Jaws
During this time of COVID, especially living in a place still highly affected with a large number of anti-mask Covid-deniers, you can draw parallels to any even slightly analogous situation of human folly, especially via hubris and ignorance, and so we have Jaws. Here is a man-eating shark threatening a beach/resort community, where the new police chief is blowing the whistle, but the mayor will bluster, lie, and deflect to keep his beaches open and the money flowing. There is no man-eating shark, it was a boating accident. Or...Look the shark was caught, see! Everything's good!And, of course, people die because of it. Were it more closely aligned to our current situation, the mayor would have at least dipped a toe in the water and had his foot bitten off, but I digress...
The film is essentially broken into two parts, one on land/at the beach and one on the water. The second part is more successful than the first. In the first part, you have your political tussle and safety v. prosperity or science v. prosperity conflicts. You have your idyllic American 4th of July tormented by a force of nature. Spielberg does love torturing those types of settings after all, bringing unease to our seemingly most tranquil areas. While there is a sense of tension during this first part, sometimes I have to remind myself of it, as I feel I'm supposed to be more gripped than I actually am. I think that's my own personal reaction to the Jaws mythos, and in that sense, it's kind of a let down.
The portion of the film at sea, where Brody, Quint, and Hopper seek out some hand-to-hand against the great white shark is much more intimate, funny, and exciting. You have three character types rubbing up against each other in this small sea vessel, and while two were the "good guys" back on land, now they all seem infected by the hubris that they are the ones to take care of this job. Here we have honorable intent, wisdom and knowledge of the sea, and modern science teaming up to get one over on nature, and as could be predicted, it's not as cut-and-dry of a conflict resolution as these guys might have hoped for. And while this may well be just a really high-grossing creature feature, I do think the shark, as with other elements in different suburban and idyllic settings in Spielberg films, represents an emerging threat or a difficult realization on the horizon for the safe, secure, and protected. Some may get out alive, but there will be casualties. The film's climax is fairly pleasing, although I think it would've been more effective were it more grim. But then I remind myself, this is a blockbuster film that nibbles around the edges of acceptability for the family, though is obviously not for small children, so I'm probably not going to get an Aguirre-style ending.
I should note that many Spielberg and Spielbergian projects get their hooks into me because there is something about the setting and family structures that I find familiar, yet I also see the flaws that Spielberg usually exposes through an adverse situation. The same occurs here, but I don't find anything all that interesting or compelling about Brody's family or the townspeople, most of whom seem fairly anonymous. In E.T., Poltergeist, and Gremlins, you have familial and friendship bonds that are multifaceted, sometimes upon a backdrop of despair and disappointment, where an external element throws the protagonist's lives into a conflict that leads them to remember the most important priorities in life, and they are all super fun in the process. With Jaws, I think something similar is attempted, but bonds among the primary family and the people around town are established in a far more perfunctory manner, if at all. There is certainly some humor sprayed around, some ribbing and wise-ass remarks, to keep things light as you know something terrible is around the corner, but overall, I did not care a great deal about any of the characters in the film. Far as the situation is concerned, to me it was just about restoring the status quo, if you want to get into any deeper meaning; but you could also just convince me that it's an action/horror creature feature and really the point is the cool humongous shark going H*A*M and the visual effects. Even as that...I'd much rather the dinos getting busy in Jurassic Park. Or, even better, watch Bong's The Host.
Even though I'm not crazy about Jaws, well, I saw it! As something to do with my buddy and my dad on a Sunday night, it did work out quite nicely. It's just a matter of if I actually like it vs. if I enjoyed watching it with good company. The former, probably not; the latter, for sure.