SHARK SHOCKS
JON FAVREAU and DAVID YATES on JAWS
FAVREAU:
I remember seeing Jaws back in New York. I was eight years old and the movie was already a big deal. It was such a phenomenon that all ages went, but none of us were prepared for how powerful of a story it was. There were so many moments in that movie but the ones that stand out the most to me were Brody chumming the water and the shark appearing behind him without any clue that a pop-out was coming. Popcorn flew. People screamed, then laughed.
The other moment was the opposite. The movie told us in advance that something was going to happen. They were diving, searching the wreckage of a sunken boat with a flashlight. We all knew something scary was going to appear. It didn’t matter. We all still hit the ceiling when the shark’s previous victim floated into frame. A packed house of shrieking adults makes a real impression on an eight-year-old kid. There wasn’t a lot of swimming that summer.
YATES: My most vivid experience of being in the cinema as a teenager was watching Jaws with my dad at the ABC St Helens. It was a cathartic joy to jump and scream at precisely the same time as 300 other people, as Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) comes across old Ben Gardner’s boat in a midnight swim, just as Ben’s head pops out of a hole in the boat’s hull, to terrify us all. It was reaffirming to see Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) reconnect with his young son across the supper table in a delicate moment. It’s an acknowledgement of our shared humanity that each of these scenes reached us all in a glorious unity.
The film rolled continually throughout the day, and I’d stay for a second, then third and fourth screening. It wasn’t only the film that kept me there — it was the audiences as they came and went, the way they lived, breathed and experienced the story as it replayed over and over again — I loved anticipating how high they would jump, at the scary bits, how much they would gasp, how loud they would laugh when Hooper squashed his beer can to express his masculinity to Quint (Robert Shaw).
We go to the cinema not just to be entertained, or moved, or thrilled. We go because sharing these experiences together with others, makes what we witness in the dark feel more meaningful, visceral, and complete.
As for my own movies, however long I fashion and shape an edit, a score, a script, with some of the wonderful people I work with, the film ultimately, truly comes alive when it is finally put in front of an audience.