Movies - Jaws

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	Movies - Jaws

Jaws (1975) is an American film, based on a best-selling novel by Peter Benchley which itself was based loosely on the true story of the Jersey Shore Shark Attacks of 1916.

In the story, a resort town's police chief tries to protect beachgoers from the predations of a huge great white shark by closing the beach, only to be overruled by the money-grubbing town council. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg and stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, Richard Dreyfuss and Lorraine Gary.

Taglines:

The terrifying motion picture from the terrifying No. 1 best seller.
When beaches open this summer, you will be taken by Jaws.
She was the first.
Do you like fish? Well, he likes you too...
Don't go in the water.
See it before you go swimming.
You'll never go in the water again!

Synopsis

The film opens with a young woman leaving a beach party to go night-swimming just off Amity Island, a summer resort akin to Martha's Vineyard. Suddenly, she is jerked around by some unseen force and then pulled under. The next morning, Martin Brody (Scheider), the newly-hired Amity Island Chief of Police is notified that the woman is missing. Searching the beach, he and his deputy find some of her remains and Brody concludes that she was killed in a shark attack. He orders the beaches closed, but the mayor ignores his warnings and orders the beaches kept open: Amity is dependent on summer tourism, and the Fourth of July celebration is near. He tells Brody the girl was killed by a boat propeller, and is backed up by the town medical examiner. Brody reluctantly goes along with this. A few days later, a little boy is killed by the shark while playing on an inflatable raft, and his mother places a $3,000 bounty on the animal.

The bounty starts an amateur shark hunting frenzy, but it also attracts marine biologist Matt Hooper (Dreyfuss) and local professional shark hunter Quint (Shaw). After scraping his fingernails on a chalkboard to get attention at a town hall meeting, Quint says of the bounty, "I'll find 'im for three, but I'll catch 'im—and kill 'im—for ten." When Hooper arrives on the island and examines the remains of the first victim, he becomes convinced that a Great White Shark was responsible, a voracious predator known to be dangerous to humans. His angry retort to the coroner, "This is not a boat accident," is one of the movie's most memorable lines, though often misquoted as "This was no boating accident!"

A large Tiger Shark is caught by some of the amateur fishermen, and for a moment everyone is pleased that the terror seems to be over, but Hooper asks to cut open the fish "to be sure". Waiting until after dark to "operate", he and Brody find no human remains inside the dead shark and Hooper concludes that they are looking for a much larger fish. Brody and Hooper venture out in Hooper's state-of-the-art boat and come across the half-sunk wreckage of a local fishing vessel. Hooper puts on scuba gear to check the hull and discovers another victim. Brody wants the beaches closed, but Mayor Vaughn still refuses.

On the Fourth of July, after a false alarm triggered by a prank shakes everyone up, the shark attacks in the "pond," an estuary where Brody told his son to stay; another victim is killed and Brody's son is nearly attacked. The stunned mayor relents, closes the beaches, and agrees to pay Quint's price. Brody, Hooper, and Quint set out in Quint's boat, the Orca, to face and destroy the maneater.

Up until now, only parts of the shark have been seen, the monster being more like a presence. This builds up to one of the film's biggest moments when Brody, while tossing chum into the sea to lure the shark, is shocked and horrified when it surfaces right in front of him. He realizes the fish is massive, with a size that is at least half of the Orca. In one of the film's most enduring lines, the stunned Brody tells Quint, "You're gonna need a bigger boat." Hooper and Quint estimate the shark to be 20-25 feet long. After the men harpoon it with a line attached to a yellow flotation barrel, the shark swims away and disappears. When night falls without another sighting, the men retire below for dinner and drinking, where they compare scars. Quint tells of his terrifying experience with sharks as a survivor of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis. While they sing a drinking song, the shark suddenly attacks and damages the boat. Quint fires at it in vain with his M1 Garand rifle, but it disappears again.

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Movies - Jaws

Synopsis

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