Steven Soderbergh has made his fair share of bold, disruptive films withSex, Lies, and Videotape, Traffic, and Contagion, but when it comes to the most disruptive film ever made? For him, it’s not even a contest. It’s Jaws.
On the occasion of the film’s 50th anniversary, Soderbergh sat down with Deadline to unpack exactly why Spielberg’s 1975 shark thriller not only redefined cinema but proved Spielberg is, without question, the greatest director of all time.
Soderbergh was only 12 when Jaws hit theaters, but he left that first screening with two questions rattling around in his head: “What does ‘directed by’ mean? And who is Steven Spielberg?”
The answers would shape his career. “It was probably the moviest movie I’d ever seen at that point,” Soderbergh recalled, “this incredibly combustible combination of super-high concept and bravura filmmaking.”
But it wasn’t just the terror of the shark or the suspenseful set pieces that blew his mind. “What separates it from most movies before or since is the character work,” he said. “When you look at how the narrative of the movie is built… it’s just a model of movie storytelling.”
He cites the USS Indianapolis scene, which is nine unbroken minutes of three men sitting in a boat as one of the boldest moves in film history. “Can you imagine, in the middle of a Star Wars movie, a nine-minute dialogue scene? It’s unthinkable.”
That monologue, delivered by Robert Shaw’s Quint, didn’t even exist in the original Peter Benchley novel. The book was packed with soapy subplots, including an affair between Hooper and Brody’s wife, that screenwriter Carl Gottlieb tossed out.
The filmmakers reshaped the narrative around the primal terror of the shark, the uneasy camaraderie of the three leads, and, in Soderbergh’s words, “a totally unique talent blowing up.”
As Soderbergh explained, Jaws was a perfect storm of risk and genius. “They were out there in the middle of a f*cking ocean. There’s a reason people don’t do that,” he said.
“That shark was just a pneumatic mechanical device, in the actual ocean. There’s no shortcut to that.” And when the shark didn’t work? “They were beginning to confront the real possibility that what they were attempting to do just physically cannot be done.”
And yet, they kept going. Spielberg kept going. “Under enormous pressure, everybody continued to do their best work,” Soderbergh said. “It’s a real clinic for a young filmmaker about the kinds of obstacles that you encounter. Never panic and never give up. It’s pretty hard to beat.”
It’s easy to forget how groundbreaking Jaws was in the context of its time. Soderbergh points out that while other hits like The Godfather and The Exorcist also drew long lines, Jaws birthed the idea of the event movie, wide releases, saturation marketing, and watercooler buzz.
“You have to attribute that to Universal, recognizing they had a rocket in their pocket and tripling down on this wide-release strategy,” he said. But none of that would have mattered if the film didn’t land. “You can’t just do it with any film. It was the beneficiary of a lot of different elements coming together in this one circumstance. And the guy made a masterpiece.”
Of course, none of this happens without Spielberg. And even after decades of record-breaking box office success and countless genre-defining films, Soderbergh still thinks Spielberg is underrated.
“He’s a singular talent who was going to emerge one way or another,” he said. “Despite being the most successful director in history, I still think he’s taken for granted.”
“There are things that he’s done that if any other filmmaker had made them, these would be their career best,” Soderbergh said. “But he’s done it so often that he gets taken for granted.” He name-drops Ready Player One as a technical marvel most directors couldn’t even conceptualize, let alone execute between Oscar-nominated dramas like The Post.
And then there’s 1993: Jurassic Park and Schindler’s List in the same year. “That’s ridiculous,” Soderbergh said. “Either one of those would put another filmmaker in the hospital.”
In the end, that’s what makes Spielberg the greatest of all time. Not just his eye for spectacle, or his ear for emotional truth, or his tireless innovation, but his ability to do all of it, consistently, across decades, in wildly different genres.
Jaws wasn’t just a turning point for movies, it was the moment a generational talent stepped forward and showed us what was possible.
As Soderbergh put it: “There was no other director on the planet who could have survived and made Jaws. Jaws.” And 50 years later, we’re still enjoying what he delivered with that movie.
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