What Was 'Jaws' About?

Today we’re talking about the original summer blockbuster— a movie that changed the game for popular cinema the world over— it’s Jaws! You can expect a couple deep-dives, a tangent or two, and at the end we’ll decide once and for all: What Was That About?

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I'm Elliot Peters, and this is What Was That About? A show that tries to get to the point of every movie. Today we're talking about the original Summer Blockbuster, a movie that changed the game for popular cinema the world over. It's Jaws. You can expect a couple deep dives, a tangent or two, and at the end we'll decide once and for all what was that about. All that and more after this quick intro. Welcome back everybody. We're quickly approaching the end of summer. And there is no movie that embodies the summer movie season more than Jaws, the original Summer Blockbuster. I've seen quite a few great summer movies so far this year. The summer movie season has been out of the park. Spider-Man was great, the Odyssey was great. I'm looking forward to seeing the end of Oak Street later this week. But I feel like it's about time that we return to the roots of the summer movie season. There's a lot to talk about when it comes to Jaws, and so going into this episode, I really wanted to more cleanly focus our discussion in an academic sort of direction. It's a different sort of approach than I've taken with previous episodes, but I think it's going to be very rewarding. And this also means that there's room to return to Jaws again at a later date. Movies like this, kind of staples of American cinema, shouldn't be like one and dones on this show. I want to be able to dredge them back up again when there's something worth talking about. So with Jaws, we're going to take a very, very focused approach and unpack a very specific reading that I've put together. I first saw Jaws on a family holiday to a summer cabin. Watched it on a small screen tube TV in broad daylight, but it was no less frightening. And there's one image that sticks in my imagination every single time that I think about Jaws. The image is of a man with a harrowing, terrified look on his face, as he is sawed in half by the serrated teeth of a great white monster. As a 12-year-old kid, I couldn't sleep that night. And I kept thinking over and over again about what was going through Quint's head. For most Cinephiles, Jaws deserves a periodic rewatch. It's a cultural moment, the definitive, tight-knit thriller, more Hitchcock than Hitchcock, a strong contender for the most important movie ever made. And I think it's worth talking about right now, because Jaws came out during an era of studio stagnation. In many ways, it cemented the box office potential of the then scrappy New Hollywood movement. But this movie proved that studio-driven vehicles with strong new talent at the helm could make a huge bank during the summer months. The New Hollywood movement gave way to a new generation of top earners who spoke to American monoculture and defined it in the same breath. Scorsese, Lucas, Coppola, these guys became huge in the 70s, and it was Jaws that affirmed that they were the be-all end-all for where the industry was headed. The following is from an online blog called Cynophilia and Beyond. It's part of their 50th anniversary Jaws retrospective. It's been universally acknowledged that this particular film heralded the new era of blockbuster filmmaking. Not only was it the first film to ever reach the golden $100 million number at the American box office, but the very way it achieved such a financially impressive result is what redefined Hollywood's practices. First of all, before Jaws, the only films presented to the public during the summer were usually those of lesser quality, as the industry gathered that only teenagers go to cinemas during summer breaks. Winter was perceived as the best time to put out films that were really expected to make money. Moreover, most hot studio projects in those days enjoyed limited releases, with exclusive premieres in a couple of cinemas in Los Angeles and New York. The Godfather, for instance, spent its first week in only five theaters before a large expansion later. Jaws opened simultaneously in no less than 409 American theaters, basically burying the practice of controlled step-by-step releases the studio's favorite up to that point. In addition to that, the film premiered only after an expensive, elaborate, and intensive marketing campaign, which would later become the ABCs for expected blockbusters. On its $9 million budget, Jaws went on to gather as much as $470 million in cinemas across the world. The film, therefore, practically single-handedly established summer as the best season for the release of projects with the biggest box office potential. Not to put too fine a point on it, but in my opinion, the film industry seems to be in a similar era right now. An era of discord destined for massive change. This episode isn't going to be a cultural retrospective or anything like that. I'm a writer, not a historian, but I think it bears mentioning that the next Jaws might be right around the corner if it's not already here. So let's talk about Jaws. Jaws was released in 1975. It was directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, the cinematography by Bill Butler. It stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfus, Lorraine Gary, and Murray Hamilton. It was edited by Verna Fields with music by John Williams. But what was it about? From Amblin Entertainment, when the seaside community of Amity finds itself under attack from a great white shark, Martin Brody, the town's chief of police, Matt Hooper, a young marine biologist, and Quint, a grizzled shark hunter, embark on a desperate quest to destroy the beast before it kills again. Featuring an unforgettable Oscar-winning score by John Williams that evokes pure terror, Jaws remains one of the most influential and gripping adventures in motion picture history. Beneath the surface, I believe that Jaws embodies many of the qualities of a classical ancient tragedy. And using Aristotle's work of dramatic theory, Poetics, we can identify the ways in which catharsis is achieved through the suffering of Jaws' fictional cast of characters. Catharsis is the purification or purging of the emotions, especially pity and fear, primarily through art. In criticism, catharsis is a metaphor used by ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to describe the effects of true tragedy on the spectator. Aristotle states that the purpose of tragedy is to arouse terror and pity, both emotions that are definitely in effect when you're watching Jaws. Using Aristotle, we will map ancient tragedy onto Jaws. We'll talk about one, the fatal flaw, which leads to two, a sudden reversal of fortune, three, a recognition of mistakes, and four, a final inescapable fate. This week's discussion is going to verge dangerously towards my literature nerd sensibilities, but rest assured, we'll be employing a healthy dose of Encyclopedia Britannica to help with the definitions. Part 1. The Fatal Flaw. Hamartia. Definition. Hamartia is an inherent defect or shortcoming in the hero of a tragedy, who is, in other respects, a superior being favored by fortune. It is often called the fatal flaw. Aristotle introduced the term casually in the poetics, in describing the tragic hero as a man of noble rank and nature whose misfortune is not brought about by villainy, but by some error of judgment, Hamartia. This imperfection later came to be interpreted as a moral flaw, such as Othello's jealousy or Hamlet's irresolution, although most great tragedies defy such a simple interpretation. Most importantly, the hero's suffering and its far-reaching reverberations are far out of proportion to his flaw. An element of cosmic collusion among the hero's flaw, chance, necessity, and other external forces is essential to bring about the tragic catastrophe, which we'll get to in a little bit. In Greek tragedy, the nature of the hero's flaw is even more elusive. Often the tragic deeds are committed unwittingly, as when Oedipus unknowingly kills his father and marries his own mother. If the deeds are committed knowingly, they are not committed by choice. Orestes is under obligation to Apollo to avenge his father's murder by killing his mother. Also, an apparent weakness is often only an excess of virtue, such as an extreme zeal for perfection. It has been suggested in such cases that the tragic hero is never passive but struggles to resolve his tragic difficulty with an obsessive dedication, that he is guilty of hubris. We'll talk more about hubris in part two. Now, how does all of this impact Jaws? In Jaws, Hamartia takes on a more malleable narrative purpose for the 20th century. Anyone who has engaged with a popular story from the last couple hundred years knows that a fatal flaw can often be overcome. Hamartia in Jaws therefore appears in two different forms. One that's more close to the classical Greek form, which is fatal, and one which is the more modern Christian form, which can serve as the basis for redemption. This brings us to Chief Brody. Brody is the police chief on Amity Island, and his fatal flaw is his indecisiveness in the face of unfamiliarity. Brody is afraid of the water, and initially struggles to act decisively. His fear is understandable. There is a gigantic shark in the ocean, but his uncertainty and reluctance to confront the shark contribute to the escalating crisis. He's an outsider, a city cop from New York, who has found himself in over his head in the small town of Amity. His character arc involves overcoming this fear and becoming decisive enough to kill the shark. This is, I would argue, a Christian form of Hamartia. Meanwhile, Quint is the more classical Greek representation of the fatal flaw. Quint's fatal flaw is obsession and revenge. Quint is almost defined by his obsessive hatred of sharks, rooted in his traumatic experience aboard the USS Indianapolis. His fixation causes him to underestimate the shark and ignore warnings from Brody and Hooper. Ultimately, his obsession leads directly to his death. This is a classical Greek form of Homartia. Part 2. Hubris. Definition. Hubris in ancient Athens was the intentional use of violence to humiliate or degrade. The word's connotation changed over time, and hubris came to be defined as overweening presumption that leads a person to disregard the divinely fixed limits on human action in an ordered cosmos. The most important discussion of hubris in antiquity is by Aristotle in his rhetoric. Quote, hubris consists in doing and saying things that cause shame to the victim simply for the pleasure of it. Retaliation is not hubris, but revenge. Young men and the rich are hubristic because they think they are better than other people. Hubris fit into the shame culture of archaic and classical Greece, in which people's actions were guided by avoiding shame and seeking honor. It did not fit into the culture of internalized guilt, which became important in later antiquity and characterizes the modern West. Because Greek has a word for error, Hamartea, but not for sin, some poets used hubris to describe wrongful action against the divine order, essentially offending the gods. This usage led to the modern sense of the term and its assertion of impiety. So, doubtlessly, hubris is a very important trait of the classical tragedy. How does it appear in Jaws? Well, in Jaws, the concept of hubris can be observed most clearly in the characters of Matt Hooper and Mayor Larry Vaughan. Hooper's hubris comes from his overconfidence in his scientific knowledge and expertise. He arrives in Amity as a marine biologist who has studied sharks extensively. His knowledge is genuinely valuable, but he sometimes treats that expertise as if it gives him superior authority over everybody else. His clashes with Quint illustrate this particularly well. Quint relies on practical experience and instinct, whereas Hooper relies on scientific knowledge. The shark, however, repeatedly demonstrates that it cannot simply be reduced to a scientific problem, and Hooper gets attacked while inside of a shark cage. Meanwhile, Mayor Vaughan's hubris is different, and perhaps a more dangerous kind. His excessive confidence comes from his belief that he can control the situation through his position of political authority, and perhaps most pivotally, his business interests as a capitalist. The mayor is convinced that keeping Amity's beaches open is necessary for the town's economy. Even after evidence of the shark becomes increasingly difficult to ignore, he attempts to minimize the threat and pressure Brody into cooperating. In this way, Vaughn represents institutional or political hubris, the belief that money and social pressure can control a natural threat that is fundamentally beyond human control. Both of these characteristics, however, are more environmentally enriching than they are narratively tragic. It is again Quint who best represents hubris in the classical sense. His excessive pride comes from his belief that his experience makes him capable of defeating any shark. Yet it is precisely that overestimation that leads Quint to his ultimate demise. But in order for Hubris to turn into catastrophe, something else needs to occur. And that brings us to part three. Peripitea. Definition. Peripitea is the turning point in a drama, after which the plot moves steadily to its denouement. It is discussed by Aristotle in the poetics as the shift of the tragic protagonist's fortune from good to bad, which is essential to the plot of a tragedy. It is often an ironic twist, such as in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, when a messenger brings Oedipus news about his parents that he thinks will cheer him, but the news instead slowly brings about the awful recognition that leads to Oedipus' catastrophe. In Jaws, Peripitaea occurs as the film hurtles towards its climax. Any good thriller offers many moments of complete and total upending of the stakes. The modern equivalent is often referred to as a reversal. Jaws is no stranger to reversals, upending and altering the stakes at several points to keep the heroes on the back foot. Jaws's most quoted line is an example of one such reversal, as Brody realizes that the shark they're hunting is much larger than anticipated, and he eerily quips, You're gonna need a bigger boat. But perhaps the reversal most in line with the Greek concept of Peripitaea is the destruction of the Orca, when the previously sequentially developing hunt devolves into out and out chaos, leading to the stranding of Brody at sea and the gory death of Quint. Which brings us to part four, catastrophe. Anagnorysis and Nemesis. Now, catastrophe is a very evocative word to use to describe the ending, and it goes hand in hand with the term denouement. The denouement is the conclusion after the climax of a narrative, in which the complexities of the plot are unraveled and the conflict is finally resolved. In the denouement of a traditionally structured plot, the villain may be exposed, the mystery explained, misunderstandings clarified, or lovers reunited. But in a tragedy, the conclusion is instead called the catastrophe. And in order for a catastrophe to take place at the end of your tragedy, you need your character to experience anagnorosis and for them to encounter nemesis. What is anagnosis? A translation from the Greek would be recognition. In a literary work, anagnosis is the startling discovery that produces a change from ignorance to knowledge. It is discussed by Aristotle and the poetics as an essential part of the plot of a tragedy, although anagnorasis occurs in comedy, epic, and at a later date, the novel as well. Anagnorsis usually involves revelation of the true identity of persons previously unknown, as when a father recognizes a stranger as his son, or vice versa. One of the finest occurs in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, when a messenger reveals to Oedipus his true birth and Oedipus recognizes his wife Jocasta as his mother, the man he slew at the crossroads as his father, and himself as the unnatural sinner who brought misfortune on Thebes. This recognition is the more artistically satisfying because it is accompanied by the Periphea, which we already talked about, the shift in fortune from good to bad that moves on to the tragic catastrophe. But an anagnorasis is not always accompanied by a Peripitaea, as in the Odyssey, when Alcinuus, ruler of Phaeacia, has his minstrel entertain a shipwrecked stranger with songs of the Trojan War, and the stranger begins to weep and reveals himself as none other than Odysseus. Aristotle discusses several kinds of anagnorasis employed by dramatists. The simplest kind, used, as he says, from poverty of wit, is recognition by scars, birthmarks, or tokens. More interesting are those that arise naturally from incidents of the plot. Nemesis, meanwhile, is the ancient Greek goddess of divine retribution, and she signified particularly the disapproval of the gods at human presumption, i.e., hubris. Therefore, in tragedy, nemesis is the inescapable end, the embodiment of inevitable fate, which claims the tragic hero's life at the climax of the catastrophe. So if Quint is a tragic hero in the classical Greek sense, what is his nemesis? The shark. In Jaws, Quint is a man who has transformed his trauma into mastery over the thing that traumatized him. He surrounds himself with shark jaws, boasts about his scars, ridicules Hooper's precautions, and refuses to retreat even after the shark has repeatedly demonstrated that it is stronger than his equipment. It's also worth noting that irony factors largely into the tragic narrative, and there is a pointed irony to Quint's USS Indianapolis story. Quint recounts a tale of sailors trying to protect themselves from sharks by forming groups, while he now deliberately places himself in an isolated contest against one. His response to the original helplessness is to manufacture a situation in which he believes that he is the predator. So let's unpack the catastrophe at the end of Jaws. The clearest expression of Quint's hubris occurs here, when he refuses to let Brody call outside help and destroys the Orca's radio. The insanity has gripped him. The stakes are in his hands. But then comes the Peripitaea, and with it, Quint's Nemesis. And it is indeed Nemesis in the classically tragic sense because the punishment directly mirrors the flaw. Quint's defining obsession with conquering sharks ultimately places him in the exact position he has spent his life trying to avoid. Helpless, alone, in shark-infested water. Film, of course, is a visual medium. Spielberg doesn't need Quint to verbally declare, I was wrong. Instead, the anagnorysis, Quint's sudden acquisition of knowledge, is the moment of abject horror that traumatized me as a 12-year-old. The look on Quint's face as he is sawed in half by the serrated teeth of the great white monster. Chilling. Here's your answer. You were mortal after all. It is not as clean-cut a narrative as Oedipus Rex, and it offers no advice on how to live. But what it borrows from Greek tragedy, it employs to razor sharp effect. So if you were to ask me, what was that about? I would say, Hamartia. The Fatal Flaw and the Inescapable Jaws of Nemesis. Thanks for being here. If you like the show and you want to help out, there are a few ways to do it. And the first option is completely free. Wherever you're listening, leave a quick review. It could be a short message, a passing thought, or a brief hello. One way or another, I'd love to hear from you. If you feel so inclined, feel free to hit the support the show link in the description of this episode. There you can donate however much you wish in order to help me keep this show alive. There are plenty of hidden costs to running a podcast. From equipment to hosting to editing and publishing. The smallest donation could mean a world of difference. You can watch video versions of the podcast, as well as find clips from the films I've talked about today on my social media and YouTube pages. Just visit what was thatabout podcast.com. From there, you can follow me wherever you like. Instagram, letterboxed, you name it. 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