Nigel Andrews on Jaws: A Bloomsbury Movie Guide

by Nigel Andrews

The Bloomsbury Movie Guides feature scores of entries on all aspects of the making and meaning of movies. Each guide includes historic, cinematic, and literary references; profiles of actors and directors; and interviews.

Jaws, the epitome of suspenseful 1970s action-drama, was directed by Steven Spielberg. (Indeed, this is the film that put Spielberg on the map in Hollywood.) In these pages, Nigel Andrews provides a readable and meticulous critical analysis of a movie that has fascinated him for more than twenty years. He provides the reader with insightful behind-the-scenes stories about daily workings on the set, while also examining the importance of every actor/character and evaluating his or her contribution to the movie.

208 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

Reviews

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn’t think there was anything left to discover after my six-book Jaws binge earlier this year, but there are bits of this that were fresh to me (and I’d never made the white picket fence/American dream connection before which is great!). As this was written in the 90s by a dude who was getting on some of it is very quaint (in-depth rebuttal of pan and scan) and some of it just dated badly (righteous anger at the idea someone could view the film with a homoerotic lens). Overall, a good time, and I look forward to finding something else to read about Jaws!

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a nifty little book about Jaws, but was a bit fluffy. The A-Z format makes portions of the book seem a little forced, such as the section called, "Verses: Jaws The Poem." Nigel Andrews does a great job in the first part of the book of forming a fairly chronological narrative for the making of the movie by using some creative headlining: the first section on Spielberg comes up early on as the section called "Boy Wonder." And so on.

There's a section in the middle of the book with 17 pages of Joseph Alves' storyboards depicting the last few scenes of the movie, and, while fascinating, doesn't receive much commentary from Andrews. Andrews is at his best when he compiles different viewpoints, whether they be different critical views or opposing memories among the cast as to how things happened during filming, such as who wrote Quint's Indianapolis speech.

A final thing which marred the book for me, but probably doesn't mean much in the grand scheme of things, was the section called "Ben Gardner's Head: The Untold Story." In that section, Andrews bemoans the lack of fleshing out of the Ben Gardner character, and seems to think Ben Gardner never appears except in the famous jump scare with Hooper as a latex prop. Ben Gardner had two additional speaking parts, and is one of the dozen or so roles listed in the end credits (played by local fisherman Craig Kingsbury, he is the first person who meets Hooper on Amity dock).

It's dumb and nerdy and shouldn't bear mentioning, except that Andrews repeatedly mentions the way Spielberg adroitly depicts the town of Amity by creating rich minor roles with just a few brush strokes, such as Bad-Hat-Harry or the "Motel Owner" (Mrs. Taft, with the line: "I don't think that's funny, I don't think that's funny at all.") Missing Ben Gardner's two early appearances seems like an odd oversight.

In the end, this is one for the Jaws fan, and a little less for someone with a casual interest. I'd steer the latter person towards the DVD or Blu-Ray bonus materials, which were not available to Andrews when he wrote this.

[Shenanitims · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book, and I'm not a Spielberg fan. Make it through the needlessly arty introduction, and the rest of the book just flows. A collection of anecdotes about the classic film: covering preproduction, production, and postproduction, read this and impress your friends next time you catch Jaws on TV. Besides the introduction, the only area that doesn't belong is Andrews' screed against "pan-and-scanning." With a book like this, i.e. a critical analysis of a film, one should really assume that the target audience are film buffs, and thus don't need to have the problems with "pan-and-scanning" explained to them.

There's even a shark quiz to break up the flow! Like I said, this book covers everything!

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this, you can not watch the movie the same again. Makes you realize how good/lucky Spielberg was. I also like this set up for the guide better then the encyclopedia format of the also amazing Apocalypse Now version.