Fifty Years Later, I Still Can't Get Over 'Jaws' [View all]

"Jaws” terrified me 50 years ago, the summer of its release. It was not the shark or the unlikely prospect of being eaten, but the power of film that scared me.

The kid who sat next to me at the theater, Bill Trumble, who chewed Bubblicious, refused to swim in Lake Michigan for the rest of the summer. When I explained the absurdity of this—the Great White lives in the ocean; you have nothing to worry about in fresh water—he spoke of the St. Lawrence Seaway and how an industrious leviathan could indeed make its way into the shallows off the Glencoe Beach in Illinois.

"Jaws” taught me how fear can settle like a lens behind your eyes, making everything look dangerous and strange.

It’s a narrative stripped to essentials: the cop battling the shark that has suddenly appeared near the coast of the Edenic island, the hunter and scientist who join the fight, the cowering townspeople, the inane, crowd-pleasing talk of the local politician.

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