05.06 Peter Benchley, Steven Spielberg, and JAWS (1974/1975)

In 1974, Peter Benchley shocked the world with his story of a Great White Shark terrorizing a small resort community. In 1975, Steven Spielberg did it again, creating in the process the modern Hollywood blockbuster. Jaws is a story that made generations afraid to go into the water.

It’s also the story of a troubled marriage, of a man and a woman just reaching middle age and realizing that youth has passed. It’s the story of a police chief helplessly seeing his wife slip away from him and a woman who needs, just once, to dip her toes into the ocean of infidelity in order to feel alive—to feel anything at all.

And it’s the story of a community trapped between the forces of nature and Capital. It is, in short, a much more complicated tale than shark-bites-man.

Oh, but it’s that too. Because, at the end of the day, all yourtroubles at home or at work or with society somehow stop mattering when you’re between the shark’s teeth.

Today, on The Projectionist’s Lending Library, it’s JAWS.

If you want production details, check out the It was a Sh*t Show podcast.