When a young woman is killed by a shark while skinny-dipping near the New England tourist town of Amity Island, police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) wants to close the beaches, but mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) overrules him, fearing that the loss of tourist revenue will cripple the town. Ichthyologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) and grizzled ship captain Quint (Robert Shaw) offer to help Brody capture the killer beast, and the trio engage in an epic battle of man vs. nature.

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“You’re going to need a bigger boat.“
So the police chief famously informs the shark hunter, right after the first brief appearance of the man-eater in “Jaws.” It’s not simply a splendid line of dialogue, it’s an example of Steven Spielberg’s strategy all through the film, where the shark is more talked about than seen, and seen more in terms of its actions than in the flesh. There is a story that when producers Richard Zanuck and David Brown first approached Spielberg with an offer to direct the film of Peter Benchley’s best seller, he said he would do it on one condition: that the shark not be seen for the first hour. Viewing the movie’s 25th anniversary DVD, I was surprised to realize how little the shark is seen at all.
In keeping the Great White offscreen, Spielberg was employing a strategy used by Alfred Hitchcock throughout his career. “A bomb is under the table, and it explodes: That is surprise,” said Hitchcock. “The bomb is under the table but it does not explode: That is suspense.” Spielberg leaves the shark under the table for most of the movie. And many of its manifestations in the later part of the film are at second hand: We don’t see the shark but the results of his actions. The payoff is one of the most effective thrillers ever made.
The movie takes place over the Fourth of July weekend on Amity Island, a tourist resort that feeds off the dollars of its visitors. A famous opening sequence establishes the presence of a man-eating shark in the coastal waters; a girl goes swimming by moonlight and is dragged under, screaming. All evidence points to a shark, but Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) doesn’t want to scare away tourists, and orders Brody (Roy Scheider), the police chief, to keep the beaches open. “If people can’t swim here, they’ll be glad to swim in the beaches of Cape Cod, the Hamptons, Long Island,” the mayor tells Brody, who spits back: “That doesn’t mean we have to serve them up a smorgasbord.” But the mayor strides on the beach wearing a sport coat and tie, encouraging people to go into the water. They do, with predictable results.
Spielberg’s first big hit contained elements he repeated in many of his movies. A night sea hunt for the shark provides an early example of his favorite visual hallmark, a beam of light made visible by fog. He would continue to devote close attention to characters, instead of hurrying past them to the special effects, as so many 1990s f/x directors did. In “Jaws” and subsequently, he prefers mood to emotional bludgeoning, and one of the remarkable things about the picture is its relatively muted tone. The familiar musical theme by John Williams is not a shrieker, but low and insinuating. It’s often heard during point-of-view shots, at water level and below, that are another way Spielberg suggests the shark without showing it. The cinematography, by Bill Butler, is at pains to tell the story in the midst of middle-class America; if Spielberg’s favorite location would become the suburbs, “Jaws” shows suburbanites on vacation.
“Jaws” was released in 1975, quickly becoming the highest-grossing picture made up to that time, and forever wresting the summer releasing season away from B movies and exploitation pictures. The major Hollywood studios, which had avoided summer, now identified it as the prime releasing season, and “Jaws” inspired hundreds of summer thrillers and f/x pictures. For Spielberg, the movie was the launching pad for the most extraordinary directorial career in modern movie history. Before “Jaws,” he was known as the gifted young director of films such as “Duel” (1971) and “The Sugarland Express” (1974), After “Jaws,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977) and “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981), he was the king.

-    Roger Ebert, rogerebert.com