The common thinking is that the book is always better than its film adaptation. That’s just…not so. It’s easy to understand why we often come away thinking that, though: A book has more time to flesh out characters, doesn’t need to cut subplots for a roughly 2 hour running time, and doesn’t have the amount of compromise that you get with a film that’s made by a hundred or so people. Plus, a book is like a movie that’s playing out in your head, so that’s awesome. But there are many examples of films that improved upon their source material to create a better end product. Today we’re going to talk about Jaws (1975), the film that is probably most often mentioned in the conversation of “the movie was better.”
Author Peter Benchley’s inspiration for Jaws came from a 1916 shark attack in Jersey Shore. The shark (there are differing opinions on whether it was a great white or a bull shark) swam into a river and terrorized a small community over the 4th of July, killing four and injuring others. Taking the Jersey Shore attack and adding in a bit of Benchley’s own experiences as a reporter and his self-described fascination with sharks, the budding novelist crafted a horror novel that remained on the bestseller lists for 44 weeks. A film adaptation was ordered in short succession and handed off to Universal’s up-and-coming director Steven Spielberg, who was too young to know that his studio bosses had just given him a nearly impossible job considering the special effects of the time.
Benchley had first dibs on the screenplay but then handed it off to Carl Gottlieb, who also appears in the film as reporter Harry Meadows. Gottlieb then crafted version from the book that was much more in tune with Spielberg’s sensibilities than it was with Benchley’s. Spielberg and Benchley appreciated the work that either man had created but also weren’t shy about voicing their disagreements. For Benchley’s part, he thought Spielberg went too big. Spielberg thought Benchley’s characters were mostly assholes and supposedly once said he was rooting for the shark by the book’s end. You can see these complaints as the major points of departure between source and adaptation – and also understand why we, the audience, tend to prefer Spielberg’s version of the monster shark story.
Benchley’s book is a pulpy horror novel about bad people faced with a terrible problem, who then turn on each other when they should be working together. Chief Brody is a bit of a jerk and his wife isn’t happy with how things have turned out for them after leaving the big city behind. She’s so unhappy, in fact, that when shark expert Matt Hooper arrives in town to sort out the shark problem, she leaps into bed with him for a bit of shady hotel Do Not Disturb action.
Benchley’s mayor is less the fool and more a desperate man. Though only hinted at in the film, Amity is in dire straits and needs the summer tourism dollars to help them through the year (“Two days is like six week!” cries one off-screen voice in the movie). So, when the police want to close the beaches to keep them safe from the shark that’s prowling offshore, the people are understandably concerned, but none more so than the mayor who is in deep with the mafia. Yep, the mafia has a part to play in the book. Seems Benchley’s Amity ain’t as friendly and perfect as Spielberg’s. My opinion is that Amity being a crime ridden town dealing with a shark is less interesting than an idyllic tourist town that’s under attack by something uncontrollable as we watch the town’s futile efforts to ignore it.
Perhaps the biggest difference from source to screen is seen in the relationship between Brody and Hooper. As mentioned, Benchley’s Brody is less likable, but so is Hooper. Spielberg’s Hooper tries to talk about his wealth as little as possible (“You rich?” “Yeah.” “How much?” “Well, me or the whole family?” is about as much as we get him to admitting that he comes from money). And, though he uses his schooling to shame the local coroner and try to convince the mayor of the dangers in the waters, he doesn’t come across as an elitist know-it-all. Benchley’s Hooper might as well be twirling a mustache and wearing a monocle, as he is very much the elitist, wealthy douchebag. How much of the change from asshole to goofball with a college degree is thanks to Richard Dreyfuss is a good question, but it goes deeper than casting. In the novel, not only does Hooper sleep with Brody’s wife, but Brody and Hooper come to blows. Brody tries to strangle Hooper to death, for Christ’s sake. And in the novel, the shark kills Hooper – various versions of the script intended this as well. It busts through the shark cage and, unlike in the finished film, Hooper doesn’t escape (killing Dreyfuss would’ve been a downer, but the book’s Hooper can sleep with the fishes for all I care). As the shark’s showing off its new chew toy like a dog that knows it’s being naughty, Brody shoots at the shark with his service pistol. A shot goes wide and, to his horror, Brody shoots Hooper in the neck. It’s gritty as fuck. But is it good storytelling?
I think ‘gritty’ and ‘pulpy’ are what Benchley was going for, first and foremost. He crafts his story like he’s writing a hard boiled noir with a shark that keeps showing up to fuck with our sense of order. And I guess that’s cool, but it’s not pleasant. I’m willing to bet that a faithful adaptation of Jaws would’ve still scared us out of the water, but it would not have gone on to become the first summer blockbuster event movie.
In the movie, Spielberg ditches the affair subplot (Mrs. Brody has less to do in the film as a result, but it’s really one of the best changes he could’ve made), Brody and Hoop have a friendlier relationship. And there’s no hint of the mafia. Brody is more bumbling and defeated in the movie. Roy Scheider plays him as a man at odds with the world but never angry enough to rail against it. He takes the blame (and the slap) when a boy is eaten and goes home to drink it off and wallow in self-pity because he’s not allowed to do what he believes is necessary. Scheider’s so likable as Brody we kind of forget how sad the character is played. In the scene when Hooper and Quint are showing off their scars, Brody holds back on revealing his stomach scar (likely the result of a hernia), as it makes him appear inadequate. Yet, in the end, he is the audience’s last hope and he comes through with a triumphant “Smile you son of a bitch!” moment that makes him one of cinema’s greatest unlikely heroes.
As for Quint…Robert Shaw, more than anyone else, is responsible for making Quint the badass he’s remembered as today. His take on the character is this filthy, crude, loud, but unquestionably experienced man of action. In the book, Quint has far less to say, and is clearly a stand-in for Moby Dick’s Captain Ahab. Benchley even kills him in a similar way, having him get tangled in ropes and dragged to the depths where he is drowned. There’s some controversy of who wrote it and when, but all agree that Shaw himself is at least partially responsible for one of the film’s best moments: the speech about the sinking of the USS Indianapolis.
The story of the doomed WWII ship was nowhere to be seen in the novel and only a few lines in the original screenplay before Shaw (and, depending who you ask, Howard Sackler and John Milius) expanded it to a complete monologue that is one of the best scenes not only in the movie but in all of cinema. Without this scene, the shark mania of the book and film seems like something new, a modern terror that has no backstory. But by giving Quint a history of death following the sinking of the Indianapolis, not only does it make Quint’s intentions clearer (he wants revenge), it makes the shark into an almost mythic monster and makes man’s battles against it only seem like folly.
One thing that is an unintentional change is how the shark is depicted in the film. In the novel, the shark is put in plain sight all the time. I do believe we even get to read some scenes from the shark’s POV. Spielberg intended to do the same thing, putting the monster fish on full display. But the animatronic shark did not work and the director was forced to improvise, using suggestive camera techniques, an iconic John Williams score, and barrels towed over the surface to suggest the unseen monster beneath the surface. This adds suspense to the film – what we cannot see is often more frightening than what we can see – and it came out of necessity as a young filmmaker was forced to act on the fly in order to save his film. One can only wonder how well the film’s scares would have worked had the shark been featured as much as both the author and the director originally intended.
The death of the shark also underwent major changes from book to film. In the novel, only Brody is left, and the boat is sinking. He’s treading water as the fin closes in and he’s basically ready to die. And then the shark, harpooned and weighed down by the ropes, expires from exhaustion right before it reaches him. It’s… well, maybe it’s realistic but it’s boring. After all of that, the shark just tires out and Brody’s like, Well, that was lucky! In the film, Spielberg went to the opposite extreme and blew the damn fish’s head off with a bullet to an air canister. That may not be realistic, but it sure is satisfying. Benchley did not like the change, saying, “Steven, that is completely unbelievable.” According to Benchley, Spielberg replied, “If I have got them for two hours, they will believe whatever I do for the next few minutes because I’ve got them in my hands. And I want the audiences on their feet screaming, ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’”
That, to me, exemplifies the difference in their approaches and why we tend to prefer the film to the novel. Benchley made a thrilling but very dark and ugly novel about man’s struggles to survive each other as much as nature. Spielberg made a thrilling, adventurous, and ultimately crowd-pleasing tale of man vs. nature. Benchley seems devoted to realism –perhaps linked to his time as a reporter – and that doesn’t always serve fiction as well as an author might think. In the book, the boat and its crew return to port multiple times on their failed ventures to kill the shark. It’s night time? Let’s head home. Maybe that’s more realistic for food, fuel, and basic expectations of a fishing voyage, but it’s not good, suspenseful storytelling. Spielberg keeps them on the boat overnight and as a result the characters and the audience are not allowed the safety of returning to shore where the shark can’t threaten us.
It might seem like I’m trashing Benchley’s book in this piece but I honestly do enjoy it – it’s just that the film is infinitely better. My thinking about why so many regard Jaws as the best example of a film that’s better than its book is that general audiences can admire what Benchley did but, ultimately, we want to be entertained and Spielberg understood that better than Benchley did. The director stripped the fat from the story and made it a simpler story of nature run amok, while also ratcheting up the thrills and excitement by ignoring the desire for realism and grit. Both the film and the novel announced the beginnings of great careers for each artist. Only Spielberg managed to escape Jaws’ shadow, perhaps because he never returned to the water for a subsequent film whereas Benchley was forever seen as the ‘ocean-based thriller’ writer. Many future Benchley novels saw film or TV adaptations, with only a few of them remembered fondly today.
