Jaws Anniversary Collector's Edition CD Review

"The Head, The Tail, The Whole Damn Thing"

by Jeff Bond

Music by John Williams

Decca Records/Universal Classics

20 tracks - 51:18

Release date: July 4, 2000

It's not only virtually impossible to imagine the summer blockbuster without Jaws, it's also almost impossible to imagine the current careers of John Williams and Steven Spielberg without this seminal thriller from 1975. The movie turned its cast into superstars and its director and composer into household names. The sweeping "John Williams sound" didn't really spring into being until Star Wars, but Jaws was the consummation of years of work in film and television, a perfect synthesis of two seemingly (and appropriately) opposing ideas: a deliberately monotonous, pounding attack motif for the film's giant great white shark, and a fusion of swashbuckling, seafaring adventure music and mock classical stylings that were highly melodic and instantly accessible to the movie's audience.

Williams' original Jaws LP won a Grammy Award in 1975 and became one of the biggest-selling soundtrack albums of all time. Despite the movie's unbelievably high repeat-viewing factor, it has always been the album presentation of the score which has lingered in the memory of fans of the movie (particularly since it has always been easier to spin the LP or CD edition of the score than to catch every screening of the movie on TNT). Over the years the question of whether the LP was a re-recording has become strangely clouded in mystery, with Williams himself saying on occasion that no re-recording of the score was made. When watching the film with a familiarity with the LP presentation, it's easy to assume that many of the differences between the film and LP version are the result of editorial and engineering decisions -- many of the cues as heard in the film seem obviously to be "missing" small sections of music, while segments from one cue on the LP will wind up butted up against an altogether different piece of music in the film. For instance, the almost soothing music that follows the aftermath of the shark attack in the estuary (and is later reprised as Brody and Hooper try to snag one of the barrels at the stern of the Orca) appears in its entirety at the end of the fugal "Building the Cage" on the LP, and seems almost dropped in to these other cues in the film.

The original MCA LP has become so ingrained in our memories that rewatching the film is often a jarring experience from a musical standpoint. Williams expanded on and developed his material so elegantly in pieces like "Building the Cage," "Tourists on the Menu," "Out to Sea" and "One Barrel Chase" that hearing them in the film is the equivalent of driving a car off a cliff -- you expect the music to go in one direction and it does exactly the opposite. This actually makes viewing the film more effective because it's often difficult to anticipate exactly what's going to happen on screen based on our memory of the music.

If re-experiencing the music with the movie is an odd experience, than listening to this new anniversary edition of the score is positively revelatory. The differences between the music on this new album and the one we've been listening to for years couldn't be more obvious. Not only do we get to hear music that never made its way from the film to the original album, but also cues and interconnecting tissue that never found its way into the movie itself. The result will probably drive fans of the LP arrangement crazy and to a point even confuse those who've memorized the score in the movie. But it's never less than a fascinating, exhilarating experience.

The film opens with Williams' throbbing, slowly building introduction of his shark motif, a gimmick as old as Stravinsky's Rite of Spring that has appeared in countless action and horror movies. But never before had it been used with the effectiveness that Williams creates in Jaws -- his shark motif is simply inseparable from the image of the sea creature visualized for the film, and its psychological effect on the viewer is immeasurable. Williams instantly solved Spielberg's seemingly insurmountable technical problem of a non-working mechanical shark by creating a simple device that could constantly suggest the presence of the beast without Spielberg having to show it. And when Williams' chopping music combines with the few instances in which the screen shark DOES work, the effect is hair-raising -- it's the creation of a true monster from the Id.

Williams has always been noted for rearranging his scores into suites, "segueing" from moment to moment in the score to create a more coherent listening experience. You can't quibble with his commercial instincts, since his albums have become some of the biggest-sellers in soundtrack history. But the non-chronological (and often non-complete) presentation does raise the hackles of film score fanatics who want all the music in film order. Lately fans have been getting the best of both worlds -- they have the original suite-oriented Williams albums, while seminal scores like Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial have been reissued in largely complete, chronological form. The new Jaws album represents a compromise between the two approaches. Williams worked with album producer Laurent Bouzereau to ensure that many of the film's shorter cues are combined into longer tracks, and the order of the cues, while substantially chronological, differs in several instances from film order.

The original Jaws title music never opens into the chilling, sweeping, four-note motif for brass and strings, instead dropping off abruptly as the film cuts from an underwater POV shot to beach party-goer (and future victim) Chrissie. The first track on the new album segues directly from the Jaws theme cut-off to Chrissie's death music, with notable differences in performance and phrasing from the album version of this piece. This music itself segues into the brooding accompaniment to the discovery of Chrissie's crab-covered remains on the beach the next day, the first instance of music presented in the movie but never available on record before.

"The Empty Raft" is the terrifying accompaniment to the death of young Alex Kintner on his rubber raft, in the midst of a group of panicked swimmers. This is all rhythmic variations of the shark motif which become increasingly complex and kinetic as the other swimmers panic and flee the water -- also notable is the eerie pitch bend of strings that accompanies Spielberg's memorable zoom/dolly shot distorting Brody's face as he witnesses the death of the boy. "The Pier Incident" begins with the moody, reflective statement of the four-note shark theme played by woodwinds over harp and low strings as Brody flips squeamishly through a book on shark attacks; then the shark theme takes over full force (with accents from woodwinds and some percussive strikes from xylophone and anvil) as two fisherman make an ill-advised attempt to capture the shark with a few feet of chain and a holiday roast.

"The Shark Cage Fugue" marks the most obviously non-chronological placement of a cue on the album -- this scene occurs near the climax of the film but Williams evidently felt it was needed to liven up the tone of the first part of the album and break up the monotony of the shark-attack-related cues. The film version of this piece is noticeably curtailed compared to the LP version, ending by underscoring the uncertainty and vulnerability of the Hooper character as he prepares to meet the shark underwater rather than with the climactic power of the cage fugue's full development and the calming resolution that followed on the LP. The next track on the new album, "Shark Attack," is something of a mystery. It's an extremely violent, spectacular treatment of the attack motif that both opens and closes with the kind of bubbling, dark-hued woodwind writing that Williams often uses for the shark's appearances and disappearances at the ocean's surface. The attack music here is reinforced with extra layers of chopping strings, trombones and brass, climaxing with shrieking piccolos and percussion, making it one of the most intense pieces of music on the album. From what I can determine none of this music is used in the film and the generic title makes it difficult to say whether it is an alternate version of "The Empty Raft" ("Shark Attack" is only a few seconds shorter than "The Empty Raft") or perhaps music written to accompany Quint's gristly demise in the shark's jaws late in the film.

"Ben Gardner's Boat" was translated relatively unchanged to "Night Search" on the LP, although the exact moment of the appearance of Gardner's staring corpse is slightly altered. "Montage" is a truncated version of "Tourists on the Menu (Promenade)," but "Father and Son" features a great deal of music new to listeners. The cue opens with a piece of brass music that is a precursor to the reflective, moody brass writing Williams would use in many of the quieter Tatooine scenes in Star Wars -- this plays under the aftermath of Brody getting slapped by the mother of Alex Kintner. After that Brody retreats home where his young son tries to cheer him up by making faces at him, to the tune of some extremely delicate and sensitive scoring by Williams. The next cue is a surprise -- low end, creepy piano notes introduce what is evidently music Williams wrote to underscore Hooper's dissection of the tiger shark killed by the locals during their frantic flotilla hunt for the great white. Williams' scoring here is pure, atmospheric horror music, something Spielberg evidently felt was unnecessary over this sequence.

"Into the Estuary" re-introduces the throbbing shark motif as a young girl is the lone witness to the great white entering a coastal inlet while Fourth of July beachgoers are busy panicking over a fake shark fin operated by a couple of kids. Williams alternates eerie, keening music for strings and harp (for the shark's overturning of an adult's boat and subsequent attack on the man) with chopping suspense music for Brody's desperate sprint to the site (where his sons are playing) and the eventual escape of the shark. "Out to Sea" offers another truncated version of a cue expanded on for the LP presentation; the opening sea shanty fades down to the low, slyly suspenseful string chords that build as Quint senses a bite on his angler line and slowly prepares his rod to take the inevitable pull from the shark. In the film this music disappears in a buzz of unspooling cable just as the shark takes the line, but the new album reveals that Williams wrote a complete cue to continue past this point and introduce the beginnings of his exciting "counterattack" fugue which would eventually develop into the shark cage music.

"Man Against Beast" ("Sea Attack #1" on the LP) is the centerpiece of the score and it remains one of Williams' great film scoring triumphs, if not one of the most exciting movie sequences ever filmed. Here Williams' brilliantly introduces the sweeping bridge to his shark theme, almost bringing a supernatural element to the score as the shark finally reveals itself in its entirety, charging toward the Orca like an attack submarine. Quint, Hooper and Brody can only stare in wonder at this miracle of nature until they finally leap into action to the tune of Williams' thrilling fugal counterattack theme, later balanced by a return of the light-hearted sea shanty as Brody and Hooper argue. Spielberg's direction and Williams's scoring of the sequence's centerpiece (as Hooper leaves to rig a radio marker and Quint prepares to shoot a barrel harpoon into the shark only to realize that there's no one there to tie it) is a model of how to build suspense and excitement in a motion picture sequence, climaxing in a long shot of Quint turning behind him to look for Hooper with the shark advancing in the background -- Williams' music knits itself together into a frenzy of bustling strings before streamlining into two hammering, frantic notes as Quint prepares to fire whether Hooper is ready or not. There are two major differences between this cue and the album version: the film cue is played at a slower tempo, and it doesn't include the wistful version of the sea shanty played by piccolo in the aftermath of the chase (in the film version there is only atmospheric underscoring with Quint bellowing a song in the background)

"Quint's Tale" ("The Indianapolis Story" on the LP) arrives virtually intact from the LP with only minor differences in intonation, but "Brody Panics" is an exciting nocturnal cue that plays out as the shark rams into the boat and starts a fire, after which Quint begins taking potshots at the creature with a rifle. Notable here are the churning string variations of the shark theme and the murmuring statements for flute that open and close the piece, effects that Williams used with much heavier, lower-range instruments in both Close Encounters and Jurassic Park to herald the impending arrival of dinosaurs and UFOs. Here they simply accentuate the slippery danger of the night. "Barrel Off Starboard" opens with the shark motif making a brief appearance before soothing intervening music underscores Brody's and Hoopers attempts to snag one of the shark barrels. A brief moment of wild, Psycho-esque violence explodes as the shark tears out of the water and threatens the two men. The pulsing shark motif actually underscores the threat of Quint's temper at the end of this cue as Brody attempts to call the Coast Guard and Quint angrily smashes the boat's radio.

"The Great Shark Chase" begins as "One Barrel Chase" from the LP, although there is a substantial piece of intervening material between the fugue-based opening and the emergence of the exultant sea shanty as the Orca takes off after the shark. Williams' use of the sea shanty is what ultimately raises Jaws above the level of pure horror and into the realm of epic human adventure, as Hooper and the formerly terrified Brody suddenly begin to feel the giddy thrill of the chase and realize that they are in fact involved in the greatest adventure either of them will ever know. The sea shanty abruptly cuts off as the Orca catches the dragged barrels and the shark lurches out of the water into the camera, with an explosion of shark-motif-based action music and hammering brass until the barrels once again disappear beneath the sea. The denouement of this cue sympathetically underscores the exhaustion and fear of the men as even Quint realizes he's never faced an animal like this before.

"Three Barrels Under" reinforces that notion as the shark drags not two but three air-filled canisters underwater. In the film the disappearance of the barrels is underscored only by the introductory shark motif, but some Ravel-like intervening music underscores Hooper's and Quint's discussion of the ramifications of the barrels' disappearance before a bit of action music greets the shark's underwater ramming of the boat and a fluttering, nautical underscoring of the beast's emergence on the other side of the boat. Also heard here is the urgent, choppy scoring of the shark's continued chase of the Orca as Quint tries to tempt the creature in closer to shore.

"Between Attacks" is a reflective rendition of the sea shanty as the men face the desperation of their situation, with the hearty return of the counterattack motif sounding as the barrel-dragged shark makes another pass under the boat. Heard here is the memorable quote of "Farewell and Adieu To You Fair Spanish Ladies" as Quint ruefully eyes a pair of the life jackets that he's sworn never to wear again. "The Shark Approaches" restores the chopping shark motif to the beginning of "The Underwater Siege" -- again, timings and intervening segments of music alter this from its album presentation and make the events of the film still surprisingly fresh. Aftermath music here underscores the efforts of Quint and Brody to drag the destroyed cage back up into the boat.

"Blown to Bits" is primarily the climactic cue from the LP, although there is an extra segment of exciting action music as Brody clambers up the mast of the sinking Orca and readies his rifle. The chopping trombones heard here ad an extra layer of bravado to Brody's efforts while echoes of the sea shanty eulogize Quint and his vessel before the final, frenzied attack of the shark and Brody's ultimate, explosive victory. The film's end titles are truncated in comparison to the album version, missing Williams' final, wistful horn development of the sweetly sad play-out music.

With the addition of both the music heard only in the movie and cues written for but not used in the final film, the new Jaws album winds up being a far more narrative, filmic experience than the LP, but that's no reason to discard your original 1990 MCA Jaws CD -- Williams' development of the material in "Building the Cage," "Tourists on the Menu," "Out to Sea" and "One Barrel Chase" makes for great listening. The new album is somewhat of a compromise between the idea of a chronological presentation and Williams' idea of a great listening experience. It's frustrating because so much of the album is chronological that the few moments that obviously aren't (particularly the early placement of the shark cage fugue) are disorienting -- so much of the film is scored and in such an illustrative way that you really relive the movie and the Shark Cage Fugue is an instrumental part of the film's third act -- it's absence leaves a noticeable hole. Fortunately, while the tracks themselves are out of sequence, the music within the tracks themselves seems to be chronological, so it only takes a few clicks of the programming button to make your own anal-retentive, movie-sequenced Jaws album.

My always-questionable memory of the movie came up with the following chronological sequence:

1. 1. Main Title and First Victim
2. 2. The Empty Raft (or Shark Attack if you think this is an alternate version of Alex Kintner's death)
3. 3. The Pier Incident
4. 8. Father and Son
5. 6. Ben Gardner's Boat
6. 7. Montage
7. 9. Into the Estuary
8. 10. Out To Sea
9. 11. Man Against Beast
10. 12. Quint's Tale
11. 13. Brody Panics
12. 14. Barrel Off Starboard
13. 15. The Great Shark Chase
14. 16. Three Barrels Under
15. 17. Between Attacks
16. 4. The Shark Cage Fugue
17. 18. The Shark Approaches
18. 5. (Shark Attack -- if you think this was written for Quint's demise)
19. 19. Blown to Bits
20. 20. End Titles

There have been endless arguments about whether Jaws is great music or even great film music, many of which have been started because the tremendous popularity of the album has often forced this music (much of which is a kind of pastiche of classical music) into the concert arena. While Williams' score is certainly not staggeringly original as either music or film music, there is no question of its brilliance in accomplishing exactly what film music is designed to accomplish -- Williams' music makes the film infinitely scarier and more exciting than it would have been without any music in it. He remains a genius not because he writes the wildest, most complex and innovative music ever put on the page, but because he understands exactly when film music needs to be fantastically complex and when the simplest, most direct approach is the best. Jaws couldn't be more perfect as film music. There are many who consider Jaws 2 to be the better score, but you can hardly argue that it is more memorable than Jaws or more perfectly matched to the film. Jaws 2 is simply a great album -- Jaws is a great album and a part of the collective unconsciousness of movie history. This new album allows us a more complete view of that work and hopefully a better understanding of it.

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