Fight with the shark — A fake researched narrative from the perspective of Spielberg

7 min readOct 21, 2020

In 1974, I was a director with “few credits to my name” (steve6231 00:06:52–00:06:57); if you shouted out “I love Spielberg” on the street, nobody would even care. Then, suddenly, Jaws came into my life, which was the turning point of my whole career and even for me as a person. Till now, I still believe that it was my hardest production ever and sometimes I even had nightmares about it (steve6231 00:02:47–00:02:49) because we experienced so many unexpected troubles during the process of filming.

I will always remember that day my boss, producer Zanuck (“Richard D. Zanuck”), called me to his office. I saw that there was a pile of paper on his table with the name “Jaws” on the top (steve6231 00:06:22–00:06:27). He said to me, “Have a read of the story. We already have a director, however I’d love to hear your opinions” (steve6231 00:07:15–00:07:20).

I was puzzled about what the word “Jaws” meant, but obeying his order, I took those papers back to my home and read them. After reading, the first idea that came to my mind was that this movie was just like Duel (Hutchison), which was a movie I had just finished for ABC Movie that week (steve6231 00:07:40–00:08:43): one was about a truck and one was about a shark. I was so excited, and I thought I could skillfully handle this movie, so, the next Monday, I went into Zanuck’s office and said to him, “If the director you assigned for some reason quits, I would love to come and tell the story” (steve6231 00:07:44–00:07:50).

Weeks later, when I had nearly put Jaws out of my head, my boss came to me and said, “You got it.”

At that time, I was devoting myself to another movie called “Lucky Lady” (steve6231 00:09:54–00:0:57), and I simply didn’t want to quit my work halfway through. I was stuck. I said “What? I can’t do it” However, Sidney, my advisor, and friend, denied my refusal. I was just so mad at him and I said, “How can my friend force me to make a fish movie (steve6231 00:09:45–00:09:47)?” In my mind, I was so afraid that the audience would get the impression that I was a director who only took movies about “Truck and Shark” (Lacy). However, no matter what, I knew that I must take the job, and at the beginning, I thought that making this movie was going to be easy as pie.

After I accepted the fact that I have to take this job, Zanuck and I began to discuss the preparations for the movie. We needed to be quick because we had only 55 days to finish this movie. My boss suggested to me, “We should film this movie in a studio tank or some peaceful lake (steve6231 00:11:13–00:11:24).” However, no matter what he said, I insisted that we should film Jaws in the ocean. I told him, “The tank water doesn’t have the same texture and violence as the ocean, and Jaws will need convincing scenes, as real as possible, because otherwise nobody will even believe it” (steve6231 00:11:38–00:11:43).

We fought because of this for weeks, and my attitude was “No ocean, no movie” (steve6231 00:11:53–00:11:55). In the end, he conceded to my demands. This choice was the one that made Jaws an excellent film, but it also made the process of making it as hard as touching the sky.

I can clearly recall that we began this movie on May 2nd, 1974 (Lambie). However, it was unthinkable that we would ever begin to film because we did not have a cast, we didn’t have a shark and we even didn’t have a complete and satisfactory script on May 1st(Lambie).

I don’t know where I got the courage to even start it.

In the beginning, our plan was to train a shark. However, the reality was it just would not happen. Hence, we began to build sharks by ourselves. Each shark we built would cost a huge amount of money and we needed to build several of them so that no matter from any direction we would be able to film a “real” shark. In the beginning, we had a shark full of electric circuits that worked well in the tank water. However, when it got into the real sea, the salt caused the circuits to go haywire (steve6231 00:29:03–00:29:05). I started to realize the difficulty of this movie.

We began to use pump systems instead (steve6231 00:29:26–00:29:28). However, still, every time the shark got into the sea, there would be some problems, sometimes big, sometimes small. The frequency of the breakdown of the shark just depressed the crew. Sometimes, I sat on the artificial island we built for controlling the shark and just had no idea what the hell was going on in my life.

I knew that I should change something on the script to solve the problem (steve6231 00:29:03–00:29:05). The scripts were bad enough at the beginning, and now I nearly needed to rewrite the whole scripts so that sharks are not necessary for most of the scenes. To do this, I found Carl Gottlieb (steve6231 00:15:50–00:15:54), my friend and a screenwriter, and we began to work on the scripts, barely having enough time to sleep (steve6231 00:16:54–00:16:59). Every night we would barely finish the scripts we would need for the next day. Inside my heart, I was so nervous and I thought that this would be the end of my career. However, at those times, the words of Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, a tough-guy director, would come in my mind: “There is gonna be moments where you’re gonna get to the set and you’re not gonna know what the hell you are doing. You’ve gotta guard that secret with all your life. Hide that from every boy or you lose the respect from others” (Lacy 00:33:00–00:32:13). I tried my best to calm myself down and devote myself to the movie so that I had no time to think about any other things. However, the night always weighed much heavier than the day during which I could focus on shooting (steve6231 00:29:03–00:29:05). In a lot of sleepless nights, both due to the environment and stress from the Jaws, the overwhelming pressure on my shoulders just made me breathless.

Actually, I developed a habit when I was young: biting my nails when I am nervous (steve6231 00:19:33–00:19:45). A lot of times my crew’s members asked me “Why are you biting your nails so hard?” They could never feel the worries and stress in my mind. The days just fled, and fifty-five days was not enough to finish a movie like Jaws (steve6231 00:29:03–00:29:05). We didn’t even finish half of the movie (Lambie)! Moreover, the budgets kept growing — -first doubled and then tripled. I kept telling myself “This won’t be the end of your career and you won’t be fired… you won’t be fired”, and I repeated those words again and again so that I kept repeating them in my dream (steve6231 00:17:13–00:17:15).

One day I was just so stressed out, I rushed to Zanuck’s office (steve6231 00:38:03–00:39:05). I just wanted to shout at him “I’m out!” I kicked through the door. Suddenly, I saw Zanuck in Jaws’ T-shirt. I stared at the T-shirt, and there were just so many memories rushed into my mind. I recalled the beginning of the movie. I recalled the efforts we put into this movie. I recalled those sleepless and seemingly endless nights. I thought about how frustrated my crew was going to be without me. I asked myself “How could I let my friends, like Zanuck, who had put so much trust in me, down?” (steve6231 00:39:12–00:39:15). Unknown courage suddenly refilled me and ignited me, and I decided that I was back on board.

In the following weeks, those sleepless nights continued but I knew I was fighting for meaning, no matter if this movie would be successful or not. We began to find actors who fit into the characters in the story. However, we kept receiving rejections (Lambie). Therefore, we kept looking for new people, and fortunately, we found the right ones. Our boat sank (Lambie). Our shark kept breaking down (Lambie). Our script was not finished but was becoming better and better (Lambie). The New England weather was so unpredictable and kept changing all the time (Lambie). Even when the weather was good, we could barely shoot scenes on the sea, and when the weather was bad, we could not shoot at all (Hutchison). The process of making the movie was troublesome and almost impossible. However, with all troubles I had experienced during making this film, I knew that I could make it. With the support from my friends and crew, my confidence kept growing and strengthening. I was transformed from a boy to a man who could handle a lot of unexpected accidents. I was sharpened by this movie.

The day Jaws came to the screen, I nervously blended into the audience of the theater and sat at the back seats. When I saw how the audiences reacted, their expressions of fear, I knew I made it (Lacy 01:03:32–01:04:22).

Jaws were the turning point of my whole career (Phillips). It allowed me to make movies that I really want to make. It made my following production of E.T possible. Jaws were also the turning point for me as a person. I not only learned how to shoot films better and build up emotional connections with the audience, but I also learned how to be confident and how to calm down in front of unexpected accidents and then overcome them.

Bibliography:

Hutchison, Sean “25 Incisive Facts About Jaws.” Mental Floss, 20 June 2018.

Access date 2018/10/20

mentalfloss.com/article/64548/25-incisive-facts-about-jaws.

steve6231. “Jaws (The Inside Story).” YouTube, 31 Jan. 2018.

Access date 2018/10/22 www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWR8dHTgX0c.

Lacy, Susan, “Spielberg.” YouTube, 22 Feb. 2018.

Access date 2018/10/23 www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c7WBDfzwXw&t=641s.

Phillips, Ian. “Steven Spielberg Said That Making ‘Jaws’ Gave Him PTSD — but It

Also saved his career.” Business Insider, 28 June 2016, Access date 2018/10/25

www.businessinsider.com/steven-spielberg-said-that-making-jaws-gave-him-ptsd-

but-it-also-saved-his-career-2016–6