Newspapers / Daily Tar Heel (Chapel … / Aug. 25, 1975, edition 1 / Page 35
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MSI n 01 J u a U it 9 S r .... .i y v v : v.. Jaws9 Architecture at the oldest state university, page 3 Paul Green at 81, page 4 Diamond Studs returns to the womb, page 5 Rainbow literature from the Loom Press, page 6 Nashville, Nashville, Nashvilie, page 8 Section D 4 ? . I U i i yt - trie world, John f Foster Dulles and ffi y 'zipess fuck' Dedicated to shark fighte$g by John Russell Critic-at-large f We are all monsters in our subconscious; that is why we need laws and institutions. Said by a forgotten character in a forgotten film of nuclear holocaust vintage during bomb shelter years of the nineteen fifties, that remark embodies an escapist cinema some thought we had escaped. Indeed the radiation game and attendant we-are-witness-to-our-own-destruction horrors passed into oblivion with John Foster Dulles. But the Curse of Freud lingers; we are all monsters (subconsciously), and, in the atomic ar:, as apt to destroy ourselves as to make a peanut butter sandwich. Pcrli.ip--becausebf its own irrationality, Hollywood remains most adept at titillating the neurotic in us all. Standing ih line to see Jaws, 1 thought of J ohn Foster Dulles. There w as a panhandler slouching outside the Carolina Theatre in Elizabeth City with his same cheekbones and bulldog elan; a tin cup in one hand, a bottle of M D : 20-20 in the othetChe scorned the mask of charity. There was art in this man. He was a drunk'without pretense and a beggar without a spiel. His one open eye surveyed the line filing past into the theatref Small town burghers and their families,-some teen-agers and their dates, all dressed brightly, incongruous against the dull and narrow facades of Elizabeth City s waterfront district. They were aliens; it was Jeggar's territory. t " Ya'll must never seen no bigsh before," he muttered, chuckling, tin cup v resting on one kaWTSr"" r ' . f . No one answered, Mot hershepteed children ahead-fathers telt tor wallets still in place; couples Chatteuncomortably. A black man drove his demufffsred Plymoutldown the one-lanp street. John Foster-Dulles would have understood Jaws. He appreciated a fait accompli, gloried in the reaction to crisis. Motives, ethics, introspection exhorting Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, chastised Athens, et ah to build safer skyscrapers lest Acadia go up in flames. J If it-had been proclaimed in the opening credits that Jaws was dedicated to Shark fighters, both the living and the dead," I would have left the thbatre immediately and thought nothing more about my two dollars and fifty, cents. But Jaws depends upon no such anodyne. It is a tight film, a good Hollywood movie. Technical accomplishments and the drama generated by the shark's presence ably camouflage the film's shallow and stereotyped characterizations. It is an American movie, a celebration of pragmatism and finesse m conflict with nature. ' Peter Benchley is the son of Robert Benchley, a man who, forty years ago, -helned shine the escaoist art of a less defensive generation. The younger ,; r -:r - . . ... . , . , , . I Benchley biitchered his own best-selling novel (no great iossj to wrne me screenplay of the movie version of Jaws. Benchley's is a good adaptation, vvith much If what is cumbersome in the book shorn away. Adultery is the biggest casulty, as Hooper's romance with Brodie's wife never made the script. Bencrjley liked his work so much-that he gave himself a cameo role a ,1a Hitchcock he was the roving newsman on Amity's Fourth of July rbeaches. I - ' 'But the positive aspects of Benchley's adaptation are nearly done in by two.externa1! forces Moby Dick and Richard Dreyfuss. Moby Dick was Benchley'spwn fault. Perhaps it is difficult to avoid Melville when one's plot depends 2pon the pursuit of a killer fish by a determined crew of New England origin, but that coincidence provides all the more reason to try. Benchley didn't. Quint does not discourage the belief, fostered by Captain Ahab, that Yankee ship captains are by nature mentally unbalanced. Hooper is a Starbuck who combats Quint with the religion of technology instead of Melville's original Christian dogma. And as for Ishmael just call him Brodie the best "intruder" with a capital T who ever focused a narrative. Richard Dreyfuss was not Benchley's fault. Fresh from American Graffiti and The Apprenticeship oj Duddy Kravitz, Dreytuss lends the dimension to jtsclf, were all givens in the politics of brirlksmanship. By necessity ldentltiesj00per's character one would expect from Beaver Cleaver playing Dorian ffprtpH The enemv wasJaeeless, eanda Deflected. The enemy wasJaeeless; Godbss, relentless, malevolent. Communism was an irrational menace to be t resisted with every resource of our moral and econoniicfsuperiority, even if it 5 meant unleashing Chiang. .s . : 'Jaws, and the new escapist cinema of winch it is the most sophisticated example also feed on the fait accompli In The Excorcist a young girl js possessed; in Vat lowering Inferno a building catches lire; and in Jaws a Great -.White Shark engorges several humkhs. Each situation releases those in'voIvei;fr6rn.ih.inlting beyond their immediate perilKAnd rightly so, lor one does not reasors with the irrational, be it represented by demons, lire, sharks "or. VWtorU Communism. Escape for th.,, audience lies in disencaucmenCfrom t-;mplexities of personality and absorbtion in the problem at InnoHow they banish the devil? put out me nre: mu u shark? A ft I 7 .lies and cliches I Jniit Jcx Jw oil vwooi sell consciously sought to provide a framework of ihbraUissues to externallf iport its escapist fare.- Predictably, that structure often proved atfSfihc - . issment. Discussions of man s monstrous subconscious among raduvr vivors were sometimes improbable, me Excorcisfs right-wing CathQlicprn distracting. Perhaps mostcwousl all was the attempt by the maRero. .... Wing Inferno to establish nat iilm a -paean to firemafflJH;Trrdictmeht.; building conrtfi. Thus, at the rSvleVabsurd conclusion, Steve McQiWm the ruined building as if he were the sole Spartan survivor oljpyiae, GraWNo one else does much better in their borrowed roles, but tney at least keep frohi being offensive, which Dreyfuss does not, be he making quasi profound observations ("The shark is a perfect eating machine") or groteqlSe allusions to the upcoming "dinner hour" or "smorgasbord" offshore. t Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers Beyond the fact that Jaws is an impressive technical achievement, beyond even the fact that it is a cynical movie, we must finally deal concretely with its enormous appeal. In the WPA gaudiness of that Elizabeth City theatre, there was a genuine tension between viewer and film, a tension of more substance than the Simple vicarious fright and relief felt with each shark encounter. There was something more engaging about this film; it was without question a sensation peculiar to the summer of 1975. Intrigued, 1 began to examine contemporary sources. Upstaging even Henry Kissinger's garbage in the July 29 issue of National Enquirer, seven psychiatrists explain the psychological intricacies of Jaws. One of them. Dr. Michael Brady, a professor at the George Washington University Medical School, advances the following opinion: Great stuff! Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers in a sea setting! We can yell and scream and get rid of all the pent-up tensions of our everyday lives. And there's no violence of man against man, so when the shark finally gets his, we can cheer its death without a qualm ..." Please turn to page 11
Daily Tar Heel (Chapel Hill, N.C.)
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Aug. 25, 1975, edition 1
35
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