Today’s episode of Sounds of Cinema looked back at Jaws on its fiftieth anniversary with a close look at John Williams’ score and a couple of interviews.
One of the early films of Steven Spielberg, Jaws is about a New England resort town whose beaches are stalked by a great white shark. After repeated attacks, the local police chief (Roy Scheider), a marine biologist (Richard Dreyfuss), and a fisherman (Robert Shaw) must hunt the animal and destroy it.
In the five decades since Jaws debuted in theaters it has achieved a rare level of adoration and acclaim, becoming something bigger than the movie itself. But setting aside its cultural imprint, Jaws is an extraordinarily well-made film, a mix of horror and adventure that is a masterclass in tension distinguished by the humanity and intelligence with which the filmmakers approach the material. Read the full review here.
The Music of Jaws
One of the most notable qualities about Jaws is its music score. Jaws was the second collaboration between filmmaker Steven Spielberg and composer John Williams, following 1974’s The Sugarland Express. Williams would score most of Spielberg’s subsequent films including Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, Catch Me if You Can, Munich, and the Indiana Jones films. Jaws was the start of an incredible run for Williams. He created iconic scores not only for Steven Spielberg but for other directors as well. Williams scored Richard Donner’s Superman, Alfred Hitchcock’s Family Plot, Brian De Palma’s The Fury, John Badham’s Dracula, George Miller’s The Witches of Eastwick, Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, Alan J. Pakula’s Presumed Innocent, and Chris Columbus’ Home Alone as well as the first three Harry Potter films and all nine episodic Star Wars movies.
John Williams’ music often used a leitmotif approach in which he created recognizable themes or musical signatures for principal characters and storytelling ideas. The score of Jaws consists of several themes that Williams weaves together. The most obvious and most iconic is the shark theme which opens the film. The shark theme is simple and recognizable. Williams varies the tempo and volume in ways that suggests the proximity of the shark and the ferocity of its attack. The main theme creeps in and gradually works up to its climax.
In addition to the shark music, the Jaws score has several other themes. One of these is the music for Amity Island and the character Martin Brody. It’s worked into in the album version of the “Main Title” but it’s heard most audibly in the “End Title.” As the theme of Amity Island and Martin Brody, the “End Title” serves as a bookend and counterpoint to the shark theme that opens the film. The “End Title” asserts Brody’s heroism and the salvation of the Amity community, assuring the audience that everything will be okay, but there is a somberness to the piece that accounts for the grief and guilt that got us here.
There are two pieces of music for the shark hunt. “Out to Sea” is played most obviously as the three principal characters leave the harbor to hunt the shark. “Out to Sea” might be viewed as Quint’s theme. The other major musical theme of the shark hunt is “The Shark Cage Fugue” which is most obviously featured in the montage sequence in which Brody, Hooper, and Quint assemble the shark cage. “Out to Sea” articulates the adventure aspect of the movie whereas “The Shark Cage Fugue” is the music for the conflict between civilization and nature. Jaws is at heart a story about human society coming into conflict with the natural world. Hooper descends into the water inside a metal cage armed with a poisoned spear. It’s a technologically advanced version of a primitive weapon which neatly illustrates the primal themes of the movie. “The Shark Cage Fugue” is the music of human ingenuity and the hope that technology will save us, a hope that is fulfilled ironically in the film’s climax.
Jaws Soundtracks
Jaws has had five major soundtrack releases. The original soundtrack album released in 1975 by MCA Records was a re-recording of the music conducted by John Williams. Like a lot of soundtrack albums from that time, the 1975 Jaws soundtrack was arranged and sequenced to play like a musical program and it ran about 34 minutes. This version was issued on vinyl, cassette tape, and CD.
Two expanded versions of the Jaws score were released on CD in 2000 for the movie’s twenty-fifth anniversary. Decca released a digitally restored version of the full Jaws score as well as some pieces that were recorded but not included in the finished film. This edition ran about 54 minutes. That same year Varese Sarabande released a new recording of the entire Jaws score conducted by Joel McNeely. This is essentially a rerecorded version of the Decca release.
In 2015 Intrada put out a new version of the Jaws soundtrack. This two-CD edition included remastered versions of both the entire John Williams score as heard in the film and the Decca release and the 1975 MCA album. The Intrada release also included alternate and unused music cues as well as some of the source music heard throughout the film such the “Joplin Rag” heard during the 4th of July beach scene. This release was limited to the CD format.
In 2025 Backlot Music and Mondo released a fiftieth anniversary edition of the Jaws score that has been remastered. This version was released digitally and on vinyl.
In the last few years many professional orchestras have taken to staging movie events in which a film is projected on a screen above the orchestra, the dialogue and sound effects are broadcast through the speaker system, and the musicians play the score live. I’ve attended a Jaws screening like this performed by the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and they included several pieces of Williams’ score featured on these expanded soundtrack releases but not included in the film.
The theme from Jaws was released as a single in 1975. The B-side was the “End Title.” The theme has been rerecorded countless times for various soundtrack compilation albums and there are plenty of remixes and musical interpretations. The shark theme of Jaws has been parodied and imitated countless times in other movies and in commercials.
In the midst of Jaws‘ success in 1975 Dickie Goodman released the novelty song “Mr. Jaws” via Cash Records. The single actually got to the #4 position on the Billboard Hot 100.
Jaws Documentaries
When movies reach an elite level of popularity and cultural cachet as The Wizard of Oz, The Exorcist, and Star Wars, there often arises a mythology around the making of the film itself. The making of Jaws has become legendary and it’s one of the most meticulously documented productions.
Jaws was based on the best-selling novel by Peter Benchley and the rights were acquired by producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck before the book was published. The film adaptation of Jaws was rushed into production and principal photography was conducted on Martha’s Vineyard with mechanical sharks while a second unit filmed real sharks in Australia. The mechanical sharks were notoriously difficult to work with and frequently broke down, resulting in the filmmakers using subjective camera angles and music to suggest the shark. This probably made Jaws scarier and more effective. Because of the delays of shooting on the ocean, the production went over schedule and over budget and Jaws was rumored to be a disaster. All that changed upon the first test screening which was a huge success. Jaws got its Hollywood ending, becoming the highest grossing film ever released to that point, earning $267 million domestically. Today that would be over $1.5 billion. Universal took an innovative approach to the promotion and release of Jaws, saturating television with ads and opening it in theaters nationwide. Jaws is credited with creating what we now think of as the summer movie season.
That’s the backstory in broad strokes. Let’s take a look at a few of the notable Jaws documentaries.
One of the first and most famous Jaws documentaries is Universal’s official making-of piece directed by Laurent Bouzereau. Bouzereau has emerged as Spielberg’s biographer, helming documentaries on many of the filmmaker’s projects and a recent biography of John Williams. The Making of Jaws was originally created for the 1995 collector’s edition laserdisc release of Jaws and the full documentary ran over two hours. A sample of this documentary was included on the first letterboxed VHS edition of Jaws and a 55-minute version was included with the first DVD release. That shorter version lost some of the details but it was better edited, using B-role and music to be a more efficient and watchable version. The full two hour cut of The Making of Jaws was made available on the two-disc DVD release and subsequent Blu-Ray and 4K releases.
Laurent Bouzereau made a second Jaws documentary for the film’s golden anniversary. Jaws @ 50: The Definitive Inside Story featured newly recorded interviews and repurposed some of the content from the 1995 documentary. Jaws @ 50 also included commentary from some other notable filmmakers including Guillermo del Toro, Steven Soderbergh, J.J. Abrams and members of the Benchley family. Jaws @ 50 was a National Geographic production and will be available on Disney+. It is also included in the 50th anniversary 4K disc release.
A couple of Jaws documentaries were made for cable television. The documentary series E! True Hollywood Story produced a two-hour episode on the making of Jaws that aired in 2002. Jaws: The Inside Story was produced for A&E in 2010. These documentaries covered a lot of the same material from Universal’s official histories but they also leaned into the gossip and the behind-the-scenes drama, especially Robert Shaw’s alcoholism and the role it played in his relationship with Richard Dreyfuss.
The Shark is Still Working: The Impact and Legacy of Jaws is a fan-produced documentary directed by Erik Hollander. It covers most of the familiar behind the scenes material and features narration from Jaws actor Roy Schieder. This documentary is distinguished by its look at the Jaws fanbase and includes footage of Jaws Fest, a fan event held on Martha’s Vineyard in 2005. Viewing the documentary on contemporary high-definition screens, The Shark is Still Working suffers a bit from the technical limitations under which it was produced. The Shark is Still Working is included on the Jaws Blu-Ray release.
Jaws Books
There have been a number of Jaws making-of books. Jaws author Peter Benchley wrote the nonfiction essay collection Shark Trouble which includes a piece about his experience writing the novel. The anthology Great Shark Stories by Ron and Valerie Taylor includes a chapter about their experiences filming real great white sharks for the movie.
Among Jaws “finatics,” one of the most popular books is On Location… On Martha’s Vineyard: The Making of the Movie Jaws by Edith Blake. This particular Jaws book is interesting because it documented the film as it was being made from the point of view of the residents of Martha’s Vineyard who were a bit perplexed by the presence of a Hollywood production on their island. On Location… On Martha’s Vineyard was originally published in 1975 but it was republished in 2020.
Jaws: Memories from Martha’s Vineyard was another islander retrospective, this one written decades later by Martha’s Vineyard resident Matt Taylor. This is a coffee table book that features lots of interviews and photos from locals and Hollywood crew members who were involved in making the film. Jaws: Memories from Martha’s Vineyard was first published in 2011 and a new edition was issued in 2025.
There have also been a few academic books about Jaws which analyze the film and put it in its historical context. Monographs about Jaws have been written by Nigel Andrews and Antonia Quirke. The Jaws Book: New Perspectives on the Classic Summer Blockbuster was edited by I.Q. Hunter and Matthew Melia and “This shark, swallow you whole”: Essays on the Cultural Influence of Jaws was edited by Kathy Merlock Jackson and Philip L. Simpson. These books contain chapters with titles like “Amity Means Friendship: Jaws and the Post-Vietnam Politics of Perception” and “Live Every Week Like It’s Shark Week: Jaws and Natural History Documentary.”
Most Jaws books focus on the original movie but a few deal with the sequels, namely Just When You Thought It Was Safe: A Jaws Companion by Patrick Jankiewicz which addresses all four films. There’s also Jaws 2: The Making of the Hollywood Sequel by Michael A. Smith and Louis R. Pisano and The Shark is Roaring – The Story of Jaws: The Revenge by Paul Downey.
The most famous book about the making of the film is The Jaws Log. The book was written by Carl Gottlieb who co-authored the screenplay and has a small acting role in the film as the local newspaper editor. This book has been praised by other filmmakers such as Rob Reiner, John Krasinski, and Stephen Soderbergh. The Jaws Log was originally published at the time Jaws was released but it was reissued in 2000 and again in 2005. However, the original 1976 edition of The Jaws Log included illustrations that weren’t carried over to the newer editions.
Jaws Interviews
Here is a 2005 interview with Jaws screenwriter Carl Gottlieb. He reflects on the legacy of the film, the status of Hollywood filmmaking, and the republication of The Jaws Log.
John LeMay is the author of several books about movies and television including Jaws Unmade which recounts the history of the Jaws sequels as well as other related films such as Piranha, Orca, and Grizzly and unproduced projects inspired by Jaws.
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