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I hope you didn’t make too many plans this week, what with the excitement of Shark Week and the release of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws coinciding. But if you were really a hardcore Jaws fan, you might have been out in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, last week for it’s annual tribute and celebration of all things Jaws. (The film was mostly shot there on the fictional “Amity Island”.)

 

Those that gathered in Jaws reverence could choose from activities such as watching the film, attending discussions on the making of the film, tributes to those involved with the film who have passed on, taking tours to key locations from the film, visiting with shark experts on hand, attending autograph sessions with cast members, and taking in a museum-quality exhibit which included personal photos from the film’s shooting and some amazingly dead-on silicon recreations of the Orca crew!

 

 

This year, JawsFest event lined up with the August 14th release of Jaws on Blu-ray and also the 100th anniversary of Universal Studios. The Blu-ray release is digitally remastered and restored ,which seemed necessary from reports of scratch and dust hindering the quality of the original film from 1975. It includes a whopping four hours of bonus features with stuff like the documentary entitled “The Shark is Still Working”.

 

Although, as the story goes, the mechanical shark didn’t actually work too well to begin with, which put young Spielberg in a bit of a conundrum. His solution was to leave the shark out of sight as much as possible and save it for important reveals only, which created a much more suspenseful and frightening experience, and perhaps ultimately lead to the film’s blockbuster supremacy.

 

Let’s be honest, it’s not the quickest trip for most to hop on over for a stay on the quaint island off of Massachusetts, and yet, year after year, the Martha’s Vineyard JawsFest is filled with the loyal. The legacy of Jaws runs deep.

 

 

- Kate Ferguson, YH Staff