Jaws (1975) is an American film, based on a best-selling novel by Peter Benchley which itself was based loosely on the true story of the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916. In the story, a resort town's police chief tries to protect beachgoers from the predations of a huge great white shark by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the money-grubbing town council. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Lorraine Gary.
Plot Description
The film opens with a young girl swimming a just off Amity Island, a summer resort akin to Martha''s Vineyard. Suddenly, she begins to get jerked around and is pulled under. The next morning, Martin Brody (Scheider), the Amity Island Chief of Police, finds some of her remains and concludes that she was killed in a shark attack. Chief Brody orders the beaches closed, but the mayor ignores his warnings and orders the beaches kept open: Amity is dependent on summer tourism, and the Fourth of July celebration is near. He tells Brody to say the girl was killed by a boat propeller. A few days later, a boy is killed by the shark while swimming on a crowded beach, and his mother places a $3,000 bounty on the animal.
The bounty starts an amateur shark hunting frenzy, but also attracts marine biologist Matt Hooper (Dreyfuss) and, in one of cinema''s most memorable entrances, professional shark hunter Quint (Shaw). After scraping his fingernails on a chalkboard to get the attention of the town hall meeting, Quint says of the bounty, "I''ll find ''im for three, but I''ll catch ''im—and kill ''im—for ten." When Hooper examines the remains of the first victim, he becomes convinced that a great white shark was responsible, a voracious predator known to be dangerous to humans. His angry retort to the coroner, "This is not a boat accident," is one of the movie''s most memorable lines, though often misquoted as "This was no boating accident!"
A large tiger shark is caught by amateur fisherman, and for a moment everyone is pleased that the terror is over, but then Hooper asks to cut open the fish "to be sure" and concludes that they are looking for a much larger fish. Brody wants the beaches closed, but Mayor Vaughn still refuses. Brody and Hooper venture out at night and, when Hooper puts on scuba gear to check the hull of a wrecked local boat, discover more victims.
On the Fourth of July, after a false alarm triggered by a prank shakes everyone up, the shark attacks in the "pond," an estuary where Brody told his son to stay; another victim is killed and Brody''s son is nearly attacked. The stunned mayor relents, closes the beaches, and agrees to pay Quint''s price. Brody, Hooper, and Quint set out in Quint''s boat, the Orca, to face and destroy the maneater.
Up till now, only parts of the shark have been seen, the monster being more like a presence. This builds up to one of the film''s biggest moments when Brody, while tossing chum into the sea to lure the shark is shocked and horrified when it surfaces right in front of him. He realizes the fish is massive, with a size that is at least half of the Orca. In one of the film''s most enduring lines, the stunned Brody tells Quint, "You''re gonna need a bigger boat." Hooper and Quint estimate the shark to be 20-25 feet long. After the men harpoon it with a line attached to a yellow floatation barrel, the shark swims away and disappears. When night falls without another sighting, the men retire below for dinner and drinking, where they compare scars. Quint tells of his terrifying experience with sharks as a survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. While they sing a drinking song, the shark suddenly attacks and damages the boat. Quint fires at it in vain with his M1 Garand rifle, but it disappears again.
In the morning, the men make repairs to the boat, and Quint destroys the radio to keep Brody from calling the Coast Guard for help. The shark attacks again and, in a protracted battle that further damages the boat, is harpooned twice more with lines attached to yellow flotation barrels to mark its movements and drain its strength. But the huge shark pulls the barrels under nevertheless. The strange, unpredictable movement and appearances of the barrels give the shark a menacing presence.
In a desperate new approach, Hooper enters the water with an scuba gear inside a shark proof cage. He intends to stab the shark inside the mouth with a hypodermic needle filled with a powerful poison. The monster shark destroys the cage, and Hooper flees to the seabed. As Quint and Brody raise the empty cage, the shark throws itself onto the boat, crushing the stern. Quint slides into its mouth, kicking and screaming. As he is thrashed about from side to side, Quint grabs a machete and attempts fend it off, but nevertheless dies the horrible death he has feared for so long. Brody flees to the boat''s cabin, now partly submerged, and throws a pressurized air tank into the shark''s mouth.
Brody takes Quint''s rifle and climbs the mast of the sinking boat, where he temporarily fends it off with a harpoon. On the shark''s next attack, Brody fires repeatedly, at last managing to hit the air cylinder, blowing the shark''s head to pieces, thereby destroying the monster by means of its own rapacious hunger. With the boat submerging, Hooper bobs to the surface alive. The two survivors swim for the shore using floatation barrels for a raft as sea gulls begin consuming the shark’s remains.
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