Steven Spielberg will appear on stage at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles on Wednesday to showcase “Jaws: Exhibition.”
After an introduction from the museum’s President Amy Homa and a live performance of John Williams’ iconic theme by the Hollywood scoring orchestra, Spielberg took the podium and admitted in an amusing manner that he was “not fully prepared because it was not ready in 1974.” Walking through the exhibition, they gathered together so skillfully, for the final hour and a half. ”
He continued to praise the new exhibit featuring over 200 artifacts in the film. Some of them have never been published before.
“Why did everyone know that they filmed the opening scene of Chrissy Watkins being taken by a shark and had a buoy floating in the water, and then they took the buoy home and sat there for 50 years before renting it out to the academy?” Spielberg said, “How did they know? I didn’t know. My career was in the middle of production of “Jaws” and that made me think, “You’ll never be hired again.” ”
The director then waxed nostalgically about the film’s troublesome production. This took place at Martha’s vineyard when Spielberg was a 26-year-old filmmaker and had two features under her belt. Filmed in the Atlantic, Spielberg said, “I thought it was going to swim, and I really didn’t know you were going to seduce Mother Nature and seduce fate, everything starts to conspire against you.”
Celebrating this year’s 50th anniversary, the film opened on June 20, 1975, but its story began long before it reached the silver screen. As an exhibition chronicle, Universal Studios producers Richard D. Zanak and David Brown chose Peter Benchley’s rights to the novel of the same name before the book was published. In Tandem, they hired Spielberg to start production in Massachusetts with scripts written by Benchley and Carl Gottlieb, starring Roy Shader, Robert Shaw and Richard Dreyfuss.
Amity Island Sign at the “Jaws” Academy Museum Exhibition
Emily Surre /©Academy Museum FO
According to Spielberg, “The film was over 100 days of schedule. We shot for 158 days, but no one wanted to quit.” Despite seasickness from the crew, the animatedtronic shark, which was constantly rewritten with Gottlieb the night before the pivotal scene, and affectionately dubbed with blues after Spielberg’s lawyer, was initially unable to work in New England’s saltwater. It won three Academy Awards, received Best Picture nominations, surged Spielberg’s career and launched the Hollywood blockbuster cycle that continues to this day. Last weekend, the film’s 50th Anniversary Releases was the second-highest grosswing film at the box office, earning $8.1 million.
Spielberg expressed his deep gratitude to the film’s outcome and to everyone he worked with. “The friendship that happens when you’re just trying to survive something has only brought us all closer. I’ve never been close to the crew or cast until years later, but this was the ultimate example of how you can actually cross the ball to the finish line when you work as a team.
“Jaws: Exhibition” is located at the museum’s Marilyn and Jeffrey Katzenberg Gallery. The gallery previously included exhibits focusing on filmmakers such as John Waters and Miyazaki Hayo, but “Jaws” is the first time it has hosted an exhibition centered around a single film.
The exhibition explores the creation and legacy of “Jaws” through six different sections, paying tribute to the script’s stunning three-act structure. Jenny, senior curator of the Academy Museum, said that six sections “Take you from Act 1 to the final act of the film. It’s really interesting to see how filming a very well-known film and giving museum visitors a new way to experience it.
Props from Orca Boats on the Jaws exhibition
In addition to the over 200 artifacts featured in the exhibition, as well as the infamous shark fins to the cut heads on the seabed, the display shows interactive experiences and artifacts from the heritage of the “jaw.” The camera setup allows visitors to recreate their own Dolly Zoom into the veins of the film’s most iconic shots. The John Williams section on scores allows guests to play two infamous notes that echo throughout the film. Additionally, the miniature version of the blues allows visitors to control the shark via an animatronic lever. The exhibit also features recreational recreation of the famous “Amity Island Welcome You” sign from the film and Orca containers. The hero takes the open sea to hunt the honourable shark at the climax of the film.
The “Jaw” was literally part of the Academy Museum as one of the only remaining blues hangs permanently from the ceiling of the building. “I don’t think you’d be wondering why the ‘Jaw’ as a film belongs to the Academy Museum as the subject of a major exhibition,” he says.
The “Jaw” costume at the Academy Museum
Andrew McGowan
The Jaws: Exhibition will be open to the public on Sunday and will remain until July 26th. Introducing Spielberg, Homa said the museum is planning a retrospective exhibition with the director to be exhibited in 2028.
The “Jaws” exhibition was curated with assistant curator Emily Lauber Rodriguez and curatorial assistant Alexandra James Salich. The exhibition’s advisory group includes Marine Conservationist and Marine Policy Advocate Wendy Benchley, Associate Professor of Film Division and Media Studies at USC JD Connor, Sound Mixer Peter J Devlin, and editor Terrylin A. Shropshire.
