Question: When the line breaks Brody's head is cut. It looked like a real cut and he did looked dazed. Was that fake? Or did that really happen by accident?
Charles Austin Miller
6th Jul 2019
Jaws (1975)
20th Feb 2009
Jaws (1975)
Question: When the swimmers are running out of the water, why does Brody shout: "No whistles?"
Answer: Brody didn't want to panic all the beach goers and cause a splashing commotion which would excite the shark.
Answer: When the shark attacks fist began, Brody began reading up on shark behavior. It is believed that loud vibrating sounds can attract sharks. Brody believes that multiple people blowing loud whistles could bring the shark closer into shore.
On the contrary, high frequency noises (such as those produced by whistles) barely penetrate into the water and seem to have no effect on sharks or any other fish. Low-frequency noises (such as concussive splashing) travel a great distance in water and are a definite attraction for marine predators. Ultra-low-frequency noises (such as the songs of whales) can travel hundreds of miles through water. The U.S. Navy even uses extremely-low-frequency (ELF) transmissions for communicating with submarines far out at sea. So, no, there is no documented scientific reason for Brody to think that high-frequency noise would attract sharks. Either the movie's screenwriters were badly mistaken in their assumption that whistles attract sharks, or the character of Chief Brody was deliberately written to be mistaken in that assumption.
3rd Apr 2017
Jaws (1975)
Question: When Alex Kintner (the boy on the raft) gets eaten by the shark, I distinctly remember a shot right after the shark rolls over the raft, that the inflatable raft pops with a loud "POP", then there were two streams of blood coming out of the water almost 5 feet in the air, in a V-type pattern. Nobody remembers it. Nobody knows. It was only in the cinema in its original release. It's never made it to any re-release or home video media version or TV broadcast. This scene was forever etched in my memory because I knew the shark had punctured the boy's back and severed the two arteries/veins that are as thick as garden hoses. Please somebody, does anyone remember this scene?
Answer: While there was an alternate (and more gruesome) Kintner-boy attack scene that was filmed late in production, Spielberg chose not to use it, and it never made it into the film. The only released Kintner-boy attack scene shows the shark roll the boy's raft, then the boy is seen lifted out of the water (by a film crew scuba diver) as fountains of bloody water appear several feet in front of the boy.
12th Feb 2016
Jaws (1975)
Question: In the pond scene, after the shark attacks the poor man on the paddle boat, why didn't he go after Michael too? He just swam past him, sparing him.
Answer: In addition, the original scene called for Michael to be in the arms of the man, with the man in the jaws of the shark. Michael is carried across the water and the released by the man just before the shark takes him under. Spielberg ultimately felt that this was over the top gruesome and changed the scene.
Chosen answer: The horror of "Jaws" was not so much the physical trauma of being eaten alive as it was the terror of not knowing who would be next. So, we see the panicking pier fisherman spared although the shark could have easily taken him; we see the shark randomly select the Kintner boy while sparing hundreds of other terrified people in the water at Amity's public beach; and we see the shark just barely spare Michael after eating the man in the pond. Although he wasn't physically harmed, Michael was hospitalized in shock after the encounter with the shark; so, he obviously suffered unimaginable terror. It's that "almost eaten" factor that sells the film. Captain Quint's story of the USS Indianapolis drives home the point that waiting to be eaten is as terrifying as actually being eaten, and that's what film maker Steven Spielberg very successfully conveyed all throughout the movie.
Answer: Excellent answers, and just to add one more point: the shark in the movie is not a normal one. He doesn't act just out of hunger, but also out of sheer malevolence: in fact, just like in the novel, it's implied there's *something* about him, something almost supernatural. He may have spared Michael because he had just secured a meal, to escape the gathering humans before they can harm him... or because killing the boy wouldn't have entertained him sufficiently.
3rd Feb 2016
Jaws (1975)
Question: There are two scenes on the boat after they have seen the shark and Brody has a panicked look, while in the background a shooting star passes right behind him. This happens twice, but it's in the day time. Was it real?
Answer: Although the 1995 documentary "The Making of Jaws" claims that the shooting star was real, the fact is that the shooting-star background effect is a Steven Spielberg trademark in most of his films (first noticed in "Jaws," but also appearing in "Close Encounters," "E.T. The Extraterrestrial," "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," "Saving Private Ryan" and others). Spielberg has always had a fascination with shooting stars, dating back to his childhood, and he works them into almost every film. Http://americanprofile.com/articles/steven-spielberg-shooting-stars-movies/.
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Answer: There are so many anecdotes regarding the numerous accidents, ad-libs, gaffes, rewrites, mechanical breakdowns, personality conflicts, budget overruns, delays, and offscreen cast and crew antics during production of "Jaws" that you could compile it all into a book (or a movie-mistakes website). Seemingly, every bit of trivia from this film (both real and fabricated) has been published at some point over the last 45 years. But if Roy Scheider ever suffered a real-life head injury in this film, it's not among that collection of trivia; so, it's fairly safe to say that the injury was entirely scripted. In a word, fake.
Charles Austin Miller