPEAKER_02 32:03

Trevor Burrus, Jr. No, I didn't buy that argument for a second. So the guy's afraid of water. I don't know why he took this particular job. But just their rep their general rapport and the fact that they're out there in the dark on the boat, and you do have the little machine that tells you, oh, something's going on up there, oh maybe it isn't, and then you know, Drip is going, I didn't you know the the pop the extra popping severed head thing. That's that leaves. I didn't think it I actually did not think that needed to be in there, to be honest. Aaron Powell No, but it didn't bother me. I just that's not that's not what made that scene. I'm saying if I was a filmmaker, which I am not, I would have said, I want an extra scene here to develop the relationship between these guys a little bit, not I need an extra scene here because I want one more severed head in my picture.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

Aaron Powell I guess the thing is the st that the the interaction between them is the least I find not that terribly interesting. It's the interaction between them and Quint, especially Hooper and Quint that I think is the most interesting. Because the interaction between Hooper and Quint like kind of takes on a class level, right? I mean, Quint is the Quint is the guy who's like born and raised in Martha's Vineyard, I guess, and he's a real islander. And there's a whole thing in there about how you have to be born there to be an islander. And, you know, he clearly served in the Navy, he was on the Indianapolis to get that in a few minutes. Hooper is like a college boy, he calls at one point, he says to him, you know, you college boys need to more education to know when you're admit when you're wrong or something along those lines. I mean, there is sort of a a class distinction between the two of them. And you can it really intensifies once they get on the boat. But I I don't that scene, I you know, just I don't know. I mean, I think Scheider is like the ballast of this movie. Like he's the guy who everybody kind of responds to, although he has some he has some great moments on the boat at the end. But I agree with you, he's not the most compelling character, but I do think you kind of root for him.

unknown 33:47

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 33:48

I do think how he reacts to Quint and to Hooper is sort of interesting. But uh look, I'll grant you that the most important character in this film, let's be honest, is the shark.

SPEAKER_02 33:56

And the shark has a lot of agency. This is a very this shark does a lot of thinking. And let's talk about the shark, right?

SPEAKER_01 34:03

The shark, which was named Bruce, because it was uh it was it was a I think at some point Spielberg thought he could train a shark to do some of these things, but you cannot train a shark. So they built this shark, they called it Bruce, uh, which was named after Spielberg's lawyer. They had three different models, an 18-footer, a 32-footer, and a 25-foot shark. They went with the 25-foot shark. 18 was too small, 32 is too big, so I guess the 25 was just right. Um, it didn't work for much of the shoot, and that we get that gets back to the point I was bringing up at the beginning. You don't see the shark in the opening scene. You see the shark when he kills uh the little boy, you only see uh kind of the fin of the shark of him coming out of the water, and then you see the shark in the next scene where there's a killing, you see the dorsal fin. And I think this is like I'm not saying anything that people haven't said before. That's what makes the shark so terrifying, is that you don't actually see the shark until two-thirds of them wait. And that is one of those happy I think Sydney Lamette talks about this. Like a lot of times directing is about having happy accidents. Yes. And this was a happy accident that's worked out really, really well because it made it made it more terrifying. And I mean, you know, I'm not a big monster movie guy, but like as far as monster movies go, is that I think it's that's not the norm. I think because you show the monster pretty early on, don't they?

SPEAKER_02 35:21

I'm not sure because it's just not my genre uh outside of the X Files, which is a show I really liked, and they had a couple of monster episodes, and I don't remember if they showed the monster, but monsters are usually scarier when they're withheld from you.

SPEAKER_01 35:34

Yeah, and I think that's what makes this film so scary. I mean, I just say for the record, like I don't remember how old I was when I saw this. I must see when I was a kid, because I do remember going to Cape Cod with my parents every summer and being really afraid of going too far into the water because of sharks. Sure. I don't know any Is there anybody of our generation who didn't have like didn't see this movie and have the experience of being afraid to go in the water and afraid, afraid of getting eaten by a shark?

SPEAKER_02 36:03

I don't know, but you know, as we talked about three days at the condor, I spent my whole life being afraid of a car slowing beside me. Not a postman then. No, actually I survived the yeah, postman never scared me, but a a car will slow beside you is a line that has haunted me for my entire life.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

I I just think that's you know, that's what looking first of all, let's be c let's be honest, sharks are not do not often eat people. You're much more likely to get eaten by like a hippo or a rhino or a to- or by a crocodile than you are by a shark. It's very, very rare. Sharks don't usually attack humans. This shark was unusual in that it, you know, was like really just going to town on humans. Um but I I, you know, I think that that element of it is what the terrifying element of this movie, the scariness of because people, everyone likes to go to the beach, everyone goes in the ocean. Uh it it's I think it sort of makes it a universal kind of fear. It's like different than seeing like a Godzilla movie or like a Mothra or something like that. This is like those are like ridiculous monsters. This doesn't feel ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 37:04

I can't believe you just lumped Godzilla and Mothra together like that. Godzilla is a much more consequential figure in life.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Aaron Ross Powell He is, but Godzilla was like a giant, like what, 30-foot like monster? Like it's not something you ordinarily see.

SPEAKER_02 37:18

Trevor Burrus It is something you do not ordinarily see. Uh but on a separate point, before we started talking uh live here, you did ask me why I thought people loved this movie, and I really think you're putting your finger on it right now, which is one of the things the movies does for us, for people who like that sort of thing, and it's not really why I go to the movies, is it allows you to be in fear in a safe spot. So you can experience that terror while knowing actually that you're secure. And so it was a kind of a vicarious thing, and it it plays with with kind of basic drives and emotions and that that can be manipulated very successfully, and that can be quite thrilling, and it's probably more fun to do that in a movie theater than it is to do on the high seas.

SPEAKER_01 38:05

It's funny, I'm glad you brought this up, because it's something I thought about a lot. Like, why is this movie why people love this movie so much? And like for me, I love it because I just think it's really well done. It's really it's really smart, fun, uh uh w cra uh cra uh filmmaking. It's a well-crafted movie. I mean, I think this photography is great, the editing is great, I think the action is great, I think the the the characters are great. I mean, everything I just there's just a lot about this movie that I think is is wonderful. But like that, I think my love of this movie is different than most people's love this movie. I think most people love this movie because what you just said, or they just like horror films. They like to be scared in the movies and then be able to walk out and know that you're fine. Um I mean, I asked somebody this question today, and he's like, well, I think the movie's fun. And now I'm like, is this movie fun? I don't know that I think this movie is being fun. Do you think it was being fun?

SPEAKER_02 38:54

Well, you're asking the wrong guy, but I do think it's very effective in creating suspense and terror, and that and and the terror is real, and you are in the hands of very talented filmmakers, and so that manipulation, and I I don't say manipulation in a derogatory way. Good filmmaking is about the manipulation of your emotions. I mean, it's all fake, right? The whole the whole movie is an artifice, and so if the movie can touch your emotions in a way, that's that is the craft of manipulation through film. And the suspense and the fear and the terror and the action and the pacing within the scenes of this movie, I think, is extraordinarily effective to scare you. And again, you have the the kind of classic threat, relax, threat sequence that occurs. And, you know, people really respond well to that. I don't uh after a while, it it almost becomes rote, and I prefer filmmakers who play with that and and give you, you know, withhold that final uh threat sometimes, and and that's very cute. But that's not that is not withheld here.

SPEAKER_01 39:59

No, it's true. And the thing is, I'm not usually a guy who likes monster movies or likes horror movies. It's not my thing. Right? Going to a movie where where there's like a giant shark is not like if you told me that on the surface, I'd be like, I don't really want to see that. There have been movies made, I know recent years, about giant sharks. Yeah. There's something called like the Megal, I forget what it's called, Meg or something. I don't I don't remember. And I could care less. I would never go see that. I that just does no appeal to whatsoever. But something about this movie, even though it is a monster movie, a movie that I shouldn't ordinarily like, I do love it. Um I do think it's great. I I do enjoy watching it. I mean, you know, there are certain moments in the film, and I'll actually get to that moment because I do think that like the scene, the third scene of the shark attack, which is where they basically close the beaches, but then, you know, after finally and then Oh no, they don't close. I'm sorry, before they close the beaches on July 4th, they open up the beaches. You have that wonderful scene with Dreyfus and Murray Hamilton, where he tries to explain to him about how the shark is this, you know, it's all it does is eats and uh sleeps and makes baby sharks, which by the way, could really describe anybody in the animal in the animal kingdom, right? Um that's kind of what animals do, right? Uh and so anyway, so they get everyone to come out on July 4th, come to the beaches, everyone shows up, you get a lot of good shots of old Martha's Vineyard, and then they go to the beach, and then of course the mayor, and I don't understand why he does this, tries to get people to go into the water. Like, what do you care if they go in the water or not? You already got him at the beach, like you already won. You don't have to go into the water.

SPEAKER_02 41:31

It's well because this is this is a great moment. Because I, you know, again, this movie got lots of great reviews. I looked at Molly Haskell's review, who I really admire. Molly, she liked the movie, but she did say, you know, the the mayor, not only is he content to keep the beaches open, and she says, in a gesture whose logic escapes me, he insists that everyone must go swimming. Yeah, it makes no sense.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

That that actually is a one-part movie where I and I watched the movie like uh maybe eight, nine times. I was like, why does he tell them to go in the water? Like, what does he care at that point? And of course the shark attacks. Now I just think and they have well, first there's a fake attack, right, with the kids who bit who build the fake shark, which is uh a nice little sort of bait and switch. It's threat relaxed threat. Threat relaxed threat. I just think that scene where they think the shark is out there and it's not, and everyone has to run in, like, is just bravora filmmaking. Like the way that that Spielberg captures that sense of terror, the sense of sort of mob terror. It's just I don't know many scenes that do it better than that. And again, I'm just gonna say this. I mean, this is maybe pre-CGI or like something about 70s filmmaking. It feels really natural and really organic and and it feels very real. And I I whenever I watch that scene, like I usually don't get I usually don't like scenes like that, but but I just am so impressed by how well it's it he he puts this together. It actually reminded me a little bit of the opening.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

Yeah, as my father would say, it's extremely well done. It's extremely well done.

SPEAKER_01 43:01

I I accept your condemnation. Uh you know, it almost weirdly reminded me a little bit of what he does in Saving Private Ryan. Obviously, it's very different, but just the the the way he sort of captures the full scope of the sense of fear and terror and that people are trying to escape from that they think is a shark. I don't know. It's just I think it's really one of the more compelling scenes in the movie. And then, of course, you get the scene where the shark shows up in the estuary into the pond, what's the famous Jaws Bridge, you can jump off it today if you want to, and eats the guy who's in the rowboat, knocks the guy off the rowboat, eats him, and almost eats the kids, but somehow. Instead of eating Roy Scheider's kid. Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, instead of eating Roy Scheider's kid.

SPEAKER_02 43:43

And then you have a question about that. Roy Scheider said you can only go in that little pond area. You can't go in the ocean area. Well, that really didn't work, right? Apparently the shark can go anywhere.

SPEAKER_01 43:54

I mean, well, I guess they thought that the shark wouldn't go into the pond because it was like shower. Or something. I didn't totally understand that. I was confused that this shark likes shallow water. Which usually sharks don't. There's a scene later in the movie that talked about drowning the shark in the in the in shallow water. I don't know how that would work actually. But anyway, again, don't don't apply so much logic here. It doesn't really work. It's not, and you don't need to do it here. I mean, yes, there are things that don't make sense. A shark this friggin' big, like, that doesn't make a lot of sense. But like, you know, a shark that basically tries to destroy a boat again, does not always what sharks do. Don't don't sweat it. I just think that's a great scene. And and uh I love the scene after this again at the at the hospital where their kid is at the hospital, he's he's his shock, and you see the mayor is having like uh and he's like it's a great moment. Murray Hamilton, where he sort of talks about, you know, my kids were on that on that beach, and he realizes he's screwed up. He realizes he made the seat and taken finally gets him to spend the $10,000 to hire Quinn to kill the shark.

SPEAKER_02 44:55

You know my favorite thing about that scene? They're in a hospital and Hamilton is smoking. You know, it's the 70s, man. You can smoke in the hospitals. It's totally true. It's totally true.

SPEAKER_01 45:06

He's very smoking, right? And he has that great suit with the anchors on him. Yeah. You know, the uh it's great. But I just I love that. I love the little character stuff stuff, as you would say, little bits of business there. I like it. I think it's great.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

Um he was late to the this is wrong party, I think.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Uh the magic. He was late. But I feel again, maybe this is unfair. I feel like in modern blockbusters, like uh I'm thinking of like diehard, where uh the the p the the the incompetent LA police captain is incompetent throughout the movie. He's like a pain in the ass the entire I forget his name is, but he's he's just he's just stupid the entire movie, like never sort of figures it out like that he's misjudging what's happening here. But Hamilton does figure it out. He kind of, you know, the mayor sort of realizes I screwed up and and it's a very emotional moment when he talks about it. I mean, again, I like those little bits of of character development that you get here. I think it's just unusual for a blockbuster. Maybe I'm grading on a curve, I'm sure you would say that. But I I do think it is it it it's what separates this movie from your standard action blockbuster fair.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

Aaron Ross Powell Right. And as the other problem is I don't I tend to shy away from action blockbuster affair. So I don't I can't say, oh, this is so much better than those eight other action blockbuster movies I just saw.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

And no, I actually, you know, I I'm a big fan of action blockbuster films. So I suppose for me I have a little more experience with it, but not I shouldn't say blockbuster. I'm more a fan of action films. I don't always love them, but I do sort of find them diverting. And I think this one is better made than most. But that gets us as a good segue into the second half of the movie, which is where they basically chase the shark.

SPEAKER_02 46:49

Right. And I do think this is the this is the better film. This is this nice, limited location, you know, three men in a boat, you know, they're out there, and that's it. That's that I as a concept, I think that's much stronger.

SPEAKER_01 47:03

Right. And I want to hear I want to hear more about that, but I want to just interject one thought, which I think the decision to film this movie on the ocean, which extended this from maybe like 58-day shoot to like 160-day shoot or something along those lines, was the right decision. Because I you know a movie that's made like in a in a big giant aquarium or a giant, you know, pool, you feel it.

SPEAKER_03 47:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:28

This movie, you can feel like you're actually on the ocean. There's a real, again, natural naturalism to it that I think is really appealing.

SPEAKER_02 47:38

Yeah, and it meshes well with all the handheld work. I mean, it's certainly you I felt like I was on the water. Not sure I want to be there, but I I felt it.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

Yeah. Well, no, I mean, after a while do you begin to feel a little bit like it's exhausting being there, but it's fifty minutes that this thing goes on for. It's a fi it's very long. Yeah. And a lot of it and and I just think there's so many little bits here that I love. Like, for example, Quent is sitting there on the thing eating his crackers. Robert Shaw is uh his he's showing an Oscar for eating crackers because he's really good at it. And he sees the the rod and he sees the click on the rod. And I just this is something that Spielberg does so well. He did this a little bit in the Jurassic Park as well. Little the little sound, a little movement that all of a sudden signals that something tense is about to happen. Right. And then you see, you know, Shaw like straps himself in, the second click, and the third click, and the fourth click, and he and he he's s like trying not to attract attention, trying not to tell everyone what's happening, but he thinks they may have caught the shark or they have the shark on the on the rock. They don't, but he thinks they do. So that is.

SPEAKER_02 48:41

I love that is a nice piece of business. And I I do I enjoy seeing specialized professionals executing their craft. And it's a it is a small piece of business, but you see him sensing something's going on, and he sidles into his chair and he moves a few things around and he does it very quietly, and he does it very competently with very specialized knowledge and experience. I mean the whole thing's 30 seconds, but I I did I did appreciate that piece of business.

SPEAKER_01 49:06

Yeah, I I I just think and Quint in general, we've seen him earlier in the movie. We saw him at his I guess his studio. I don't know what it is, his office where he has all the bleached out jaws from all the sharks he's caught over the years. Um I mean tell me talk to me a little of this. I you know, I we've tried Robert Schauba in in taking a Pelham. We talked we haven't talked about him in the sting yet, but we talked about him a lot in in Pelham. I mean, I think he is just wonderful in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 49:32

I So I have a very different reaction. I think the scene we're going to talk about later, in which he has a monologue, is outstanding. It's brilliant, it's spectacular, it's so well done. It's really great acting, and it has a depth and it has a delivery that I was very, very impressed with. It was really one of the two things I liked about the movie. My little scene on the boat with Richard Dreyfus was earlier in the movie was one, and the Shaw monologue was the other. But for me, other than during that monologue, I I was not impressed with the Shaw character seemed ridiculous to me.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

I mean, of course he's a kind of ridiculous. I mean, there is some element of ridiculousness to him, but I don't really agree. I actually find him the most interesting character in the movie because we talked about this earlier. Why does he ruin the radio? Um and I think I can't know if it happens before or after the Indianapolis monologue. But the Indianapolis monologue to me is such a revealing moment because what you sort of learn about Quint is that beyond this rough exterior that he has, this is just this is a guy who's just who's deathly afraid of sharks, who is who is afraid of them and who has devoted his life to I feel like conquering that fear that he has by by killing sharks.

SPEAKER_02 50:47

But but I I got I was gonna try to avoid doing this for as long as possible, but I I gotta go, gotta launch my nuclear weapons here on this one. The smashing of the radio really drove me crazy. And here I need to quote from Vincent Cambi's review. Cambi liked this movie, gave it a strongly positive review. But he has this wonderful sentence. He says, if you think Jaws, if you think about Jaws for more than 45 seconds, you will re you will recognize it as nonsense, but it's the sort of nonsense that can be a good deal of fun. And he goes on from there to praise the movie. And there are two elements of this that absolutely drive me crazy. You know, one is the smashing of the radio. It's like if you don't smash the radio, you pick up the radio and you say, hey, we're out here, we have the shark, we need help. No, but he does but he wants to kill the shark. Yeah. That's the point.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Yeah, but he's a big thing. He's only one of the three guys on the boat. My sense of it is that he desperately wants to conquer this fear that he has of sharks, and this is the ultimate shark to kill, and he wants to be the person who kills it. He doesn't want Elibo coming in and stealing his thunder. He wants to do it. It's also the question of like it's a $10,000 reward, doesn't want to share the reward. But I truly believe that that is what is motivating him.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

I understand that, but at some point I'm taking the keys from this guy. You know, I'm the uh he needs a designated driver. I mean, one phone call to the Coast Guard, you send a ship out there, you got a bazooka, you bazooka the shark, you got moving the cover.

SPEAKER_01 52:12

That's what Scheider wanted to do.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

And that's what anybody would do in those circumstances.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Not Quint. I disagree with you. No, no, not Quentin.

SPEAKER_02 52:20

I agree with you. That's why they would tie him up and put him in the brig, call for the Coast Guard, bring out the bazooka, blow up the shark, you're done.

SPEAKER_01 52:28

Wait a minute. Scheider goes in to do just what you said, and Quint says, no, he I'm gonna destroy the shark. I want to say something else too. I think there's something else going on here as well, which is that I feel like he the competition between him and Hooper is equivalent to a dick measuring contest, where they both want to prove that like Quint wants to show up the college boy, yeah, and the college boy doesn't want to show up the working class. And he says at one point, I don't need this working class hero bullshit, right? Right. They they are they are and I I didn't quite get that, I think, until this watching of how much that entire boat ride is them in competition with other and shadow trying to navigate between the two of them. And you see it repeatedly. You see it with the the drawing of the radio. You see it uh when he doesn't tie on the knot fast enough and he doesn't get to shoot the shark in the head. He blames him for that. You see it um I mean the maybe the crucial scene is when he's driving the anything and and Hooper says, you're gonna blow the engine and hold back, hold on the engines for a second.

SPEAKER_02 53:29

Let's stick with because that's another ridiculous moment. But let me let me riddle me this, Batman. How far are they from shore? And my answer is not super far, because this shark feeds on the beach. He's not, he's not, they're not out, you know, f nautical miles away on the open seas. At any point, they could just say, hey, you know what? We're out we're outclassed here, man. The most famous line in the movie is you're gonna need a bigger boat. I know it's it's a great line.

SPEAKER_01 54:02

But my point of it is like this is a choice that Quint makes. But why does he get to make the choice? Who tied in the community? He's the captain. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

A little mute never hurt anybody.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

He makes this very clear. He makes this very clear early on that I am the captain, I'm in charge. Yes. And but it's Captain Queen. And also he is Captain Queen. No, he is, I agree. Yeah. And but like Hooper doesn't want to go in because Hooper wants to kill the shark, also. And Hooper wants to prove that he's smarter than Quint. And it's like the only one who wants to go in, the only one who's rational. Well, the other one's rational is Scheiter. And he tries to do it. Don't forget his wife calls at one point and Quint blows her off. At the other point, he calls in and we've got to get a bigger boat. He says repeatedly, we're gonna get a bigger boat, right? We've got to get a bigger boat. And Quinn's like, no, I want to do this. But I and I mean let me say one more thing. I do think that when the end we powers the engine to the point where it breaks, if you remember what happens in that scene is that Hooper tells him to stop and he says no, he threw he pushes him away. He is going to make decisions on his own. And even if it means putting his life and everyone else there at risk. And that's what he does.

SPEAKER_02 55:11

Trevor Burrus, Jr. But I've seen that on one-third of the episodes of Star Trek, right? Scotty calls up from the entry room, Captain, I can't push the engines any harder. And you know, but so finally they stop because they realize that it is suboptimal to push the engines so hard that you're going to break the ship.

SPEAKER_01 55:27

And Hooper can't Hooper understands that. He tells him not to do it, but he does anyway. And by the way, I haven't even mentioned the ultimate dick uh measuring scene, which is when they compare the scars. Yeah. He pulls his tooth out. And there's actually a great moment that I had missed until this viewing. Schneider pulls up his his shirt to look at his, I guess, I don't know if it's a pending scar, I don't know what the hell it was. He was a shot. That's what I assume too. And he's like, no, I probably shouldn't say anything. And the final example of this, of this dick measuring contest, is when Hooper gets in the fucking cage and goes in the it's a basic a suicide mission. So that he does, I believe he does, because he wants to prove to Quint that he is tough enough to do something like that. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 56:08

Well, I have several comments about this. One is, I'm curious. I thought when they were comparing scars, I actually thought that they developed a mutual respect over the I thought so too. I thought so too. So it became a little less competitive. And the cage thing, I had two comments about. One is maybe, you know, it was a macho thing, but they were running out of options at that point. It was it was an act of desperation. And also, what a crap cage. You know, if I'm ever getting in a shark cage, I wanted to be able to keep the sharks out.

SPEAKER_01 56:37

In fairness, it was a big shark. If it had been the tiger shark that they caught on the pier, then that that would I think that would have been fine in there.

SPEAKER_02 56:45

But you know, maybe Dreyfus shouldn't constantly drop things to the bottom of the ocean whenever he gets scared.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

Well, in fairness, the shark did hit the cage. But I I I mean I I agree with you. That probably wasn't best to drop that. But I actually read that scene as in Hooper says effects at one point, like Jake gets in the waters, I don't have any spit left, which is actually was a great line, I thought. But like the reality is I think he is try they're both trying to prove themselves. And I think you see this repeatedly when they're on the boat, and you see it like Hooper, he does his like little funny face thing at at Quinn because he's pissing them. Like they're trying to show each other up constantly. And I don't know, the the cage scene, right before the cage thing happens, Quint comes out with the two life jackets and he gives one to each of them and doesn't put it on. Of course, we'll never put a life jacket on again. What a great friggin' moment in the film, by the way. There's like this silence where they all kind of realize we're gonna be eaten by a shark, aren't we? Like it's a really I I thought that was a really powerful moment in the film, actually. I loved it. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 57:43

Maybe we made the mistake that everybody in the audience could have told we were making all this.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

But I you I really think that you are you're being way too literal. Like I mean, Scheider is on your side. He realizes this is a mistake, but it's Quint who is driving the train here.

SPEAKER_02 58:01

Yes, but I have never forgiven Roy Scheider, who has a pathological fear of water for taking a job as the policeman on an island. It doesn't, you know, it's it's crazy. And then you have the other two guys who, as you say, are both obsessed. So why am I so they all get eaten by sharks. I mean, they don't, actually, only one of them does. But you know, they they bring it on themselves. All each of them.

SPEAKER_01 58:23

They don't. No, you're wrong. Brody does not bring it on himself. He tries to avoid it happening, and yeah, Quint takes the baseball bat and destroys the radio. Trevor Burrus, Jr. So can we do that? That is a little well-equipped boat, by the way. Any ghoul you need for anything, it's handy. Actually, I gotta say, for the record, another another problem I had was why does he have like two or three baseball bats? I mean, I guess maybe you hit the shark with it. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 58:49

Maybe I thought maybe it was for like when you had a big fish and you pulled it up onto the deck and you flock it on the head or something. Yeah, maybe. But there were several baseball bats. I did notice that as well.

SPEAKER_01 59:00

Yeah, there were several baseball bats. It was strange. Um I you know, the other thing. So let's talk about the Indianapolis Beach because it really is the highlight of the scene. And I'll just say this for the record. I love this monologue. It's so well delivered. Dreyfus like talked just glowingly about Shaw's delivery during this monologue and how he was like, he's never seen an actor more on. And do you know if you know this? So what happened apparently is that this was in the original script. Uh Stuart thought it needed to be stronger. He sent it to uh John Millius, who uh you know wrote Apocalypse Now, wrote a whole bunch of you know classic 70s movies. Uh to beef it up. He wrote like a seven-page thing. It was just too long. And Shaw was like the night before they were filming, said, Let me take a look at this and see if I can do something with it. And so Shaw actually wrote the monologue. I mean, he edited down the monologue uh that was delivered. Um my understanding was that the first time they shot it, he he asked Spielberg if he could have a few drinks. Apparently, he got so wasted he couldn't film anything because he was an alcoholic. And then uh that's like every British action 70 seemingly was, and then they shot it the next day. And I just think what again about this movie, can you imagine uh any other blockbuster action movie having a four-minute monologue about the USS Indianapolis and 800 guys getting eaten by shark, which I according to my math is about what what what uh what Quint describes. It's incredible.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:27

It's it's it's it's it's a spectacular monologue. It's the best it's the best four minutes in a movie that is two hours and four minutes long.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

You're not gonna give me anything, are you?

SPEAKER_02 1:00:40

I just gave you those four minutes. All right, fine, beyond the four minutes.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

That's fair, that's fair. I I just love that scene. I think it's so powerfully uh uh delivered. And again, I think this is all guy I told it earlier. I think it tells you a lot about Quinn's character. I think it tells you a lot about his motivation and his fear. This is a guy who's afraid of sharks, and for goddamn good reason he's afraid of sharks. He spent six days in the water watching his buddies get eaten by sharks. He spent his entire life killing sharks in order to like conquer that fear. I I mean I think everything that happens can be explained by that monologue.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:19

Perhaps. I mean, I think another option would have been to go into a different line of work if he were that afraid of sharks. That you wouldn't have the movie, would you? And you know, in the end, it he he loses the battle, doesn't he? So that's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

So in the movie, I I was watching it, we were watching it with a bunch of it was like Alex, our girlfriend and her family were there, and we were watching, and when he gets eaten by the shark, which is a brutal, gruesome scene. I said, Poor Quint, he deserved better. And I swear to God, I forgot who it was. Somebody spoke up and said, Oh, he deserved better. He ruined the radio, it's his fault this happened. I was like, oh, it sounds like you're channeling Kirchner there. But I mean, but they're right. I mean, he does he is responsible for his own demise, but you still feel like it's just there there's something trick really tragic about him getting him getting um eaten by a shark, and that's how he ends up dying.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:14

I guess I just wasn't emotionally attached to him enough to to care. You didn't feel emotionally attached after the uh Indianapolis speech? I thought the speech was absolutely spectacular, but it's it's 30 years later. There were other guys on that ship. You know, he he he had this experience. It was an astonishing experience. The monologue is brilliant and brilliantly delivered. But the other 300 survivors, many of them probably just went on with their lives and didn't become bad shark hunters.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:46

Yeah, I suppose that's true. I mean it's the interesting question is that the memory came up because he said he had a tattoo of the Annapolis, and then he he removed the tattoo. Yeah, that's weird. That was weird. I agree. That was interesting. But I I don't know. I felt very sad for Quent when he gets eaten at the end. I will say this: the final you know shot of the film, or the final thing of the film, which is that uh which is Scheider getting up on the mass that's sinking, and you had the whole thing with the compressed air earlier, and like he can't mess around, I don't think it's gonna blow up. Check off compressed air. Check off his compressed air. He throws the compressed air in the jaw in the shark's mouth. Uh by the way, I do love the scene where the shark is coming in to the boat and he's trying to bite Scheiter, and you can see a little bit of like meat hanging off of his off of his teeth, like there's Quint. I did love that actually. Uh throws it in there and then he shoots it. Let's be honest, this is ridiculous. This is a ridiculous ending to the movie. Uh my understanding is you cannot actually shoot uh um a compressed air and blow up a shark by doing so. See, that's the kind of thing that rolls right off my back.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:57

I don't that there's a don't expect realism. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:01

Look, at that point, you're too.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:03

Go ahead. Sorry, go ahead. I had a question about this, and this is why it reminded me so much of Moby Dick. And I don't know enough about sea animals to know this. But Moby Dick and the shark seem to have a plan, right? The shark seems to be able to recognize this boat as an adversary before the boat tries to do anything bad to it and decides he's gonna kind of take it out and and even strategizes about it. Maybe sharks and whales can do this, I don't know. But that that I think that's why it kind of pushed the Moby Dick button for me in a minute, and then it reminded me, oh yeah, I didn't like Moby Dick.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

Right. But don't in fairness, there weren't like 20 pages about Blubber, right? That's true. Uh in this movie. I've actually tried reading Moby Dick years ago, and I just found myself not interested and I didn't read it. But um maybe I should, I don't know. But I I've I haven't read fully uh fully Moby Dick, so I can't really compare the two. I mean, there is a lot of Moby Dick overlap. You can see as Schwint is like the Captain Ahab sort of character, obviously. Um look, as I said, it's it's ridiculous how the shark gets killed, but smile, you son of a bitch. I do remember have a baby with a kid seeing that and being like, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:10

Like, you know, you you didn't think it's it's a moment. It is a thrill ride. It is a thrill ride.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:17

I'm not uh not that there's anything wrong with that. No, nothing wrong with it. I just think that you're not a thrill ride kind of movie viewer. Trevor Burrus, Jr. Right.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:27

That is true. And that's, you know, so that's yes. So now I can give my one more, one last quote for the day from Scorsese, who was talking about certain type of movies, and he said they were, quote, made by people of considerable talent and artistry. You can see it on the screen. The fact that the films themselves don't interest me is a matter of personal taste and temperament.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:51

I I love that quote because I feel that way about lots of films. There are films I've seen, there's Corsica films I've seen, that I can look at, I can say, we've talked about this at some point. You know, that, oh, that film is so well made. I love it's just it's really well done and it's, you know, great direction and the cinematography is wonderful. It just left me cold. Right? That's the phrase I use a lot. Like there are a lot of films that I know were good films. I just don't really they do nothing for me. Um I'm trying to think of a good example of that. Uh what I I mean, I think I maybe I said that about Parallax View, maybe we talked about as a movie like that for me. Speed movies we talked about, where I just feel like maybe Taxi Driver, I kind of felt that way a little bit about, just left me kind of like I didn't feel emotionally invested in it. And I don't feel emotionally invested in this film. I just find it really friggin' entertaining. And I think I I was talking to somebody today, I was like saying, what is it about this movie? I'm like, I compared it to Rears of the Lost Ark, Rears of the Lost Ark, which might be my my one of my top my favorite movies of all time.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:49

That is one of your favorite movies.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:51

I love that movie because I just find it incredibly entertaining. Now, if I maybe I told you this joke about I watched it with my kids recently, and the scene where you know he chases down the arc, it just to me is the greatest 20 minutes of filmmaking ever done. I love it. But like my kids were like, this isn't realistic at all. I'm like, who gives a shit? Shut up. What's wrong with you? How have I raised you? No cares. It's not realistic. That's not the point. It's fun. And that's what I feel about this movie. And I think this movie, for me, what I love about it is just that I think it's, I mean, everything about it to me is well done, right? You talk about the cinematography, the editing is great. I think the acting is great. Uh, the action sequences are are real set pieces are wonderfully done. You know, he Spielberg is a master of building tension and suspense. All of that just comes together. And like, you know, sometimes you just you can't you don't want to overanalyze the film too much. Sometimes the film is just great because the film is great. And there's nothing that that's and it g and it put gives you a sense of escape and a sense of a joyride. And that's okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:53

I do think the construction of tension and anxiety within elements of this film is outstanding. Obviously, Spielberg is orchestrating that, but I do want to mention again, there's an editor who's new to me, uh, Werner Fields, who is apparently a very important member of the production team. And that the editing of those types of sequences is absolutely crucial to establish those emotional feelings. And so just a big shout out to Spielberg, but also to his editor.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:21

Yeah, and I'll just say for the record, like the the most famous line in the movie, you know, is when is when um Brody Scheider says, we need a bigger boat. Yeah. And um, you know, I love the way that's filmed. I love that every decision Spielberg makes, which first of all, the you see the shark almost as it by accident, because he's throwing the chum in the in the water, and all of a sudden you see the shark rise up. You see the look on Spielberg's face with the cigarette dang out of his mouth, yeah. You see him walking, you don't see him walking backwards, you just see him coming into the cabin and delivering the bigger boat line. Everything about it, it's so effective at heightening the sense of tension and suspense and fear. Like when you see that shark go around the boat, like you're afraid. That's a giant shark.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:08

Yes. But to beat a dead shark, Roy Scheider's character is introduced to us as someone who was so afraid of the water that when he puts his car on the ferry to get to the island, he refuses to get out of the vehicle. I know, I know. I know. But there he is on his on the bow of the boat, throwing meat at the shark.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:27

I know, I know. He's he's conquering his fears, I guess. He's he's although you see him on the boat earlier with with with the scene you love with with Dreyfus. He's not that afraid on that boat, is he?

SPEAKER_02 1:09:36

He's a little wary. He's a little bit he he pref he did he did not want to take the trip when they were in. They had just cut open the other shark, and Driver says, Oh, you know what we gotta do now. We gotta go on a boat. And Driver says, Yeah, we really don't have to, do we? Really? And he's like, Yeah, yeah, I'm going on a boat.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:51

And so they he drags him out there. I'm just mentioning one other thing, really quick, that like this is a small bit, but there's a part where they when they first see the shark and they're they're walking around the side of the boat. I guess what you do, you don't have like a walkway, so you walk sort of on that little rate that little piece of wood that kind of juts out. And you see uh I think it's I think it's uh Quint doing it, and you see his foot slip just for a second. Again, that's the I that's another like really small little bit of business, but it's a way to increase the sense of tension and fear because you're like, oh, if he slips, he falls, he goes in the water, he's gonna get eaten by the shark.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:28

Right. But if I can be the annoying picky logical guy, if I'm a professional shark hunter, I'm not gonna be wearing the slippy shoes on the voyage.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:38

I mean, I did find that a curious choice, but I assumed I assumed that's what shark hunters wear.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:45

That's what that's foolish of them. You want to wear the grippy shoes. You want to wear the 2001 stick-to-the-floor shoes.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:53

I don't know what the proper shoe wear is when you're hunting a uh a shark.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:58

But in that nice piece of business, when he had the wire pulling on the fishing pole, he locked himself in, he put the pole in the thing, he did. He did all the safety first things to get ready because it's a very dangerous thing to try and reel in a shark. It's also dangerous to circumnavigate your your wet boat on foot in your slippers.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:16

I gotta figure that he wore because they both wore those shoes, he and Hooper. So they just they did it for a reason. I don't know. Um all right. So anything else you want to say about this movie? I mean, I again I think I knew we disagree about this, which is fine. We're allowed to disagree. Some movies I like, you don't like, some movies you like, I am not so crazy about. I remain pro-pro-disagre. Pro-disagre is good. Um just one last thing. How do we compare this movie to Duel? I think you like Duel more, I think, right? Yeah. Why is that?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:48

So I didn't love Duel, but what I liked about Duel, I thought well this is gonna just irritate you more. I thought that the framing uh in duel, the frame compositions were were really more beautiful in duel than they were in this movie. I mean, obviously this movie is shot as a very different movie, and it's shot in a very different style, and so maybe you don't have the space for frame compositions. I mean, there's a beautiful overhead shot when Quint is up on the mast and you have that shot looking down, and I said, wow, that's a really nicely composed frame. But I didn't in duel there were a lot of compositions I liked a lot. I also thought, you know, it's the same story, except that in duel the truck is the short. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

It's a very similar story. Similar story.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:29

I guess I found Dennis Weaver's character have more abundant humanity than character. Again, I found Scheider to be our protagonist, but for me, he didn't have anything to do but be there. And the other two, I f I again, I thought Dreyfus for me was the the the part of the movie I found the most interesting, but I didn't find in either of them as much of a human interest story for me than Dennis Weber provided uh in Duel.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:56

Yeah, I I it's weird. You I guess I hear what you're saying. I mean, I think for me it's like I you know, I I take your point about Scheider as being less compelling, but I do think that he he kind of is the ballast, as I said earlier, of the film. But I find Quint to be such a great character, and I I do actually feel as though Quint there's a lot more humanity in this character than I think you're giving him credit for. And I think this the the Annapolis scene really to me highlights it. And maybe that's like maybe that's something where like once you see that scene, you maybe s see everything come up to that point a little bit differently. But I felt I took away from that scene a sense of like his vulnerability uh in a way that I don't think maybe maybe you felt the same way when you saw it. I mean, I don't think maybe you you had that same kind of sense of him.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:43

But I don't want to oversell dual, as we've already discussed it, but you know, it's it is just the the the truck is the shark. I mean, in that sense it's the shark. And that movie I thought unraveled a lot in its in its latter latter parts. But for the same for similar reasons, it got less credible to me over time. But again, I I I do I do remember being attached to Dennis Weaver, especially in the first part of the picture.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:12

All right, let me ask one last thing here about this, because one thing I was curious about. Now Spo Jaws was for the time the highest rosing film of all time. It made just an absolute shit ton of money. Um but this was the first real blockbuster. Right. Now, would you say that this movie transforms Hollywood or does that happen more with Rocky and Star Wars?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:40

It's this movie gestures towards the shift in the business model that is locked in with Star Wars. Uh and it's it's Star Wars that buries us all.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:52

I think that's right. I just think I mean, and we can talk about Star Wars at some point, I don't know if we will. I just think that this movie is so much better than Star Wars.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:01

I'm gonna well before we talk about Star Wars, I'm gonna have to re-watch it and and I'll make a decision about that then.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:08

I'll have I j the Yeah, you I think I need to watch it too. I watched it a few years ago again, and I was just really taken aback at how bad a movie it is. I know that's gonna be a controversial view. I just they don't I mean uh and maybe it's a seeing it from like 30 years, like when I was a kid, I mean I loved it when I was a kid. Yeah. Although I always liked Empire more. I just think it's so poorly acted and the script is dreadful. Um But I do think that like what Jaws represents, I mean, for people like us who love 70s filmmaking, we we shouldn't really love this movie. Right because it'll it it kind of does destroy or begins the dis the slow destruction of the new Hollywood ethos.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:47

Trevor Burrus And I do perhaps harbor additional ill will towards it because of that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:52

I think it's fair. But I will say this I don't think this movie is is egregiously anti-New Hollywood as, say, Rocky or say Star Wars. I do think that there are elements of this movie that that do kind of highlight some of the some elements of the New Hollywood. Uh I agree.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:10

Rocky is the inverse of the New Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:12

Rocky is the inverse of the new but I still want to talk about Rocky. Sure. But it it is I mean, there are elements in in Rocky that are 70s related. I mean the sort of maybe sort of naturalism of it, I guess, maybe, or like Burgess Meredith. Love Burgess Meredith. Burgess Meredith. I mean, he is great, right? Burr Young is pretty good too, right? I mean, there's not a lot of moral ambiguity in that film. I don't think it's a good idea. No. There really isn't. There really isn't much moral ambiguity either in I mean, there's no moral ambiguity in Star Wars. It's right.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:39

It's almost like the the bad guys dress in one color and the good guy's just in another color.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:46

It's like the bad guy is dressed in black, right? Like that's yeah, there's no moral ambiguity in that movie at all. I do think there's not a lot of moral ambiguity in this movie, but it is certainly oblique, it's certainly gruesome, it's certainly a difficult movie. I think it's uh there's better characterization in this movie, it's more a little more naturalistic. Um, but at the end of the day, like they killed the shark. Right. They did. Happy ending, right? For for several of the characters. For two out of the three characters. Yeah. I don't know. I I'm just gonna say for the record, I love this movie. And I appreciate, but Jonathan, I do appreciate that you did this movie. Yeah, you talked out with me. I know you didn't want to. However, to the listeners out there, we made a deal, right? In which that that I believe you used the expression, it was Kissinger-like. Shuttle diplomacy. Yes. Shuttle. Shuttle diplomacy. In this analogy, by the way, I am Kissinger, which I'm not thrilled about. Um But um I in return for doing Jaws, uh, Jonathan agreeing that I have agreed to do next week night moves. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:52

And then the shoes will be on the other foot because Right, because I don't love that film. Right. And I'm gonna love that film like the Empire State Building. I don't know what that means, but okay. Oh, the Empire State Building. You know, it's a famous icon, but it's also a spectacularly beautiful build building. It isn't a it's underappreciated because it's so iconic. It is it is a beautiful, beautiful building.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:15

What would you rank higher, that or that or Chrysler?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:18

Well, you're asking me to choose between my children at this point.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:21

I mean, Chrysler is I think Chrysler is a tat higher.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:26

Yeah, they're they're, you know, uh I'm I'm just not gonna get into that, man. It's like saying which REM brand do you like better?

SPEAKER_01 1:18:37

Which Rembrandt? Rembrandt, that's who you went with. I don't know that the are there that many Rembrandts that are in competition being the best Rembrandts ever?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:44

I have no idea. I think I stole it from Andre Gregory where he was talking about making best top ten lists, and he said you don't do that with Rembrandt or something. So I think that's a good thing. That's why the name stuck so.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:54

I don't know if I mentioned this on the podcast. Did I mention this?

SPEAKER_02 1:18:57

No, don't do this today. Don't do this today. You gotta do this on a different day. You gotta hold that back.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:02

I'm just gonna do it. I saw him I did it with Andre and I hated it. I really did. I didn't like it at all.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:08

All right, you've got to send your postcards to Michael on that one, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:14

You win some, you lose some. So we're doing night moves next week. Thanks everyone for listening to this episode. I had a lot of fun with it. It was a lot of fun to watch this movie again and and just, you know, get into a movie that I truly love. And uh and also to tweak you into having to talk about a movie that you truly don't love. Uh, but next week we'll talk about night moves. In the meantime, if you're enjoying the podcast, please uh leave us a comment, uh buy us a cup of coffee, subscribe, give us a thumbs up. Just do all the things that you know podcasts need for you to do for them to survive and to prosper. So do those things for us. And until next week, see you later. Alrighty. Bye bye.