By Todd Garbarini
When
Steven Spielberg's Jaws burst onto
movie theatre screens on Wednesday, June 20, 1975 (during a time when movies
opened on a Wednesday), few were prepared for the impact it would have upon the
movie-going public and the American cinema in particular. Moderately budgeted and given a standard
shooting schedule, the film notoriously took nearly five months of grueling
work to get usable footage. The story behind
the making of one of Hollywood's most successful and greatest motion pictures
is also one of the most interesting in the annals of cinema history. While books have been written about the
subject of the making of Jaws, no one
has really addressed the making of the film in an in-depth, substantial way through
the use of rare photographs. All of that
has changed now, thanks to Matt Taylor, a writer/historian of Martha’s Vineyard,
Massachusetts, the location where the film was shot, and Jim Beller, a Jaws fan and the owner of the Jawscollector.com website, both of
whom worked tirelessly talking to the people who lived on the island and took
part in the making of this Hollywood classic.
Racking
the brains of Islanders, the name given to people who were born on Martha’s
Vineyard, and collecting thousands of photographs, many of them cleaned and
restored to beautiful and pristine condition, they have assembled a nearly
300-page book appropriately titled Jaws:
Memories from Martha's Vineyard, which has recently been released in both a
limited edition hardcover printing and in paperback format. The book is indubitably the final word on the
making of this spectacular masterpiece. Anyone who is a Jaws fanatic
needs to own it. Nearly 1,000
never-before-published photographs populate the book which is accompanied by a
beautifully written text by Mr. Taylor on just about every conceivable
behind-the-scenes-facet on the making of this film, presented in chronological
order. It encompasses the film’s
beginnings in December of 1973 when Production Designer Joe Alves made his initial
trek to Martha’s Vineyard to search for a suitable shooting location, up to and
including the film's release in June 1975. Few if any of the Islanders, as well as the actors and producers, could
have imagined the impact that Jaws
would have on fans over thirty years later. The little shark movie that was originally regarded by Universal
Pictures as a low-budget production not only became an action adventure
masterpiece but also put Steven Spielberg on the map to become one of the
world's greatest film producers and directors. Jaws is, bar none, the
Quint-essential (pun most definitely intended) summer movie, and should be re-released
theatrically every five years or so to give young audiences the opportunity to
experience its brilliance on a major motion picture screen where it was meant
to be seen.
Jaws: Memories from
Martha's Vineyard tells you more than you've ever wanted to
know and then some about the making of this great film. The amount of time, energy and research shows
on every single page. The book is
lavishly illustrated with color and black-and-white photographs and
storyboards, in addition to newspaper clippings from the island’s local
newspaper, the Vineyard Gazette, which gave virtually daily updates about the
making of the film. The limited
hardcover edition contains:
1″x1″
piece of the fiberglass hull of the Orca II (a.k.a., sinking Orca) used in Jaws with a note of authenticity from
owners Lynn and Susan Murphy.
A
DVD containing nine minutes of 8mm behind-the-scenes footage of the Jaws production shot and narrated by Islander
Carol Fligor.
Hardcover
and portfolio packaged in a unique special edition case.
Limited
to a series of 1000 numbered copies.
12″
x 10.5″, 296 pages.
More
than 1,000 full color and b/w images.
Jaws
is one of those rare films that I can watch over and over again. I’ve been known to watch it more than once in
one day. Likewise, Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard is the kind of book that
keeps pulling me back to it, to pore over the photos and interviews, over and
over again. You can’t just pick it up
for a few minutes and then put it down. Like the water of Amity Long Island, the book draws you in, and if
you’re not careful you will realize that the few minutes you intended to read
through it suddenly extends to several hours. If this book is not the greatest book ever published about the making of
a motion picture, I simply don't know what is. It should set the standard for future publications on similar
classics. It stands as a testament to
not only a great motion picture, but as an authenticated record of what it
truly takes to make a film and realize that film through a camera lens and most
importantly, to be able to solve seemingly insurmountable odds and problems
that inevitably beset a film crew. After
all, time is money.
The
book can be ordered at the book’s
official site and will also be available in bookstores nationwide at the
end of September 2011.
Read
on for Cinema Retro’s interview with the gentlemen who created this astonishingly
beautiful book.