Life Begins at Jaws

by Geof Smith

Jaws was not the first movie I ever saw--that would be Oliver! I don’t remember seeing Song of the South, but I do remember walking under the marquee and into the theater. And there is a flash from The Sting that I recall, which must have been early in my moviegoing experience, too. When my parents saw The Godfather at a drive-in, they expected me to sleep through it in the back seat, but I didn’t. And I have a very definite memory of seeing Woody Allen play the cello in a marching band at that same drive-in. So, by 1975, when I was five going on six, Jaws was far from my first movie, but it was the first one that mattered.

In the same way, I have many pre-1975 memories, but they are scattered and disconnected. There’s the courtyard of the old building that my family lived in, digging a "hole to China" in my grandmother’s backyard, and a phone call from Santa one Christmas Eve. These are just a few of my earliest memories and there are many more; however, I can’t put them in any order. Was I two or three when we had that puppy? Maybe I was four. These memories are just "blips," impressions really. But by age five I was becoming more aware. The memories from that point on can be ordered; they create the narrative of my life. And the first story of my life was wanting to see Jaws.

I’ve always loved sharks, and I still do. If I’m channel surfing and I catch sight of a dorsal fin or underwater cage, I stop. If a Great White Shark appears, I’m hooked. So, when that classic image of the shark rising toward the naked, swimming lady started appearing in newspapers, I was fascinated. (My fascination with the lady and the dynamic between her and the toothy attacker can be debated in another essay.) I don’t recall the first one I sighted, but I do remember collecting the ads, cutting them out in neat, small rectangles and carefully folding the full page ones. About this time my parents and I moved, and one night, after painting our new living room, we ran out to an evening mass. I remember we were a few minutes late, dressed in paint splattered clothes, and consequently a little uncomfortable. But I also clearly remember pulling a Jaws advertisement from my pocket. It made me happy. Something about that shark image transfixed me--the cruel, uneven snout; the rows of teeth vanishing into the black maw; the fragile, bursting bubbles on either side. This was my first memory of the church that I would grow up in. It’s also my first real recollection of a lifelong obsession with Jaws. Looking at those little crumpled ads, I knew that this was a movie that had to be seen. My parents didn’t agree.

Contrary to what many people misremember, Jaws was not rated R. It was PG, and it had an extra warning that it "may be too intense for younger children." Apparently my parents did not agree with Mad magazine that this tag was "like using sugar to scare ants away from picnic;" they said I wouldn’t be seeing it. It was too scary. I’d have nightmares. It was for grown-ups. But I kept begging and summer crawled on. It was a hot one, humid and uncomfortable. I kept cutting ads out of newspapers and froze every time that commercial came on the screen: the camera pushing through the slow-twisting sea grass, the deadly-serious voice telling you the movie was "Jaws" and it was "based on the number 1 best seller." My parents still said no.

To make things worse, Jaws was playing right up the street. The local movie theater was barely four blocks away, and its one and only engagement that summer was the movie I desperately wanted to see. And night after night, we watched the line grow around the block. One night it reached Baskin and Robbins (this was many years before Haagen-Dazs came to town). Another night the line had lapped itself; the people at the end could see the box office, and probably would for another two--maybe four--hours. I can remember talking about this with my parents. They were really amazed. Crowds like this had never occurred before, not even on Friday and Saturday nights. But the people kept lining up, on weekends and weekdays, week in and week out. I figured the entire population of Westchester County must have seen the movie at our local theater twice by now. Surely my parents would have to break down--it never occurred to me that they could go without me--but whenever I asked, the answer remained no.

Then one Sunday afternoon everything just changed. I have a very clear movie in my head of standing in my parents' bedroom and asking what we were going to do that day. "Oh, I don’t know, how would you like to see Jaws?" my father asked as if I hadn’t been asking twice a day for two months and hadn’t been slicing out every strip of paper I could find with that toothy-headed Great White. At first, I didn’t believe him. I checked with my mother, and she said it would be okay if I didn’t think it would be too scary. I just popped. Too scary? Were they kidding? This was the greatest day of my young life. The first thing I really ever wanted, waited for, and got. With the exception of the ungodly heat, it was a lot like a Christmas morning. I don’t remember any previous Christmas mornings; I would have been too young and probably didn’t have any sense of a calendar at age three or four. But there were magical Christmas morning’s after that when I’d wake up and realize that Santa had come and the gifts were left under the tree; and I'd burst into my sleeping parents’ room and yell, "He Came!" This had the same feel : It was Christmas and my birthday rolled up into one. It was the day I would see Jaws!, and I had the miserable heat to thank.

So we walked the four blocks up to Bronxville Theater. I don’t remember if we had to wait on one of the epic lines we’d been seeing throughout the summer, but I do remember entering the cavernous theater, finding a seat. This was long before the movie theater was reduced to a multiplex. Back then, it was still a movie palace. The team of ushers still wore uniforms, and there was still a balcony, which was where we sat, probably in case I got too scared and we had to slip out the back easily. I remember the lights dimming and the great, red velvet curtains drawing back. I remember the first, dark strains of John Williams’s classic score. And to be honest, I don’t remember much else. I vaguely recall the first attack on Chrissie. She went swimming in the dark sea, and a sense of dread flooded the theater. Then that cruel, chugging theme returned. The audience murmured and fidgeted and in their seats. My father said that the music meant the shark was coming--he was explaining this grown-up film to me, but also warning and preparing me, taking my pulse. Was I scarred? I don’t think so; I think I was thrilled. This was what I had been waiting for: Bring on the shark! (But I didn’t like the idea of my little legs dangling in the dark off the edge of the seat, so I pulled them up and sat cross- legged for the rest of the movie.)

After that, my only real memory of watching Jaws that first time is when Ben Gardner’s head popped out of the boat. The audience exploded. They jumped and squealed and screamed and laughed in relief. I remember my mother laughing in recovery, too. She asked me how I was doing. I was laughing, too. It was scary, but fun like a roller coaster. Sure I had jumped with fright, but it was only a movie...and so much more.

Next thing I remember, I'm walking with my parents back home. Though I say that I’m a little sad that the shark had to die, I am actually quite euphoric. I’m positive that life can’t get much better than this moment, and I’ve decided that I’m going to be an ichthyologist like Matt Hooper. My parents respond that they're positive that they don’t want to go diving after that movie, especially looking for sharks. "Didn't the movie scare you?" No, I say, of course not. But it’s about six o’clock in the evening and we're on solid land. In a few hours, I’ll be riveted to my bed, positive that my carpet is a silent, dark ocean and that something is swimming through it. It’s a sleepless night that I’ll repeat more often than I’d like to admit. And as for becoming an ichthyologist? Well, I quickly realized it wasn’t a very realistic job option for someone afraid of sea water above his knees. Maybe I was too young to see that movie.

Besides a fear of the ocean and many sleepless nights, I got something else from seeing Jaws: inclusion. I was part of the summer of Jaws. When my family went to the Jersey shore for Labor Day Weekend, and we saw a jewelry store display with a bejeweled mannequin’s arm half buried in sand and surrounded by crabs, I got the joke. When we went to John Cotter’s summer house, I was allowed to visit the Jaws Rock because I had seen the movie. This was a big, black rock that looked a little like shark’s snout. Someone had painted white teeth on it, and the neighborhood kids stuck all the Jaws ads they had cut out of the paper in its mouth. (So I wasn’t the only one!) And coolest of all, I was included in the grown- up discussions about the movie. For most of the summer I was made aware that this was not a movie for kids, so seeing it was a little like an initiation. At barbecues and family gatherings, I agreed with uncles and family friends that the head popping out of the boat was the scariest thing, that Quint was very cool, and that Jaws was a great movie.

This sense of inclusion continued when school started and I was suddenly a member of a very small, but very cool, group of kids who had seen the summer movie. They wanted to talk about the movie and all the other kids wanted to learn the secrets of this select cult. The interest allowed me to direct a puppet show of Jaws. Barbie was the hapless swimmer in the opening, and Ken’s severed head popped out of a hole in a cardboard boat. (I still remember how the audience screamed and jumped at that!) The shark was played effectively by a spongy hand puppet that had been given to me as novelty wash cloth. The success of the first grade puppet show prompted a second grade play--we only reenacted the Orca sequences. Later, in fifth grade, I would drag friends and family into my super-8 production Clam, a comic retelling of what I still considered, even after Star Wars, to be my favorite movie. Was I obsessed? Sure: with the thrill and power of storytelling, which Jaws had demonstrated during that long, hot summer of ‘75.

Like some crackhead trying to recapture that first high, I think, maybe, every story I’ve seen, read or written since then has been an attempt to re-experience the fun and excitement of Jaws. It’s a frustrating task. My head was smaller then, and Jaws was like a compressed air tank going off inside it. Other movies have thrilled and obsessed me. (Star Wars, which was certainly more kid-friendly, definitely left its mark, but I don’t remember needing to see it like I did Jaws.) This movie and every other one that I've seen since 1975 share the same shortcoming: They aren’t Jaws; they aren’t the very first thing that ever obsessed me. (They also didn’t induce nightmares like Jaws did.) So I keep revisiting it, and wherever possible, I try to bring someone along for the trip. It’s my vocation to make sure everyone has seen and appreciates this Spielberg classic, which is much better than most people give it credit for and shouldn’t be judged by the floundering sequels. I’ve had so much fun with this movie that I can’t imagine anyone else not being all the better for seeing it, too. It’s like playing a favorite song for people, hoping it will make them dance--it just so happens that my favorite song is 124 minutes long.

I could go into every instance of Jaws excitement throughout my life--seeing the 1980 re-release with my cousin, the first time it was on television (with previously unseen footage!), renting and copying the movie when we got a VCR, watching that tape every Christmas when my uncle, who loved the movie but didn’t have a VCR, visited--but that isn’t necessary, and I don’t want you to think I’m totally crazy. I just wanted to recall a time and place and the movie/event that defined them. I just wanted to collect the memories I have from that summer and see if I could figure why I got so hooked on the movie. Have I figured it out? Not really. But that’s okay, because it’s probably best not to analyze the things you enjoy too closely. So I’m happy to let Jaws and that summer of 1975 swim in a little mystery.