The Making of Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws'

I am a huge Jaws fan and this is the best documentary. The only thing that is wrong with this is that there is no Robert Shaw interview, there also isn't a Murray Hamilton interview either. But in all this is a great documentary. If you are a Jaws fan at all then you must check this out.

A documentary chronicling the making of the film Jaws from the scripting stage through to problems on shooting. With interviews from the majority of the cast, producers and the director himself.

I watched this as a DVD extra and was easily interested. Taking the viewer from the conception stage of the book right through to the final film this is a very interesting subject. The director and the majority of the cast make for interesting tales, however much of it is known due to the legend over the few years. As a result there's not a whole lot more to say and it fails to have more than one or two bits where I went `ohh' because I didn't know that.

However this is still of interest even if you know the story behind the film already. It's good to see Speilberg and several of the main cast brought in to make comments. Even where you know the story it's still nice to hear it from them themselves.

Overall this is of interest to anyone interesting in Jaws as a creation – however from many it'll be old news told in a different way.

Ever watch Jaws and think 'man, I can't believe how they build suspense with showing so little of the shark in the first third of the movie', or 'I wonder how John Williams got the theme that's so bad-ass', or 'was Robert Shaw really drunk as he looked?' These and more are answered in the most in-depth documentary done yet on the making of the seminal Spielberg blockbuster, the one that "changed movies" just by the sheer amount of money it made, but also how it was marketed, and what it intended for a mass audience (what isn't discussed so much is how it was basically an 'A' 'B' movie, that is with a lot of the hallmarks of what one might find in a Roger Corman movie, but with, you know, better actors, a better director and sharper writing, but I digress).

Everything from Peter Benchley's origins with the book, to how quickly the rights were picked up, and then on to the physical production (Spielberg's script changes, the casting, the shark - oh, that darn Bruce - and filming on Martha's Vinyard), and of course through the production problems incurred not just due to the shark (that is, it didn't work like 75% of the time) but that shooting out at sea means a lot of waiting and natural problems. It's all covered; I would think this would be the next best thing if one decided to fore-go the also seminal 'Jaws Log' by writer Carl Gottlieb, which also chronicles the making of the film but from a more insider perspective.

The plus side to this doc from what I imagine is covered in the Gottleib book is that it gives so many voices to what went on, from little things like how the sign they had on the island (the one that says 'Welcome to Amity' and is then defaced as a sharp joke) was not originally there and had to be taken down after one day, to big things like the origin of the greatest scene in the picture, the Indianapolis monologue. It's more like an oral history which, at two hours (that I only finally got to really sink my teeth into, no pun intended, with the Jaws blu-ray recently released), gives enough voice to what was difficult about making the film, but also the happy surprises, such as the camaraderie that happened on set, and the improvisation that came from so much down time as to focus more on the characters and relationships.

So if you want to know it all, from Spielberg's panic attacks to a funny-horrifying tale of the 'little' stunt double in the cage in the water, this is the one to check out. For a film freak like me it's like a bag of chips I don't want to stop eating. For the casual movie-watcher, it's full of facts that will either keep you enthralled, or, if not, the movie's still on the disc!

The Making of Jaws (1995)

**** (out of 4)

This mammoth documentary on the making of JAWS features interviews with many of the main people behind the film including Steven Spielberg, producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck, stars Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Lorraine Gary, composer John Williams, stunt woman Susan Backlinie, co-writer Carl Gottlieb, writer Peter Benchley and several others.

With a running time just north of two hours, this documentary really gives you a terrific idea of how one of the greatest movies ever made almost fell apart countless times throughout the troubled production. I really think the greatest stuff here deals with Spielberg who wonderfully details the chaos that was constantly happening as they tried to deal with various troubles from the shark not working properly to the ocean just not helping the situation.

We learn about the original screenplay, the various changes made to it and then we get into the hiring of the cast as well as a few actors who turned down various roles. From here we get to the actual shooting of the movie and everything that went wrong including fears that Spielberg would walk, the studio would just cancel the picture or the entire thing could have been taken away. The cast and crew really do a marvelous job at explaining everything that went wrong but, in the end, we also get to hear what a pleasure the end result turned out to be.

If you're a fan of JAWS then obviously this here is going to be a must see. Not only do we get the terrific stories but we also get several outtakes including a more graphic death scene that was cut by Spielberg because he felt it was just too much.

The thing that I loved about The Making of Jaws was not the fact that the Special Edition DVD featured a shorter version of the documentary than the Special Edition VHS (both of which I own because I'm just a geek like that) but the fact that it covers every aspect of production from Peter Benchley's original conception of the story of Jaws all the way to the public reception of the completed film at the test viewings. Even the interviews are edited together smoothly, which is something that these making-of documentaries are notoriously bad at. It also goes into great detail about a wide variety of different topics, bringing back a surprising number of the original cast members. Even the girl who got eaten at the beginning of the film shows up here for an interview.

I tend to find it tiring when these supplemental features on DVDs spend a lot of time playing clips of the movie that you just finished watching, so it was nice that this documentary showed so much behind the scenes footage and outtakes, as well as explanations for why certain scenes were not put into the movie. Steven Spielberg gives some great insights into his methods of directing, and everyone has some great stories to tell about the problems that were encountered during production, particularly with the shark hardly ever working.

There's a part in this documentary where Spielberg talks about a time when he was genuinely concerned that the studio was going to send someone in to take over the project because he was taking so long during production, which really gives a lot of insight into how difficult film-making can be sometimes. Oh and you get to hear him cuss, too. I'd never seen that before. One of the most popular things that this movie spawned was not only the endless repetition of phrases like "Don't go in the water" and "You're going to need a bigger boat" is a tendency for people to make fun of the movie because the shark looked fake. But when you watch this documentary and see how much work went into making the shark look as real or fake as it did, it really makes you appreciate the movie more. Save your criticisms for the horrendous sequels.

One of the other things that I really liked about this documentary was that it showed footage of some of Steven Spielberg's home movies, evidently shot with a home video camera on the sets during production. It was pretty interesting to see footage that he shot that looks like it could have been shot by anyone. Strange to see that one of the greatest filmmakers alive shoots video just like anyone else. A few days ago I watched a supplemental documentary for The Day the Earth Stood Still called Making the Earth Stand Still and I was disappointed not only that it had nothing to do with making the Earth stand still but that it was such a poorly made documentary to accompany one of the best science fiction films ever made, so it was nice to see that the re-release of Jaws was fitted with a fitting documentary.