The documentary was very well made and entertaining, but I don't think it contained anything I didn't already know.
I'm really not expecting much more than a fond look back and that's OK with me.
Last night I watched
Jaws @50: The Definitive Inside Story.
Let's get this over with: it didn't entirely live up to its name. This was always going to be an impossible task when so many of the key players are now dead. Naturally, they were only present through archival footage: some taken from other, more definitive projects such as
The Making Of Jaws. What's more, well-known stories are now being told second-hand. Case in point, Peter Benchley's widow, Wendy, telling the story he had previously told about how he came up with the name. We also get people re-telling previously-told anecdotes, like Spielberg's recollection of seeing the title
Jaws and wondering if related to dentistry.
That said, it is as enjoyable as I'd hoped to see the film's making remembered by those involved. Not always fondly, but there's a definite fondness for the final product and what it has come to mean to them. Time can almost stand still when it comes to this film, so I was taken aback by little reminders of the ageing process. One can forget that Carl Gottlieb and Joe Alves are both almost 90. Both look well on it, but there's no hiding the fact that they are not young men (Alves still looks sprightly, but I heard his voiceover before he was shown, and he certainly
sounded old).
It was nice to see comments from filmmakers about how
Jaws had influenced or impacted upon them. Some of the talking heads felt very much like filler, though, and a couple of people felt out of place... as though they just happened to be around the studio when the documentary was shot. Case in point: actress Emily Blunt, evidently trying very hard to say something profound and sage, but sounding rather hollow (and worse... hollow with an irritating mid-Atlantic accent). Ultimately the talking heads being padded out with fans who weren't even born when the film was released lost much of the purity of earlier projects, and served as a reminder that with each passing anniversary there are fewer and fewer people who can truly say "I was there".
There was lots of stuff that felt new.
Jaws extra Todd Rebello - brother of late Michael Brody actor Chris Rebello - keeping the spirit of the film alive was really sweet. A number of behind-the-scenes photos were new to me, I think, and there were also new photos presumably provided by families of those involved (Peter Benchley is quite a hottie in some of these candid photos). I also really enjoyed the current shots of Martha's Vineyard.
The images of sharks that had been cruelly slain during the trophy hunting movement that gained huge ground after the success of
Jaws were really quite difficult to look at (necessarily so, since the very idea is incredibly ugly), but it's at least balanced by the fact that
Jaws also created a new generation of marine biologists who help preserve these awe-inspiring creatures. Peter Benchley's family are also continuing to raise awareness of the back of the work he himself did to improve the image of the shark later in life.
Overall, it's refreshing to hear a familiar story told in a new way. The release of some previously unseen stuff made this one worth doing for me, and it's interesting enough that I would watch again.
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