LOS ANGELES: Take one very large shark, a boat (we’re gonna need a bigger one of those) and a movie that ran way over budget and you’ve got all the ingredients of a career-making film for one of Hollywood’s most successful directors.
Now fans of “Jaws” — Steven Spielberg’s terrifying thriller about a man-eating shark — can re-live the movie as it celebrates its 50th anniversary in an exhibition at the Academy Museum in Los Angeles.
“The film certainly cost me a pound of flesh, but gave me a ton of career,” Spielberg told reporters as he toured exhibits of props and memorabilia from the movie that propelled him to the top ranks of Hollywood directors.
“I thought my career was virtually over halfway through production on ‘Jaws’, because everybody was saying to me: ‘You are never going to get hired again.’
“’This film is way over budget and way over schedule, and you are a real liability as a director.’
“So I really thought that I better give this my all, because I’m not working in the industry again.”
History had different ideas.
“Jaws,” starring Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw, established a benchmark for thrillers, winning three Oscars and spawning three sequels as it catapulted Spielberg to stardom.
With more than 200 artifacts spread across several galleries, “Jaws: The Exhibition” is the largest display dedicated to a single film at the Academy Museum.
They join “Bruce,” a life-size model of a shark that is on permanent display at the museum, and the only one that was ever actually on set (Spielberg named the model after his lawyer.)
Production notes, stills, costume pieces, and original set items from collectors — and from the director’s personal archive — were all tracked down for the exhibition.
“It really was a cinematic treasure hunt,” curator Jenny He told AFP.
Museum staff focussed on finding objects “that would put the story of Jaws together for our visitors in a tangible, physical way,” He said.
In addition to seeing behind-the-scenes footage of the production, the public will also be able try their hand at reproducing the menacing, unmistakable “da-dum-da-dum” music that announces the arrival of the predator — music that earned composer John Williams an Oscar.
They will also be able to handle a replica of the shark used in the film.
Spielberg said the exhibition was a wonderful showcase of work by collectors “who somehow knew something that I didn’t.”
“When we shot the opening scene of Chrissie Watkins being taken by the shark and we had a buoy floating in the water, how did anybody know to take the buoy and take it home and sit on it for 50 years?“
“Jaws: The Exhibition” opens to the public on September 14.
Something to get your teeth into: ‘Jaws’ exhibit marks 50 years
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Something to get your teeth into: ‘Jaws’ exhibit marks 50 years
Arts festival’s decision to exclude Palestinian author spurs boycott
- A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival
SYDENY: A top Australian arts festival has seen the withdrawal of dozens of writers in a backlash against its decision to bar an Australian Palestinian author after the Bondi Beach mass shooting, as moves to curb antisemitism spur free speech concerns.
The shooting which killed 15 people at a Jewish Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Dec. 14 sparked nationwide calls to tackle antisemitism. Police say the alleged gunmen were inspired by Daesh.
The Adelaide Festival board said last Thursday it would disinvite Randa Abdel-Fattah from February’s Writers Week in the state of South Australia because “it would not be culturally sensitive to continue to program her at this unprecedented time so soon after Bondi.”
FASTFACTS
• Abdel-Fattah responded, saying it was ‘a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship.’
• Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
A Macquarie University academic who researches Islamophobia and Palestine, Abdel-Fattah responded saying it was “a blatant and shameless act of anti-Palestinian racism and censorship,” with her lawyers issuing a letter to the festival.
Around 50 authors have since withdrawn from the festival in protest, leaving it in doubt, local media reported.
Among the boycotting authors, Kathy Lette wrote on social media the decision to bar Abdel-Fattah “sends a divisive and plainly discriminatory message that platforming Australian Palestinians is ‘culturally insensitive.'”
The Adelaide Festival said in a statement on Monday that three board members and the chairperson had resigned. The festival’s executive director, Julian Hobba, said the arts body was “navigating a complex moment.”
a complex and unprecedented moment” after the “significant community response” to the board decision.
In the days after the Bondi Beach attack, Jewish community groups and the Israeli government criticized Prime Minister Anthony Albanese for failing to act on a rise in antisemitic attacks and criticized protest marches against Israel’s war in Gaza held since 2023.
Albanese said last week a Royal Commission will consider the events of the shooting as well as antisemitism and social cohesion in Australia. Albanese said on Monday he would recall parliament next week to pass tougher hate speech laws.
On Monday, New South Wales state premier Chris Minns announced new rules that would allow local councils to cut off power and water to illegally operating prayer halls.
Minns said the new rules were prompted by the difficulty in closing a prayer hall in Sydney linked to a cleric found by a court to have made statements intimidating Jewish Australians.
The mayor of the western Sydney suburb of Fairfield said the rules were ill-considered and councils should not be responsible for determining hate speech.
“Freedom of speech is something that should always be allowed, as long as it is done in a peaceful way,” Mayor Frank Carbone told Reuters.
