One-Barrel Chase, from "Jaws" (1975), directed by Steven Spielberg
This sequence goes by different names, most commonly the immortal line that Roy Scheider delivers after the first appearance of Bruce (the shark). But "You're gonna need a bigger boat" is only the cherry on top of a classic chase scene, driven by Verna Fields's propulsive editing (she essentially saved Spielberg's ass in the cutting room), John Williams's score (the greatest ever? Both he and Fields won Oscars), and the deadly serious but also amusing performances of Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss. We basically shift from a bromance in the desert (see Lawrence of Arabia) to a bromance at sea -- Jaws is a genre exercise at heart. But it constantly transcends its pulpy origins. The jump scare that introduces the shark is one of the most blood-freezing in movies -- you can still hear the echo of millions of cinemagoers screaming, "Turn around!!" When the animal begins to hunt, it's genuinely pulse-pounding, and Spielberg's workaround for his malfunctioning beast -- signaling its presence indirectly, via flotation barrels -- turned out to be a stroke of genius. The unseen is always more frightening (see, e.g., No Country for Old Men). I watched this flick six or seven times at the Towne Theatre when it came out -- it was the first summer blockbuster, and as such changed the face of movies. I've probably seen it a dozen times since. Its near-perfect construction, including the accidental elements, never fails to enthrall me. The first of three Steven Spielberg sequences we'll be sampling. Fun fact: the voice on the radio at 2:53 is Spielberg himself.
Jaws, 40 years on: ‘One of the truly great and lasting
classics of American cinema’
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