The Accidental Icons: When Plan B Became Cinema Gold

stephen spielberg is crouched behind a camera on martha's vineyard watching twenty-five feet of mechanical shark sink to the bottom of the atlantic for the fourth time to-day it's day seventy-eight of what was supposed to be a fifty-five day shoot the shark they call him bruce after spielberg's lawyer costs half a million dollars and works about as well as a toaster in a bathtub the salt water keeps corroding the electronics the waves keep pushing the dorsal fin off course and right now bruce is doing his best impression of the titanic while a dozen crew members in wetsuits try to fish him out with boat hooks the shark's not working spielberg tells producer david brown stating what might be the understatement of nineteen seventy five so what do we do we don't show the shark this conversation or something very much like it changed everything not just for jaws but for how we think about suspense about what's scarier the monster you see or the one you don't the movie spielberg originally envisioned had the shark front and center big rubber beast terrorizing swimmers in full view like a sea monster b movie with a bigger budget instead he got forced into something far more sophisticated pov shots from below yellow barrels marking the creature's path roy scheider's face when he finally sees what they're dealing with we're going to need a bigger boat that line not in the script roy improvised it during one of the many scenes where they had to work around their broken star most of the movie's best moments the indianapolis beach the quiet dread of empty beaches that opening attack that shows you nothing but tells you everything exist because a mechanical shark refused to cooperate sometimes the things that go wrong save you from yourself view in limith ridley scott is standing in a corridor lined with what looks like the skeleton of some massive prehistoric creature except the bones are silver and sweating it's the nostromo the mining ship from alien and something's wrong with the air recycling system again the crew keeps getting sick from the ammonia smell coming off the organic looking walls The stuff H.R. Giger designed is too weird, too sexual, too... well, too Giger for the studio executives who've been asking if they can make the alien more friendly.

stephen spielberg is crouched behind a camera on martha's vineyard watching twenty-five feet of mechanical shark sink to the bottom of the atlantic for the fourth time to-day it's day seventy-eight of what was supposed to be a fifty-five day shoot the shark they call him bruce after spielberg's lawyer costs half a million dollars and works about as well as a toaster in a bathtub the salt water keeps corroding the electronics the waves keep pushing the dorsal fin off course and right now bruce is doing his best impression of the titanic while a dozen crew members in wetsuits try to fish him out with boat hooks the shark's not working spielberg tells producer david brown stating what might be the understatement of nineteen seventy five so what do we do we don't show the shark this conversation or something very much like it changed everything not just for jaws but for how we think about suspense about what's scarier the monster you see or the one you don't the movie spielberg originally envisioned had the shark front and center big rubber beast terrorizing swimmers in full view like a sea monster b movie with a bigger budget instead he got forced into something far more sophisticated pov shots from below yellow barrels marking the creature's path roy scheider's face when he finally sees what they're dealing with we're going to need a bigger boat that line not in the script roy improvised it during one of the many scenes where they had to work around their broken star most of the movie's best moments the indianapolis beach the quiet dread of empty beaches that opening attack that shows you nothing but tells you everything exist because a mechanical shark refused to cooperate sometimes the things that go wrong save you from yourself view in limith ridley scott is standing in a corridor lined with what looks like the skeleton of some massive prehistoric creature except the bones are silver and sweating it's the nostromo the mining ship from alien and something's wrong with the air recycling system again the crew keeps getting sick from the ammonia smell coming off the organic looking walls The stuff H.R. Giger designed is too weird, too sexual, too... well, too Giger for the studio executives who've been asking if they can make the alien more friendly.