Jaws (2023 Entry #2)

 

Regular visitors to this site will not be surprised at the fact that we had a return visit to "Jaws" on the big screen, just a month after our recent screening. Yes the 47 year old film is widely available for home viewing, yes there is an expense and inconvenience of  traveling to a theater thirty miles from home, but those things don't matter. Seeing "Jaws" in a theater is a chance to share the experience with an audience, it is an opportunity to treat the moment as special, and it is one more instance where we can sit in awe of the accomplishment of the film. 

The screening was promoted as a "Movie Party" and the audience was provided with some tools to participate, including a shark fin hat that I tried on but took off while watching the movie. The bloody inflatable drink cozy was not needed in the theater but might come in useful in a hot tub. We were encouraged to respond to lines in the movie but the audience was relatively subdued. I did sing along with Quint about those fair Spanish Ladies and with all three of our hunters when they were tired and wanted to go to bed, but I did not hear others doing so. There was one audience member enamoured of the response line when Hooper Identifies the kind of shark the skiff load of fisherman hauled in, he repeated the line "A What? " with a great deal of impressionistic accuracy. 

Another example of the advantages of seeing a film with an audience is being able to see the reactions of others to the moments you are reacting to as well. The man sitting next to me jerked involuntarily when Ben Gardner's head appeared in the hole in the hull of his own boat. The audience laughed together at several points and you could also feel the pall that fell over everyone, on -screen and in the audience, when Mrs. Kitner confronts the Chief. At that moment it doesn't just feel like a story, it feels like a tragedy. 

I think we also felt a collective sense of community joy when Mayor Vaughn tells Brody and Hooper, "For Christ' sake tomorrow is the 4th of July and we will be open for business". Since we were all sitting in a theater together, the day before the Fourth of July, it just seemed especially relevant to us. Whenever someone asks what a great movie to watch for the Independence Day holiday, this is always the first answer.