Jaws was the second theatrical film directed by Steven Spielberg, but the first to really afford him the space and potential to imprint his signature that would consistently be replayed over the course of his long and illustrious career. The release of Jaws in theaters gave audiences their first glimpse at what would become iconic cinematic elements deserving of the term “Spielbergian” on the big screen, such as people on screen staring at something extraordinary off-screen.
It is worth noting that many of the same elements were also put on display in one of the most successful made-for-TV movies of all time—also directed by Spielberg—Duel. With Jaws, millions of movie lovers would get their first appreciation of Spielberg staples, but a proper analysis of Jaws might well indicate that those elements most familiar to audiences reverse the standard cause/effect dichotomy. In other words, the problems during production on the movie may have been the cause that resulted in the effect of what is now termed Spielbergian, rather than effect caused by an inherent artistic expression in the director.
The influence of Steven Spielberg on transforming a potboiler bestseller into a cinematic masterpiece has much to do with his inherent ability to take a plot and turn it into a story. The first important example of Spielberg’s influence was to jettison all the extraneous subplots such as Hooper’s affair with Mrs. Brody and the Mayor’s indebtedness to the Mob. Recognizing that the novel was essentially about a shark terrorizing an island, anything not directly related to that narrative spine was trashed. Thus, left with a proper A to B to C storyline, it was Spielberg’s job to make it believable and make the audience care.
Making it believable was the most difficult part because real sharks don’t take direction very well and the mechanical shark—nicknamed Bruce—rarely worked. Somewhere out there is a version of Jaws with a lot more scenes of the shark attacking the residents of Amity Island. That version of Jaws looks more like zombie movies or King Kong or even The Wolf Man films of the 1940. That version of Jaws would probably be less effective even if the shark had been clicking along like 1950s Cadillac. What Spielberg already knew generally, but learned in a very specific way while trying to make Jaws with a broken shark, was that under certain conditions you can manipulate audience emotions to a far greater extent by not showing the audience what people on screen are seeing.
