Jaws

Jaws (1975) is an American film, based upon a best-selling novel by Peter Benchley, which itself was based loosely on the true story of the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916. more...

In the story, a resort town's sheriff tries to protect beachgoers from the predations of a huge great white shark by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the town council. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Lorraine Gary.

Synopsis

The film opens with a young girl swimming a little far from Amity Island, a New England island that is a summer resort akin to Martha's Vineyard, loosely based in name on the Long Island town of Amityville. Suddenly, she begins to get jerked around and is pulled under. The next morning, Martin Brody (Scheider), the Amity Island Chief of Police, finds some of her remains and concludes that she was killed in a shark attack.

He then orders the beaches to be closed. However, the town mayor ignores the protests about the danger of more shark attacks and orders the beaches kept open, as Amity is dependent on the money it makes from its summertime and, especially, Fourth of July business, and tells Brody to say the girl was killed by a boat propeller. A few days later, a boy is killed by the shark while swimming on a crowded beach and his mother places a substantial bounty on the animal. When marine biologist Matt Hooper (Dreyfuss) examines the remains of the first victim, he becomes convinced that a very large and dangerous shark was responsible, more specifically, a Great White Shark which he explains is an extremely voracious predator, known to be dangerous to humans.

A large tiger shark is caught, but upon examining it, Hooper declares that the attacks were the work of a much larger fish. Brody wants the beaches closed, but Mayor Vaughn, again more concerned with the damage to trade than the possibility of danger, refuses. After another victim is devoured and Brody's son is nearly killed on the Fourth of July, Brody, Hooper, and shark hunter and old sea salt Quint (Shaw) set out in Quint's boat, the Orca, to face and destroy the man-eater.

Up till now only parts of the shark are seen, being more like a presence. This of course leads up to one of the film's biggest moments when Brody, while tossing chum into the sea to lure the shark is shocked and horrified when it eventually surfaces right in front of him. He realises the fish is massive, with a size that is at least half of the Orca. "You're going to need a bigger boat," he tells Quint.

The shark is found to be in excess of 25 feet long and is harpooned several times by Quint, each time a yellow floatation barrel is attached by a line to the shark to mark its progress in the water and drain its strength. The strange unpredictable movements of the barrels give the shark a menacing presence.

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