Will these things never end? Actually this is my next to last guest post, so yes they will. The last guest post won't show up for a while yet. Since I have everyone's attention though, I want to take the time, before getting to this installment of the guest posts, to thank everyone for taking the time to write for me and my blog. I enjoyed reading everyone's thoughts about their favorite movies. Hopefully I can come up with something else for everyone to write about for another day. Truly though, a big thank you from my heart. For all of you that didn't write for me, a big fuck you! Actually everyone I asked did write for me. Either I'm a very nice person, or I can sure sweet talk people.
I said that CRwM is like a best friend to me as far as other bloggers go. Today's guest post is from the person that comes in a very close second to that spot. I think Cattleworks discovered my blog through one of Stacie's
Final Girl Film Club posts that I did. Since he actually stuck around, I quickly linked up with his blog,
But What I Really Want To Do Is Direct. To my surprise, Cattleworks was actually thrilled by this. Even though he disappears for long periods sometimes, I always enjoy it when he is around. Almost every comment that he leaves makes me laugh. You have to like someone that can do that, you know? When I discovered that Cattleworks was actually in a movie, even if it was just a small part, I somehow talked him into cutting my teeth on interviewing someone. I had never tried doing that before, so I really appreciated that he let me try it out on him for my first time.
Cattleworks told me in his email for the guest post that he almost hates being called a guest blogger. He doesn't update his blogs (I think he still has more than one) as much as he used to. Somewhere along the line Cattleworks started to worry about the length of his posts. For myself, I try not to worry about the length of a post. I know they work out to be about the same, but I feel I just let the movie do the talking for me. By that I mean that each movie will determine the length, because I will have more or less to say about each one. As for Cattleworks, I have tried to tell him not to worry about the length and just write. Part of his charm, to me anyway, is that he puts so much thought into each movie that he watches. It is obvious he likes the art of making a film, so I say take as long as it is needed to talk about it.
I will turn things over to my buddy, Cattleworks, so he can tell us about one of his favorite movies:
Some day, I hope to make a movie, even if it’s just a little movie (a short subject, natch!).
That’s what I’d like to see if I’m capable of pulling off.
I think I can do it.
I certainly have passionate, opinionated, geeky discussions about filmmaking with other like-minded people!
Many films have inspired a desire within me to make movies either because they either left some sort of emotional impression on me, or have given me an idea to try something because of some technique that was used, or even, they were so sucky a movie that I thought, jeez, I think I could do better than THAT?
One such inspirational film (of the non-sucky variety) is JAWS.
I saw it when it first came out, the summer of 1975. I was 15. It was a gorgeous sunny Saturday, and my uncle Reggie and I caught a matinee screening in a packed theater at the Summit Park Mall. It must have been the first or second weekend that the film had been playing.
I don’t remember if at that age I had yet articulated to myself my passionate interest in film, but I know that I at least liked watching movies.
Now, I suppose it’s possible that some people reading this haven’t seen JAWS, particularly if they’re “younger” viewers. After 34 years (cripes!), JAWS has officially entered the realm of “old-ass, classic movies.”
So, for those unfamiliar with the basic plot: Police Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) is trying to close the beaches of the New England island community of Amity when he learns that the death of a swimmer is the result of a shark attack. Soon, the Mayor and members of the common council intercept his efforts, mindful of the lost revenue that would result from closed beaches, and they convince the sheriff that perhaps the death was actually the result of a boating accident. However, due to a growing body count, it is quite obvious that Amity does indeed have a shark problem.
Brody enlists the aid of seasoned fisherman, Quint (Robert Shaw), and marine biologist, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss), to go out to sea and catch this man-eating mutha, which turns out to be a humongous Great White shark.
Thrills, excitement, and huge box office receipts ensue.
JAWS won three Oscars, plus another nomination for Best Picture. Besides winning for Best Sound, it also took Best Editing (Verna Fields) and Original Music Score (John Williams). The film also marked the beginning of director Steven Spielberg’s track record as a consistent home-run hitter at the box office, including directing the top grossing film of all time on three separate occasions (JAWS was his first, surpassing THE GODFATHER at the time; he later accomplished the feat again with E.T.: THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL and JURASSIC PARK).
Now, these are some things I remember from watching JAWS the first time:
Even though the film begins with the death of a swimmer, the film takes pains to not reveal the shark, which was both cool and effective. At least a third of the movie goes by before we ever really see the shark, maybe even longer. I didn’t realize they were making a point of this strategy until the third shark encounter, when two guys are trying to catch the shark at night by using a huge pot roast (or whatever that hunk of meat was), which they stick with a big-ass hook and then throw into the ocean right off the end of a pier.
Already we had seen a swimmer, Chrissy, killed while skinny dipping alone at night, and then we saw a kid, Alex Kintner, killed while playing on an inflatable raft during the day while swimming with a bunch of other people. The way we saw these two kills happen, it didn’t seem like it was out of the ordinary that we didn’t see the shark.
But with this half-assed “fishing sequence,” you saw how clever the filmmakers were being by showing the shark’s actions without actually revealing any part of the shark, not even the stereotypical dorsal fin cutting through the water!
The two fishermen throw the bait into the water, the hook being attached to a long coil of chain that’s tied off to the dock. Suddenly, the chain starts to go, uncoiling furiously off into the water: they got a bite! Unfortunately, whatever’s taking the bait is BIG, because when the chain reaches the end of its length, the whole end of the dock gets torn off into the water, with one of the men falling into the drink and being drawn out away from shore.
Now, already, based on the first two kills, we as an audience know one thing, and that is: don’t go in the freaking water! So, you could easily build suspense just by dropping anyone into the ocean and filming them swimming frantically to get out of the water before they get bitten in the ass.
But director Spielberg and editor Fields go one better. They show you the shark’s presence—via the end of the pier that got dragged out into the water. Suddenly we see the pier stop, and the whole thing turns around in the water.
BRILLIANT.
Everybody in the theater’s like: “Oh, shit.”
We were already nervous about the poor schmuck splashing his way back to shore. But by seeing the pier turn around in the water-- and HEADING TOWARDS the swimmer—we know for sure that the guy’s dead unless he gets out of the water.
Shortly thereafter, any time I saw a horror film featuring a monster or killer beast, I’d always be critical about the filmmakers revealing the whole creature early on in the film (of course, I can’t think of any examples of this now… grrr!). The “less is more” strategy, letting the audience’s imagination do a lot of the heavy lifting, seemed a solid approach towards starting a horror film, and my main frame of reference for this opinion was JAWS.
I think director Christophe Gans was inspired by Spielberg’s work on JAWS during the beginning of Gans’ French period horror film, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF (2001), the way he depicts a young Gallic woman being brutally killed by something unseen but definitely large and ferocious. The scene recalls the way Chrissy is attacked, except instead of being in the water, we’re on a grassy mountain. Instead of Chrissy hanging onto a buoy, the French women clings to a rock outcropping.
True, it’s common knowledge among film fans that one of the reasons Spielberg chose this coy and clever strategy was out of necessity. “Bruce” the shark, the mechanical shark(s) they built (there were actually three—a full shark, a “left to right” half of a shark and a “right to left” half of a shark) was temperamental, to say the least. In the one documentary on the anniversary DVD, Richard Dreyfuss talks about how the crew people had radios to talk to each other, and throughout the summer while shooting on the island, all you overheard on these radios was, “The shark is not working today…repeat… the shark is not working today…”
So, Spielberg had to come up with a different way of “showing” the shark. Plus, editor Fields kept pushing for “less is more” as well, so between the two of them, they came up with arguably a more effective and scarier killer shark movie.
That behind the scenes story is influential, too; the idea of limitations actually improving a film. Robert (EL MARIACHI) Rodriguez also talks about the curse of what he calls Hollywood’s “money hose” as a supposedly creative solution for any problem. And, coincidentally, I just read a quote today from Orson Welles: "The absence of limitations is the enemy of art."
Finally, regarding this subject from Spielberg himself on IMDb.com:
“I'm as guilty as anyone, because I helped to herald the digital era with JURASSIC PARK (1993). But the danger is that it can be abused to the point where nothing is eye-popping any more. The difference between making JAWS (1975) 31 years ago and WAR OF THE WORLDS (2005) is that today, anything I can imagine, I can realize on film. Then, when my mechanical shark was being repaired and I had to shoot something, I had to make the water scary. I relied on the audience's imagination, aided by where I put the camera. Today, it would be a digital shark. It would cost a hell of a lot more, but never break down. As a result, I probably would have used it four times as much, which would have made the film four times less scary. JAWS is scary because of what you don't see, not because of what you do. We need to bring the audience back into partnership with storytelling.”
Another aspect of JAWS that made an impression on me was how neat some of the filmmaking technique was, even though I was caught up in the storytelling.
For instance, there are two things I remember happening in the beach sequence where Brody is nervously watching the swimmers from the beach.
Prior to this scene on the beach, Chrissy has already been killed, and Brody was first informed that it was a shark attack that was responsible. Shortly thereafter, the Mayor and some members of the Common Council inform Brody that the coroner may have been mistaken, and it was probably a boat propeller that killed the girl.
Additionally, Brody is not a fan of the water, despite the fact that he’s the sheriff of a beach community. So, all this is playing into his anxious scrutiny of everybody that’s frolicking in the water.
There are a couple short moments in the whole sequence where some of the edits are hidden by people walking by the camera.
The first time, the camera moves into Brody as he sits on the beach, and we see him totally focused on everybody on the beach and specifically in the water.
The camera shows Brody watching, then cuts closer to him, and then one more time to a close-up of his face. Each time there is a cut, somebody walks by, out of focus and totally blocking the camera’s view. When they clear the camera, we’ve moved closer. It’s a subtle bit, but it’s really neat.
A few moments later, they use the technique again, this time cutting back and forth from Brody watching, to what he’s watching: a large woman floating alone in an inner tube. We see Brody, cut to the woman, cut to Brody, cut to the woman but this time, something black is in the water breaking the surface just behind her and moving in her direction, cut to Brody sitting up in his chair, concerned, cut to the woman and whatever was swimming along the surface has decended, but then we see this old guy wearing a black rubber cap breaking the surface of the water in front of her… a false alarm! … cut to Brody’s facially reacting to this with relief and annoyance. And all the cuts are done with the seamless “passerby method” again.
Seamless cuts, very smoothly executed. Very cool. I noticed that and thought that was pretty sharp.
The next thing that has permanently affixed itself to my memory from this beach sequence is right after the shark actually does show up and attacks the Kintner boy.
When Brody realizes a shark has struck, and its quite obvious that a big fish is responsible and not some boat, we have this great looking camera move: the camera physically tracks straight into Brody, while the lens is simultaneously zooming out. It’s a really impressive, dramatically visual effect, and it also symbolizes the terrible physical feeling of horror Brody must be having seeing his worst fears realized.
Through the magic of google, (specifically at brokenprojector.com) I learned that this camera technique goes by several names:
The effect was first constructed and executed for Hitchcock by cameraman Irmin Roberts [in the film VERTIGO]. The effect is also known as: Dolly Zoom, Hitchcock Zoom, Vertigo Effect, Zolly, Zido, Telescoping, Contra Zoom, Trombone Shot or Push/Pull Effect. Technically, the effect is known as Track in/ Zoom out or Zoom in/ Dolly out.
I’ve seen this camera move a few times since, and sometimes employed in completely different contexts.
For instance, in GOODFELLAS (1990), Robert De Niro as Jimmy Conway and Ray Liotta as Henry Hill facing each other in profile in a window booth of a diner. Hill realizes during the conversation that his long-time friendly underworld relationship with Conway has completely changed for the worst. The track in/zoom out maneuver emphasizes visually the literal change in Hill’s world.
Or, in POLTERGEIST (1982), when at the end of the movie, actress JoBeth Williams is in the hallway and looking at the door to the “possessed bedroom” where her children are being terrorized. As she starts to run towards the door, they use the dolly zoom and it looks like she’s literally running in place and the house itself is extending the distance between her and her children. It’s pretty cool!
However, visually (as well as contextually) the situations are different from what’s happening with Brody.
I guess this dolly zoom has been used more often in recent horror films when characters are suddenly surrounded, let’s say, by zombies or whatever, and they suddenly realize they’re trapped or in “totally deep shit,” to use the preferable psychological terminology, and this particular use of the dolly zoom is closer in keeping to the way Spielberg uses it in JAWS. In other words, the character has a sudden awful realization about his situation, and the dolly Zoom emphasizes the extreme emotional shift the character is experiencing.
Probably because it was the first time I had seen this distinctive camera technique, this example from JAWS remains my favorite use of this camera maneuver, but it also sticks in my memory because of the way it was carefully set-up and also how effectively it was executed.
One of the other things Spielberg does in JAWS is play honestly with the audience. He may be manipulating your emotions, to take you on a thrill ride throughout, but his manipulation is honest and well-crafted, not cheap.
For instance, the very famous, and simple, notes of music that precede the shark’s appearances, is a great emotional trigger for the audience to get nervous. It is undeniably a great device. John Williams deserved his Academy Award for writing much more than those handful of notes over and over and in a variety of orchestrations, but having said that, those few notes are pretty freaking effective. That musical cue is right up there in horror film history in terms of simple effectiveness, I think, with the “kill kill kill, ha ha ha” of Friday the 13th.
But what’s impressive is the filmmakers don’t cheapen the use of the “shark music cue” by utilizing it falsely, simply to get a rise out of the audience. And there’s a sequence where they definitely could have done that.
When it’s the big Fourth of July weekend, Brody and Hooper are convinced that there’s still a shark out there (even though another shark has been caught) but the Mayor insists the beaches stay open. So, the beaches are loaded up with tourists while Brody tries to compensate with more lifeguards and boat patrols.
Visually, it’s similar to what happened before the Kintner boy’s death. We’re in the water, our POV is at water level, and at times, we’re actually underwater looking up at all the swimmers splashing around everywhere. As an audience we’re very expectant of some shark induced mayhem. In fact, holy crap, the top of a shark fin just cruised by some oblivious swimmers!
And I remember watching this and thinking, something’s up, but not what we think. Because they’re NOT using the shark music cue. The absence of music during this sequence is very striking. And I was right, it turned out it was a false alarm: after a lot of screaming and hundreds of panicky swimmers getting their terrified asses out of the water, it’s revealed to humorous effect that it was two kids with a fake fin scaring people. But without articulating it (at the time), I think I appreciated how Spielberg wouldn’t stoop to bringing out that damn piece of music just to get a rise out of you. There was no music at all throughout the sequence.
And I don’t know if that influenced my attitude at all when I do see horror movies that use a certain film technique as a red herring, a DISHONEST red herring, just to get a rise out of you.
A red herring in a mystery is best (I think) when we misinterpret something happening on screen—we think a character, a suspect, is guilty and then it turns out for the wrong reasons we initially thought. For instance, the suspect acts guilty, but for other reasons, not because they are a murderer, but these other reasons are logical, and their suspicious behavior is therefore appropriate.
However, I hate when suspects behave suspiciously only because you need multiple suspects to keep the audience guessing. Like in that Goldie Hawn thriller from 1991, DECEIVED. They have a “false” red herring in that movie. I can’t remember the specifics, but there’s some dude who’s a BLATANT suspect, and at the end, you realize that not only is he not the killer, but there’s no damn reason for him to have acted suspicious in the first place! BOO! CHEAP!
Now, sticking with horror movies (oops! Heh…I digressed!), in the beginning of CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984), there’s a moment after the prologue where we’re in a hotel room, I think, and the camera’s moving like the POV of a killer, and at the time I’m thinking, why is this happening? Who’s the victim? Why are we supposed to feel suspense if we don’t even know who‘s being threatened? And it turned out to be a “false” red herring. No one was actually being threatened, they were just trying to get a reaction out of the audience by pushing buttons with camera technique.
I have no problems with being led to believe something’s scary and then we discover we’re being wound up for the wrong reasons (intentionally), but to just push our buttons because it’s easy reduces the experience of emotional investment because we then see what the filmmaker will stoop to, so we no longer trust the filmmaker anymore. Grrr...!
Anyway, Spielberg and Williams didn’t do that because they trusted enough in their storytelling abilities, and that was great.
Man, I’m long-winded! Sorry.
Just a couple other things… then I’ll go away!
First, a word about the cinematic influence of a particular scene in JAWS: the scene in the boat at night between Quint, Hooper and Brody, the scene leading up to Quint’s story about the USS Indianapolis… this is a great scene.
Robert Shaw’s monologue is great, but the earlier segment where Quint and Hooper are comparing scars is also very funny. This one-upmanship of showing one’s permanent souvenirs is echoed in one of the LETHAL WEAPON movies, between Mel Gibson and Rene Russo.
But, when Kevin Smith does his version of one-upsmanship in CHASING AMY, I think he’s specifically referencing JAWS and not LETHAL WEAPON, and I think that distinction adds an another layer of humor to Smith’s scene.
In LETHAL WEAPON, Gibson and Russo are comparing past injuries. But in JAWS, Quint and Hooper are comparing scars from various encounters with sea creatures. Arguably, one could say they’re showing off scars from being “eaten”. (NOTE: when you watch the scene that’s not COMPLETELY true. Quint first talks about an arm wrestling injury he sustained with this big “Chinaman,” and as Hooper shows him a scar in response, they eventually get to scars inflicted by miscellaneous sea beasts. But, to me, Quint and Hooper are showing off how they have been “eaten.”)
In CHASING AMY, Kevin Smith does a risque spin on this notion. Friends are in a restaurant booth, and they are telling stories about physical injuries from various mishaps of “eating others...” ie. oral sex. So, I always thought that was a funny play on words, thematically speaking, by Kevin Smith, on top of the obvious humor of the scene itself. Thus, I feel Smith’s homage is to JAWS, not LETHAL WEAPON.
So, there!
Finally (no, really..!)...a bit of a confession, because this is somewhat of a negative comment about JAWS.
What??
I re-watched the movie for this review. I originally wasn’t going to because I felt I was pretty familiar with the movie, but I decided to go the whole nine yards, baby!
For Heather!
Okay, the whole nine yards would’ve been to finish this review by mid January, or even IN January… but, uh…
Anyway, so I’m watching the movie, appreciating the filmmaking and the story, bla bla bla…
It was neat catching little details, like when we’re in the water with the swimmers, how Spielberg took pains to make the audience feel like we’re also in the water. Not only is the camera at water level, it’s a great detail to hear the sound go out sometimes like our ears actually dropped beneath water level at times. It’s a little detail but it all contributes to the effect of the audience feeling like we’re right there in the water as well.
It was also nifty during the one aforementioned beach scene (when the shark attacks for the second time) to realize that we’re watching a single take when the camera first picks up the fat, uh… the large woman bather walking down the beach and into the water, then the camera picks up the Kintner boy exiting the water and we follow him to his mom who’s relaxing on a towel on the sand and he asks if he can get the inflatable raft out and go back in the water and she looks at his fingers and says, “They’re starting to prune,” but she lets him go back in for 10 more minutes, and the Kintner kid continues walking up the beach to get his raft until we rest on a close-up of Sheriff Brody in profile intently watching the beach. Spielberg was taking pains to show directly and indirectly how this sequence is about Brody’s paranoia and how HE’S watching everything and everybody on the beach and in the water.
Yeah, fine, the film’s awesome.
But I was also sort of judging how all the shots add up, kinda sorta.
And I came to the conclusion, surprisingly, that there’s this one whole montage—the one where all the tourists are coming into town by bike, car and boatload?-- I think that whole sequence could be cut out and it wouldn’t hurt the film.
Perhaps it would change things in a negative way in addition to shaving off a few minutes, but, maybe not.
But the film is 124 minutes. Actually I thought it was a little longer—not because I was bored by its length, but for some reason I thought the film was closer to two and a half hours long (I just thought that it was)-- but I just looked it up and it’s only over a couple hours by a few minutes. But that’s pretty much all movie. The end credits aren’t inordinately long like by today’s standards where they list all the technicians, etc. for about 10 minutes.
So, anyways, in this montage, we see various shots of tourists streaming into town, intercut with shots of Brody and Hooper both on the phone frantically calling for more manpower and equipment to try and protect the beaches. The whole sequence is set to a “classical, Aaron Copeland-ish” type of music by John Williams.
And it PAINS me to say this, but I think it’s expendable.
I really, REALLY hate to say that because I LOVE this sequence! I’m not bored by it at all! It’s a neat change-up mood-wise to everything we’ve been watching so far.
And I’ve always cherished the fact that years ago, on the radio I heard some ad for a local bank and for the background music on the ad they were using this exact piece of John Williams music that was part of the montage! I cracked up, because I had the JAWS soundtrack, so I was very familiar with the music and I knew the piece of music was entitled, “Tourists on the Menu,” and I always laughed because I figured whoever picked this music was having fun because they knew they used music from the JAWS soundtrack for a friggin’ bank ad and very few people listening would have realized it.
But watching the movie again… it arguably doesn’t SIGNIFICANTLY add anything to the movie.
The scene just prior to this montage was set outside the town billboard featuring a young woman frolicking on a rubber raft in the water, welcoming you to the town of Amity, and we see vandals have painted a shark fin in the water and her screaming (via painted word balloon) “Help me! A shark!,” or something to that effect.
The Mayor of Amity (Murray Hamilton) refuses to believe that their waters are still dangerous to swim in (because a shark was just recently captured—unfortunately, the wrong shark) and proclaims to Brody and Hooper that they are going to have their biggest Fourth of July yet!
Then we go to this tourist montage.
Then, we cut to Fourth of July weekend on the beach, which begins with a shot of an arcade video game where the graphic shows a shark being killed. The camera then pans from that image and we pick up Brody walking his way through a mass of people all over the beach.
I think we could have gotten away with going from the Mayor’s denial speech and cut straight to the first shot of that beach segment, which is the arcade game graphic.
Again, I’m not bored by the tourist sequence, but if I were being ruthless in the editing room, this probably would have been a deleted scene for the DVD.
Just an observation.
Alright, I’m going to end there.
I can go on and on rambling about different things I associate with JAWS, but I think I’ve overstayed my welcome as it is!
When I post this “review” on my own blog, I’ll add some more ramble-y, indulgent junk THEN. Like, stuff about my Uncle Reggie! (Uh, I guess that’s a warning…) And my preposterous “theory” about the kids from the fake shark fin sequence.
But, mostly, I think JAWS is simply a terrific example of filmmaking. Too bad it’s been credited (along with STAR WARS…uh, now known as “Episode 4”) with ushering in the common practice of launching blockbuster-type, escapist films in the summer, which wouldn’t be that bad a development if such movies were consistently as well made as JAWS.
And Happy Happy Anniversary, Heather! And thank you SO much for inviting me to partake in the festivities—and boring the pants off your regular readers!
Oh.
DAMMIT!
