Director, marking new exhibition in LA, tells of chaotic filming – and says he’s ‘never seen so much vomit in my life’
Director, marking new exhibition in LA, tells of chaotic filming – and says he’s ‘never seen so much vomit in my life’
Before Jaws became a cinematic classic, and the very first American “summer blockbuster”, director Steven Spielberg thought the 1975 film would be the last one he would be allowed to make.
Spielberg, who was just 26, had decided to shoot his second film, a thriller about a killer shark, on location on the east coast island of Martha’s Vineyard.
“My hubris was that we could take a Hollywood crew, go out 12 miles into the Atlantic Ocean, and shoot an entire movie with a mechanical shark. I thought that was going to go swimmingly,” Spielberg told an audience of journalists at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles this week, where an exhibit marking the 50th anniversary of Jaws is opening on Sunday.
“I thought my career was virtually over halfway through production on Jaws, because everybody was saying to me, ‘You are never going to get hired again,” Spielberg recalled.
Jaws, the Academy Museum’s first exhibit focused on a single film since the museum opened in 2021, traces the film’s colorful struggles, including the many mechanical failures of the titular prop shark, along with the artistic collaborations that led to its ultimate success. Film editor Verna Fields won an Oscar for her work shaping the film’s legendary scenes of suspense. So did composer John Williams, whose ominous “dun-dun” theme song has become one of the most recognizable movie soundtracks. The $260.7m success of the film with domestic audiences also launched Spielberg’s career as one of the most influential American directors.
But in 1974, as the production was filming on Martha’s Vineyard, it was far from clear that the movie would secure a place in Hollywood history – or even that the film would actually be finished at all. Spielberg’s attempt to shoot on the actual ocean soon put the production massively over budget and behind schedule, he said, due to constant problems with “the shark, the weather, the currents, the regattas”.
“I’ve never seen so much vomit in my life,” Spielberg said of people’s queasiness at sea, to laughter.
