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
Trump awards medals to the Kennedy Center honorees in an Oval Office ceremony
- Trump said they are a group of “incredible people” who represent the “very best in American arts and culture”
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump on Saturday presented the 2025 Kennedy Center honorees with their medals during a ceremony in the Oval Office, hailing the slate of artists he was deeply involved in choosing as “perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class” ever assembled.
This year’s recipients are actor Sylvester Stallone, singers Gloria Gaynor and George Strait, the rock band Kiss and actor-singer Michael Crawford.
Trump said they are a group of “incredible people” who represent the “very best in American arts and culture” and that, “I know most of them and I’ve been a fan of all of them.”
“This is a group of icons whose work and accomplishments have inspired, uplifted and unified millions and millions of Americans,” said a tuxedo-clad Trump. “This is perhaps the most accomplished and renowned class of Kennedy Center Honorees ever assembled.”
Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center
Trump ignored the Kennedy Center and its premier awards program during his first term as president. But the Republican has instituted a series of changes since returning to office in January, most notably ousting its board of trustees and replacing them with GOP supporters who voted him in as chairman of the board.
Trump also has criticized the center’s programming and its physical appearance, and has vowed to overhaul both.
The president placed around each honoree’s neck a new medal that was designed, created and donated by jeweler Tiffany & Co., according to the Kennedy Center and Trump.
It’s a gold disc etched on one side with the Kennedy Center’s image and rainbow colors. The honoree’s name appears on the reverse side with the date of the ceremony. The medallion hangs from a navy blue ribbon and replaces a large rainbow ribbon decorated with three gold plates that rested on the honoree’s shoulders and chest and had been used since the first honors program in 1978.
Trump honors the honorees
Strait, wearing a cowboy hat, was first to receive his medal. When the country singer started to take off the hat, Trump said, “If you want to leave it on, you can. I think we can get it through.” But Strait took it off.
The president said Crawford was a “great star of Broadway” for his lead role in the long-running “Phantom of the Opera.” Of Gaynor, he said, “We have the disco queen, and she was indeed, and nobody did it like Gloria Gaynor.”
Trump was effusive about his friend Stallone, calling him a “wonderful” and “spectacular” person and “one of the true, great movie stars” and “one of the great legends.”
Kiss is an “incredible rock band,” he said.
Songs by honorees Gaynor and Kiss played in the Rose Garden just outside the Oval Office as members of the White House press corps waited nearby for Trump to begin the ceremony.
The president president said in August that he was “about 98 percent involved” in choosing the 2025 honorees when he personally announced them at the Kennedy Center, the first slate chosen under his leadership. The honorees traditionally had been announced by press release.
It was unclear how they were chosen. Before Trump, it fell to a bipartisan selection committee.
“These are among the greatest artists, actors and performers of their generation. The greatest that we’ve seen,” Trump said. “We can hardly imagine the country music phenomena without its king of country, or American disco without its first lady, or Broadway without its phantom — and that was a phantom, let me tell you — or rock and roll without its hottest band in the world, and that’s what they are, or Hollywood without one of its greatest visionaries.”
“Each of you has made an indelible mark on American life and together you have defined entire genres and set new standards for the performing arts,” Trump said.
Trump also attended an annual State Department dinner for the honorees on Saturday. In years past, the honorees received their medallions there but Trump moved the ceremony to the White House.
Trump to host the Kennedy Center Honors
Meanwhile, the glitzy Kennedy Center Honors program and its series of tribute speeches and performances for each recipient is set to be taped on Sunday at the performing arts center for broadcast later in December on CBS and Paramount+. Trump is to attend the program for the first time as president, accompanied by his wife, first lady Melania Trump.
The president said in August that he had agreed to host the show, and he seemed to confirm on Saturday that he would do so, predicting that the broadcast would garner its highest ratings ever as a result. Presidents traditionally attend the program and sit with the honorees in the audience. None has ever served as host.
He said he looked forward to Sunday’s celebration.
“It’s going to be something that I believe, and I’m going to make a prediction: this will be the highest-rated show that they’ve ever done and they’ve gotten some pretty good ratings, but there’s nothing like what’s going to happen tomorrow night,” Trump said.
The president also swiped at late-night TV show host Jimmy Kimmel, whose program was briefly suspended earlier this year by ABC following criticism of his comments related to the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September.
Kimmel and Trump are sharp critics of each other, with the president regularly deriding Kimmel’s talent as a host. Kimmel has hosted the Primetime Emmy Awards and the Academy Award multiple times.
Trump said he should be able to outdo Kimmel.
“I’ve watched some of the people that host. Jimmy Kimmel was horrible,” Trump said. “If I can’t beat out Jimmy Kimmel in terms of talent, then I don’t think I should be president.”
