47 years after its premiere, Jaws continues to be one of the great classics of the seventh art and a masterpiece of suspense cinema.
And while Steven Spielberg created iconic moments that have been burned into the world's collective memory, one of the best scenes in Jaws doesn't feature the famous shark fin or John Williams' music. But for a story based on a true story.
Steven Spielberg was 28 years old when he got down to business with one of the most chaotic and stressful shoots in movie history. His ingenuity led him to shoot the film in the ocean, facing constant production problems such as boats suddenly appearing in the shots, employees sunburned or covered in sea salt, and sodden cameras, as well as starting with a script that didn't work. it was finished. And all this while the three built mechanical sharks refused to work.
It was after suffering so many setbacks and headaches that he decided, without any other choice, to hint at the presence of the shark with the music of John Williams, not knowing that this mechanical error would end up becoming the hallmark of the film. In the end, with sweat and tears, Spielberg managed to create his first classic and a film that left its mark with terrifying, visually poignant, and cinematically electrifying sequences. That's why I'm convinced that if I ask you what your favorite scene is, each one will come to mind a different iconic moment. From the shock caused by the first attack in the opening sequence to the hand, they find on the beach, the memorable lines of their characters (such as "He's going to need a bigger boat"), or simply the music of John Williams as an invisible figure but unforgettable.
However, Jaws has another wonderful scene that usually goes unnoticed and that, for me, is one of the best of all the footage. Because, for it to cause the fear that it intends, you have to know that it is a true story.
The scene in question takes place in the hour and a half of footage, when the mayor is finally convinced of the presence of the great white shark on the shores of his town and gives the order to police chief Martin Brody (Roy Schneider). to hunt him down By then, the shark has claimed several victims. Next, Brody and oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) hire local shark hunter Captain Quint (Robert Shaw) to board his boat, 'Orca'. And after experiencing the first encounter with the shark, they spend the night on the ship, waiting for it to reappear.
And then we witness the sequence when Quint and Hooper drink and share battle scars. It's a moment of distraction between the characters after a day of tension and danger, but Quint brings us back to the suspense of the film by telling the story of the tattoo on his arm: the USS Indianapolis.
Many probably do not know but the anecdote is a true story. In the film, the captain recounts that he is one of the survivors of the naval ship that was sunk by Japanese torpedoes in 1945 after delivering parts of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb. “1,100 men fell into the water. The ship sank in 12 minutes. I didn't see the first shark for half an hour. A tiger, four meters tall” recounts the character.
"What we did not know was that our mission to deliver the bomb was so secret that a distress signal could not be sent," he continues, adding that as soon as the sun came up more sharks began to appear, forming groups to protect each other, scaring them away, screaming and kicking. “Sometimes the shark would go away and sometimes it wouldn't. Do you know a thing about sharks? They have lifeless eyes. Black eyes, like those of a doll. When they get close they seem lifeless until they bite and those black eyes turn white."
Quint then recounts the screams of terror that could be heard and the red color that dyed the sea around them, with companions being dismembered by sharks. “When that first dawn ended, 100 men had died. I don't know how many sharks. Maybe 1,000. I don't know how many men. They devoured six per hour. He concludes by telling that he saw one of his friends with half of his body missing and that, when they were rescued days later, only 316 men had survived.
As you can see in the video, the scene takes place with subtle background music and no added accompaniment. There are not even varied plane changes. It's about listening to Quint and letting your imagination do the rest, while the viewer knows that the shark is down there waiting to come back.
The USS Indianapolis was one of the pride of the United States naval force and after delivering parts for the nuclear bomb, it set sail, secretly entering the waters of the island of Tinian at midnight on July 30, 1945, being intercepted by a submarine. Japanese. Of the 1,195 men on board, some 300 are believed to have died on impact while the rest fell into the sea. Where the sharks waited for them. It was the largest naval disaster in terms of loss of life at sea in the history of the US Navy.
“It was terrifying,” said survivor Harlan Twible in the documentary Jaws: The Inside Story. "The sharks would pull them and eat their limbs and the rest of the body would float to the surface." While many died from dehydration, burns, drowning, and saltwater poisoning, just as many perished as sharks fed.
“The men started getting ideas that the [rescue] ship wasn't too far away,” survivor Tony King recalled to the History Channel in 2018. “Promises of pretty girls carrying cookies or a cold drink just over the horizon. It wasn't hard for them to convince me. So a group swam, following the leader, not wanting to be left behind... There were so many sharks. So many. I could see them swimming below me."
The Navy learned of the sinking four days later when the crew of another ship - the PV-1 Ventura - saw the survivors at sea covered in oil. Next, the story of the USS Indianapolis filled the front pages of the newspapers of the day. Not only because of the tragedy but because the Naval Force tried a court martial against Captain Charles B. McVay III - who had survived the sinking and the sharks - accusing him of negligence for not having dodged the torpedo. The case was quite a scandal at the time with many detractors. McVay was tried but he was not exonerated by the US Congress until the year 2000, decades after his death. And it is McVay who never returned to the sea and committed suicide in 1968 at the age of 70.
Time passed and the story remained in the memory of the time, making many not even recognize the authenticity and realism of the moment that the film captures. That's why the sequence made an impact on Twible. As he recounted in the documentary about the film, he used to stay away from any information that could reveal to his family what he did during World War II. “But it was a shock when I heard it [the story in the film]. A man was telling my story to the world. We owe a lot to Robert Shaw. I never met him but as a member of Indianapolis, I can honestly say we are indebted to him."
Interestingly, although the film was based on the Peter Benchley novel, the scene was later included between Spielberg, screenwriters Howard Sackler and John Milius, and the actor himself who recites it. This demonstrates the filmmaker's mastery of creating suspense from different angles, paying homage in his own way to a historical tragedy.
This story was also embodied in the cinema in 2016 in Men of Valor, a film starring Nicolas Cage that transformed the tragedy into a film of the catastrophe genre. It was panned by critics, with many critics pointing out that it did little justice to the incredible true story. Needless to say, it was not released in many countries, not even Spain.
