Iconic filmmaker Steven Spielberg has said that he thought the Jaws theme was a joke when he first heard it. The now legendary orchestral composition by John Williams played a major role in the ultimate success of Spielberg’s 1975 masterpiece about a killer great white shark that terrorizes a quiet Long Island beach community. The theme’s simplicity seemed at odds with the enormity of the film, but ended up providing a huge and enduring presence.
Having recently turned 90, Williams has enjoyed a career that has spanned decades, creating some of the most instantly recognisable film themes in cinematic history. He is literally a living legend, and though Spielberg first worked with Williams on his 1974 film, Sugarland Express, it was while making Jaws a year later that the two arguably found their connection as creative collaborators. Time and time again, the arrival of Jaws has been pointed to as a landmark moment in American cinema. The film gave rise to the summer blockbuster, paving the way for larger than life films that offered audiences a theme park-esque experience for the senses. While there’s no doubt that Jaws provided audiences with never-before-seen practical effects, there’s also no argument that without Williams’ score, the lingering fear and dread those effects offered just wouldn’t have had the same impact.
However, upon hearing Williams’ Jaws score for the first time, Spielberg wasn’t initially sold. In fact, as THR reports, the five-time Oscar-winning director originally just thought that Williams was playing a joke on him. The deceptively simple opening chords weren’t quite what Spielberg had in mind for the film, but as time went on and he realized that Williams wasn’t joking around, the theme’s suitability became apparent.
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