Analyzing 'Jaws' | The Terror of the Unseen Shark—How Spielberg Turned a 'Malfunction' into the Greatest Weapon in Film History

1975 | USA | Director: Steven Spielberg

'Laugh, you bastard'

Thursday, February 26, 2026. The end of winter, after the rain. Before heading to Sensei's place, I bought a bottle of warm tea from a vending machine in front of the station. I opened the cap and took a sip—at that moment, I felt 'something shifting beneath the surface' at the bottom of the bottle, and my hand stopped involuntarily.

It's Jaws.

I watched it on a streaming service last night. Past midnight, with the room lights off, using headphones. After I finished watching, I jumped at the sound of the bathwater draining. I was scared to take a shower. This morning, when I washed my face, I found myself checking to see if anything was reflected in the sink water.

A 19-year-old in the Reiwa era is being this affected by a 50-year-old analog film. I think this is an incident.

The 'da-dum... da-dum...' is playing in my head on its own from my earphones. Even though I haven't added it to my playlist. It's completely bugged.

Outside the train window, the evening sky is turning purple. The color of a winter twilight is somehow close to the deep sea. Today, I'm going to dump this whole 'incident' on Sensei. What do you mean it's scary even though it's not shown, Sensei? It's 50 years old, you know.

I felt like the water surface inside the plastic bottle shifted again. It's just my imagination. Probably.

Cinema-sensei and Tok's Movie Talk, Part 3.
Today, let's talk about 'Jaws'.

【Character Introduction】

■ Work Data

• Original Title: JAWS

• Release: 1975

• Director: Steven Spielberg

• Screenplay: Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb

• Starring: Roy Scheider

• Co-starring: Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss

• Music: John Williams

• Runtime: 124 minutes

Synopsis

Amity, a peaceful resort town on the U.S. East Coast. One morning, the remains of a young woman are discovered in a gruesome state. Police Chief Brody is convinced it was a shark attack and calls for the beaches to be closed, but the mayor, prioritizing tourism revenue, refuses.

As the death toll continues to rise, Brody sets out into the open ocean to hunt the shark with Quint, an unconventional shark hunter, and Matt, a young oceanographer—all while etching a 'terror of the water' into the minds of the audience that will never fade.

Since 'that day,' we haven't been able to trust the ocean

🎤 Tok: Sensei, listen to this. I watched Jaws on a streaming service yesterday. This morning, I flinched just looking at the water around my feet in the shower.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: ...Heh. It has begun. A kind of stigmata that only those who have experienced 'Jaws' can share.

🎤 Tok: Please don't call it stigmata. Seriously, the substance 'water' itself looks like an enemy to me now. What are you doing to me with a 50-year-old movie? Spielberg is guilty of a felony. He turned every vacation in the world into a 'demolition site' in an instant, didn't he?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Welcome to the abyss. This movie is a long story.

🎤 Tok: Bring it on. Tell me why it still hits this hard after 50 years.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Very well. But be prepared. After you learn what I'm going to talk about today, you will never be able to see the ocean as 'just the ocean' again.

🎤 Tok: ...Ah, it's already too late for that.

Why is the shark not shown?—The monster created by the audience's imagination is scarier than CG

🎤 Tok: Watching it again this time, the thing that surprised me most is that 'the shark hardly appears on screen.' In today's CG movies, the shark would be flying through the air and biting a boat in half within 30 seconds of starting. Yet in this movie, it's just fins and ripples until the middle. Isn't that teasing the audience too much?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: That is the reason it is called 'Spielberg's miracle.' He didn't 'show' it; he 'projected' it into the minds of the audience. I, who have watched 500,000 films, can state this: No matter how realistic the CG is, the monster created by the audience's imagination is 100 times scarier.

🎤 Tok: ...Imagination creates the monster?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Exactly. 'Something' writhing beneath the surface. The 'force' of a yellow barrel being dragged down with tremendous speed. We are creatures whose brains automatically fill in the unseen parts with the 'most eerie shape' possible. Spielberg saw through that. He placed the camera right at the water's surface—a subjective shot, that is. And he kept whispering into our ears with John Williams' music that 'it's coming.' The audience's own heartbeat gets hijacked by the sound of the shark's approach.

🎤 Tok: Ah, I get it... That scene where the child is attacked, even though only red splashes are actually shown, in my head there's a giant mouth... Oh, no, I feel like throwing up just remembering it.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: That 'visual in the brain' is the ultimate victory this film achieved. Each audience member creates their own 'scariest shark' in their mind. That's why the type of fear differs from person to person. That's why it doesn't get old even after 50 years. CG becomes outdated in 10 years. But the human brain that 'fears what it cannot see' will not change even in 100 years.

🎤 Tok: That really hits home.

The shark sank on the first day of filming—Why a 'blessed malfunction' changed film history

🎤 Tok: But Sensei, aren't you romanticizing this a bit too much? In reality, they just couldn't show the shark because the robot broke, right?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: That is correct. The mechanical shark—the robot the crew nicknamed 'Bruce'—was a legendary failure that sank to the ocean floor on the first day of shooting and never came back up. The salt water corroded the motors. It broke whenever they tried to move it. They say the crew was crying on set.

🎤 Tok: That sounds like hell.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: It was hell. But Tok, here is an interesting point to consider as an 'accomplice.' If Bruce had worked perfectly back then, what do you think would have happened?

🎤 Tok: Huh? Wouldn't it have just been a flashier disaster movie with the shark going on a rampage from the start?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: No, it probably would have been forgotten within a year as 'just another cheap monster movie.' The constraint of being forced to hide the shark due to the malfunction compelled Spielberg to use 'Hitchcockian suspense.' A desperate problem elevated the film into art. This is the greatest miracle the monster known as cinema has ever produced.

🎤 Tok: That’s an amazing story. So, movies can actually get better when things don't go as planned?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Exactly. Whether you view a problem as a 'curse' or a 'blessing' is what separates the second-rate from the first-rate. Spielberg pulled that off at 28.

🎤 Tok: 28... that's nine years from now for me.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Good luck.

🎤 Tok: Please stop putting pressure on me.

The true monster is the Mayor—The reality of a structure that abandons lives to 'keep the economy moving'

🎤 Tok: Another thing that made me incredibly angry in this movie was Mayor Vaughn. People were dying, but he kept saying, 'If we close the beaches, the town will go under!' and forced people to swim, right? Isn't he scarier than the shark?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Good point. That 'man-made disaster' is exactly what makes this film an enduring modern classic.

🎤 Tok: Man-made disaster?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: The shark is merely a 'natural disaster.' But the human social system that prioritizes vested interests by pretending it 'didn't happen'—this is the very 'spectacle' we witnessed during the pandemic, 45 years after the release of 'Jaws'.

🎤 Tok: Oh... You're right. 'It's still fine,' 'Don't cause a panic,' 'Don't stop the economy.' The sight of the mayor ignoring Chief Brody's screams completely overlaps with the news footage we see today.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: The shark eats people, but the mayor (the system) abandons them. Spielberg used the guise of a monster disaster movie to expose the fragility and deception of the society we live in. The fact that you felt anger toward the mayor is proof that your own sense of justice resonated with the 'complicity' of this film.

🎤 Tok: Sensei. So, this movie isn't a 'shark movie,' but a 'social drama wearing a shark's skin'?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Both. On the surface, it functions perfectly as a shark movie, and underneath, it functions as an indictment of the social system. The best entertainment is compatible with the best social criticism. This is the film that showed that to the world.

John Williams' Two Notes—How 'Da-Dum' Controls the Audience's Autonomic Nervous System

🎤 Tok: And that sound. John Williams' 'Da-dum, da-dum...'

🎬 Cinema Sensei: The most famous 'two notes' in the world. A minor second—just moving up and down by a half-step. That music is an 'invasion' in the form of sound.

🎤 Tok: An invasion?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Many pieces of music exist to stir the audience's emotions, but that track is different. It exists to 'synchronize the shark with the audience's heart.'

🎤 Tok: Synchronize!?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: As that rhythm speeds up, the audience's blood pressure rises and their breathing becomes shallow. Spielberg controlled the audience's autonomic nervous system through their 'ears.' Actually, when John Williams first played these two notes, Spielberg reportedly laughed and said, 'You're joking, right?' It was just too simple. But in the end, he admitted, 'The music accounts for half of the film's success.'

🎤 Tok: That's basically mind control using an orchestra.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: There is one more clever trick. That music is learned by the audience as a 'signal that the shark is coming,' but in the second half, there is a scene where the shark suddenly appears when the music isn't playing.

🎤 Tok: Oh, that happened!

🎬 Cinema Sensei: The audience thinks, 'It's safe because there's no music.' The shark appears, catching them off guard. This is a directorial choice that uses the audience's learning against them. Music is a tool to threaten the audience, but at the same time, it is a tool to deceive them.

🎤 Tok: Sensei, that's seriously foul play.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: It's not foul play. That is direction.

Quint's Death and Brody's Strike—Heroes Become Heroes Because They Have Something to Protect

🎤 Tok: The showdown on the boat in the second half. The balance between those three men was exquisite. But for Quint, the ultimate pro, to be taken out so brutally...

🎬 Cinema Sensei: That scene depicts a paradigm shift in the image of a hero.

🎤 Tok: A paradigm shift?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Quint is a 19th-century style 'pro who can subdue the mighty forces of nature.' In contrast, the protagonist, Chief Brody, is a 'relatable modern man and father' who fears the ocean, wears glasses, and thinks only of protecting his family.

🎤 Tok: When the greatest shark hunter was eaten, I thought, 'Oh, it's over,' and everything went dark.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: The 'ordinary man' is one who sees the tough professional defeated, and then, trembling with fear, fires a miraculous shot with a gun he happened to pick up. What Brody showed at the end was not strength. It was the tenacity to reclaim his daily life and his family. The moment he surfaces, battered and bruised, we, the audience, also reaffirm the 'weakness and courage' within ourselves.Heroes aren't born because they are special. They become heroes because they have something to protect.

🎤 Tok: Because they have something to protect, they can become heroes... That's deep. I was going to cancel my trip to Cebu because I was scared of sharks, but isn't that just surrendering my daily life to 'fear'?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Ho, so you've realized that fact.

🎤 Tok: Yeah. Unless I defeat the shark of 'fear' inside me, my vacation won't truly return. ...Sensei, I'm going to Cebu after all. I'm not going to run away; I'm going to reclaim my own 'daily life' amidst the brilliance of that beach! Well, I will be keeping a sharp eye out for any yellow barrels floating near the shore, though.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Hahaha! That's the spirit. Just try not to be frightened by auditory hallucinations of 'da-dum...' on the sand.

Rating: Sensei 4.5 vs Tok 5—A Miracle Film Born from Limitations

🎤 Tok: For me, it's a solid ★★★★★ (5.0)! Even though it's a 50-year-old movie, it can still destroy my daily life (in a positive way) even now in the age of social media. I was shown real 'magic'.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: I give it ★★★★☆ (4.5).

🎤 Tok: You're docking another 0.5! Why is that!

🎬 Cinema Sensei: I docked 0.5 because the human drama in the first half is slightly swallowed by the momentum of the action in the second half. The conflict with the mayor, Brody's family life, the anxiety of the townspeople—if those had been depicted a bit more carefully, the sense of liberation in the second half would have been even greater.

🎤 Tok: Isn't that also part of the 'limitations of the film'? Like the budget or the shooting schedule?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: ...A good retort. But a rating is a score, and as long as I feel it 'could have been more,' I won't give it 5 stars.

🎤 Tok: Sensei, your strictness toward 5 stars is practically a religion at this point.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: It is a religion. That is precisely why the meaning changes when I do award 5 stars.

【Sensei, what was that about?】

🎤 Tok: Sensei, there's just one thing I'm curious about—why is Brody so afraid of the ocean from the start? He's the police chief, so doesn't it defeat the purpose of coming to a resort if he can't swim?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: ...That's a good question. It's one of the mysteries that fans around the world are still debating today.

🎤 Tok: I'd like to hear your take on it.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: I have one theory. But if I tell you, I would be robbing you of the 'joy of discovering it yourself' when you watch this movie again.

🎤 Tok: Wait, you're not going to tell me!?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Let me give you a hint. Brody is set up as a former New York cop who moved to Amity for his family. In other words, the reason he fears the water is likely related not to the ocean itself, but to 'something from his past' that he carries with him. It is also interesting how the original novel and the film version handle this differently.——I'll leave the rest for you and the readers to think about.

[A Word from the Staff]

　I had a friend in college who was pathologically obsessed with sharks. Believe it or not, he had a large shark jaw, which he had cleaned with acid and turned into a specimen, displayed above his bed as if it were looking down on whoever was sleeping there. A girl he was dating at the time said she hated it because she could see the shark's teeth even when they were being intimate, which made her feel uneasy. I don't blame her. Watching 'Jaws' with a guy like that is a fond memory of mine.
　By the way, I thought being a shark enthusiast was a niche hobby, but looking at X, I was surprised to see so many people who only watch shark movies. The 'Shark Road' that leads from 'Jaws' to 'Deep Blue Sea' and then to countless other shark films. Perhaps shark movies have finally gained mainstream acceptance. I don't know where he is or what he's doing now, but I'm sure he's watching shark movies like his life depends on it. By the way, he used to call 'Jaws' his holy scripture. Scripture, of all things.
　When I first watched 'Jaws,' I thought of it as an antithesis to the American literary classic 'Moby-Dick.' Listening to Cinema Sensei's explanation, I'm starting to think I wasn't entirely wrong.

(Staff/Everything is Ahab)

fin.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Movies never betray you. Cinema is born only from limitations. If the shark hadn't malfunctioned, we would never have known the terror of that silence.

🎤 Tok: Sensei, I just heard a noise behind me.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: That is just the sound of the waves... I hope.

👉 Is Danny's final smile salvation or madness?—Decoding the 'Violence of Empathy' →

👉 Pennywise is not the King of Terror—The true identity of the 'mirror' that reflects your weaknesses

Click here for the guide & recommended reading order

If you want to search by purpose, the site map is recommended

📌 Next Preview

🎤 Tok: Sensei, what are we watching next?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: 'Pulp Fiction' (1994).

🎤 Tok: Oh, I know that one. It's the one with the non-linear timeline, right?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: That's right. Why did Tarantino scramble the timeline? It wasn't to 'look cool' or to 'be eccentric.' There was a clear purpose.

🎤 Tok: A clear purpose...?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Let's talk about that. The story of Tarantino's 'small talk' is going to be a long one.

📢 Next Release: Movie Talk #04 'Pulp Fiction'

【Q&A Corner】

Q1. Is the story Quint tells about the USS Indianapolis true?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Sadly, it is a historical true story. In 1945, the ship was sunk during a top-secret mission after delivering the atomic bomb, and because rescue was delayed, hundreds of men fell victim to sharks.

🎤 Tok: That long monologue... is it seriously a true story?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: It is said that the actor Robert Shaw rewrote that monologue himself. That was the moment when the 'scent of real death' was infused into the fiction of the film.

Q2. Isn't it too extreme for a PG rating (suitable for children) by today's standards?

🎤 Tok: I mean, arms and legs are just... getting eaten. It's surprising it isn't rated R.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: At the time, the 'PG-13' category did not exist. In fact, films produced by Mr. Spielberg in the 1980s were so extreme that it sparked a debate about the need for something between PG and R, which led to the current rating system.

🎤 Tok: Wait, the rating system was created later!?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: In other words, 'Jaws' is a monster that even changed the ethical standards of cinema.

Q3. If this movie didn't exist, what would have happened to later films?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Ridley Scott's 'Alien' might not have existed, or it would have been completely different. That masterpiece was planned as 'Jaws in space.' The grammar of this film—hiding the monster until the very last moment to build terror—has become the foundation for every modern thriller.

🎤 Tok: It's wild that 'Alien' started from the idea of being 'Jaws in space'.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: In Hollywood pitch meetings, the phrase 'This is the Jaws of [blank]' is still used today. That is the extent of its influence.

Q4. What happened to the mechanical shark (Bruce) used for filming?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: The three models made at the time were discarded, but the last one, restored from the original mold, is currently on display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles.

🎤 Tok: It's in a museum! It's basically an art piece now.

🎬 Cinema Sensei: He is now smiling as an eternal 'legend' inside a glass case, rather than in the seawater that caused him so much trouble.

Q5. What other movies has Roy Scheider, who played Brody, been in?

🎬 Cinema Sensei: Roy Scheider was a talented actor who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for 'The French Connection' (1971). By casting an actor who had already established his status before 'Jaws,' the film's credibility was greatly enhanced.

🎤 Tok: It feels extra realistic because a talented actor is playing an 'everyday father'.

🎬 Professor Cinema: Exactly. He cast an actor capable of portraying struggle rather than a typical action hero. That is the brilliance of the casting.

[Fact Check]

✅ Verified Facts

• Director: Steven Spielberg (27 years old when filming began, 28 at the time of release)

• Original Work: Peter Benchley's novel of the same name (published in 1974). One of the inspirations was the 1916 New Jersey shark attacks

• Awards: Won three Academy Awards at the 48th Oscars for Best Film Editing, Best Original Score (John Williams), and Best Sound. It was also nominated for Best Picture

• Box Office Record: Surpassed $100 million in box office revenue just 59 days after its theatrical release (the first in history). It is considered the origin of the term 'summer blockbuster'

• Behind-the-Scenes: The mechanical shark used for filming was nicknamed 'Bruce' after Spielberg's lawyer

• One restored Bruce is currently on display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles

⚠️ Interpretations & Analysis (Various theories exist)

• 'The shark's malfunction was a blessing in disguise' -> A standard theory acknowledged by Spielberg himself. However, it is also pointed out that even if it hadn't malfunctioned, he might have instinctively chosen to 'hide' it, as he preferred concealing elements in his later work like 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind'

• 'The true monster is the Mayor' -> Professor Cinema's unique framing. While many researchers and critics have made similar points, it remains one interpretation

• 'Robert Shaw rewrote the Indianapolis monologue' -> Various theories exist. Multiple accounts remain, including claims that John Milius wrote the script draft and that Shaw refined it

About Professor Cinema and Tok's Movie Comedy Routine

　Thank you for reading this far. This 'Professor Cinema and Tok's Movie Comedy Routine' is created as a hybrid of AI and human effort.
The ideas for the routine, the themes of the works, and the structural design are conceived by the author (the human behind the scenes), while AI (primarily Claude) is utilized to assist with text generation. The final text is always checked, edited, and rewritten by the human, and the 'A Word from the Human' sections are written entirely by hand. With the question 'Can AI talk about movies?' as our core, I hope we can explore new ways to enjoy cinema together through the dialogue between the Professor and Tok.