JAWS @ 50: THE DEFINITIVE INSIDE STORY (2025)

Laurent Bouzereau had a great run turning out behind-the-scenes special features as Extras on premium DVD editions of classic Hollywood films.  Not the academically inclined essays or close-readings of directorial style found in Criterion Commentaries, but gossipy backstory featurettes.  A Value Added Bonus from pre-streaming days.  With less call for such offerings in today’s market, Bouzereau has moved on to feature-length studies, like a recent bio on film composer John Williams.  Now, this Golden-Anniversary look at a single film, and not just any film, Steven Spielberg’s JAWS.  Good stuff as far as it goes: archival clips, talking-head encomium from fellow directors, plenty from Spielberg himself.  (Though why Emily Blunt in here a mystery.)  But heck, who doesn’t like JAWS?  Well, other than the NY’er film critic Penelope Gilliat, who used to split the year with Paulina Kael and whose squib review on JAWS read, in its entirety, ‘Don't bite.’ and ran for years.  We do get a couple of little known surprises about some post-location work in a water tank and even a pick-up shot in a backyard swimming pool.  But this is really no more and no less than a Super-Sized version of the DVD Extras Bouzereau used to make.  And he's always careful to avoid tough issues.  For Williams, not a peep about his many musical ‘borrowings,'  (see here: https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2024/11/music-by-john-williams-2024.html), and now in not mentioning the rift that later developed between Spielberg and one-time film alter-ego Richard Dreyfuss who is only seen in archival material.  (Best guess is that Spielberg blames Dreyfuss for the failure of passion project ALWAYS/’89, but who knows.)  Worth a look, but also a missed opportunity.

READ ALL ABOUT IT:  JAWS co-scripter Carl Gottlieb’s original paperback, THE JAWS LOG/’75, often credited as the first bio on a movie production.  But that ‘honor’ should go to Walter Wanger whose My Life with Cleopatra came out in 1963, or perhaps 1973's The Magic Factory: How MGM Made An American in Paris.