Ba-dum. Ba-dum. Ba-dum. 

The sound’s reputation precedes itself. The theme song from Jaws has become ubiquitous in media, a universal signal that danger is lurking just below the surface. 

Those two notes, as well as the film’s fundamentally inaccurate depiction of sharks, created widespread fear of the predators during the summer of its release. Stephen Spielberg’s breakout hit, Jaws was the first summer release to be regarded as a summer blockbuster and the highest grossing film of all time until Star Wars broke the record two years later. For the film’s 50th anniversary this year, film fans and scholars are looking back at Jaws, its famous theme song and its lasting impact on pop culture. 

Temple Now spoke with Michael Klein, professor of music theory at Boyer College of Music and Dance, about the score of Jaws and Dustin Kidd, professor of sociology at the College of Liberal Arts, about the lasting legacy of the film itself. 


 

Temple Now: What is unique about Jaws that made it the first big summer blockbuster?

 Dustin Kidd: I think one thing that’s really critical is that Steven Spielberg bought the rights to a deeply popular novel based on true stories, and the novel had already captured people’s imaginations. The novel had already kind of reigned in this audience, and then it was handed over to Spielberg. The film put those fears about sharks onto screens, made them feel very real, and gave them an edge. It was an amplification of human fears about sharks. 

There had been films that had been the biggest film of the summer prior to Jaws in 1975 but summer still always saw a dip in movie attendance. Jaws really turned that around and got viewers to buy movie tickets. And since then blockbusters have become an important part of our culture. Ever since the invention of the novel we’ve been able to consume stories privately by ourselves. But as humans, we love to consume stories together, and blockbusters are an opportunity to consume a story together, not just with the people you go to the movies with—although that is an important shared experience—but also around the water cooler at work the following week or in class if you’re a student. There’s this sense of a blockbuster being part of the monoculture, the culture that we all consume, and that brings us a sense of social solidarity. That's really important. 
 

TN: 50 years after its release, why is Jaws still so beloved by the public?

 DK: For one thing, it was the first major introduction to Steven Spielberg, and everyone got to see the amazing storytelling capacities of this young director. Steven Spielberg has very consistently managed to capture our attention across his films and Jaws was the first one to really accomplish that. Jaws introduced us to his ability to combine great casting, great writing, great scoring, great storytelling, and so forth. 

It’s just a compelling movie from start to finish, even if it is based on unreasonable, unwarranted claims about sharks. Really, it’s a story about humans and how humans respond to their fears and manage things collectively, and the ways in which a town becomes divided over how to handle a threat. It’s a powerful story. 

Also, in many ways, it is a story about masculinity, even if it’s not aware of itself as a story about masculinity. That doesn’t mean that a woman might not handle the situation in similar ways, but it doesn’t even explore that question whatsoever. It only explores the ways that different types of men might address that kind of a crisis. It is an exploration of masculinity, and is a recognition that there are different types of masculine reactions to fear and panic. 

It’s also important to note there are so many lines in that movie that essentially have become memes, and they were memes before there were memes, since Jaws predates what we know as memes. “You’re gonna need a bigger boat,” is the original meme, if you will. 
 

TN: What is the legacy of Jaws in relation to the public perception of sharks?

 DK: Both the original novel by Peter Benchley and the film by Stephen Spielberg promote the idea that sharks are a massive threat to humans. The media is fascinated by this fear, which means that shark attacks are overly represented in the news. Scientifically, we know that shark attacks are rare and when they occur, they are rarely fatal. A great way to learn more about this is to watch the new Netflix documentary The Shark Whisperer, which tells the story of Ocean Ramsey. Ramsey frequently swims with sharks and posts the videos to social media as a way to promote greater respect for and awareness of sharks. Benchley had a lot of regret about how his novel generated fear of sharks, which led to a lifetime of work as a shark conservationist. 


 

Temple Now: Can you explain some of the elements of the composition of the Jaws theme song?

 Michael Klein: It’s based around two notes, E and F. They’re as close together as notes can get. And it shows us that the shark is just this single-minded creature. Richard Dreyfuss’ character says, “All this creature does is swim and eat,” and that’s represented in the two notes of the theme song. Composer John Williams can do all sorts of different things with just those two notes going back and forth. 

What’s cool is that the speed changes to suit the action. Sometimes it’s very slow and soft, which means the shark is in the distance. But later, when they’re out on the ocean, trying to kill this creature, then it gets intense, and you’ve got the whole orchestra playing, whereas at the beginning it’s just, I think, basses and a tuba. At other times the strings are going but they’re doing a tremolo, which creates a kind of watery sound. 

There are two pieces of music that we think John Williams used as inspiration for these two notes. One is Symphony No. 9 by Dvořák, which is also called From the New World. The piece is about America, and it starts with that ba-dum, ba-dum, ba-dum we hear in the Jaws theme song. The other is Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7. He takes inspiration from the French horns in that piece. Most movie music has its roots in 19th-century classical music.  
It is probably the simplest movie music that has ever been written. And yet it’s the most iconic film music ever. Everybody knows the Jaws theme. It’s become a part of culture. It’s a universal signifier of danger looming.  

There are 138 movies that use the Jaws theme, usually ironically, as a parody, such as Finding Nemo when the shark character Bruce comes along. 
 

TN: Who was John Williams, the composer of the score?

 MK: John Williams is America’s most celebrated film composer. He started as both a classical pianist and a jazz pianist. The jazz gave him this ability to improvise, and I think he's very facile at improvising things on the piano and then coming up with music. 

He started composing for films in 1957. By the 60s, he was writing music for fairly famous movies—he won an Academy Award for adapting the music for Fiddler on the Roof. Jaws was his second Academy Award, and then two years later he goes on to do the score for Star Wars and wins another. And then he did some of the Spielberg classics: Indiana Jones, E.T., Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan. He’s Spielberg’s favorite composer, so as Spielberg became more serious, he became more serious, too. 
 

TN: What is the typical process for a composer working on a movie score like Jaws?

 MK: The last thing that is added to a movie is the music. All the editing is done, all the visuals are all set. When Jaws was done, the process was pretty standard and it went something like this: The director tells the composer the premise of the movie and the composer starts working. The composer has about two months to write the music. In the 70s, they wrote it all by hand.

Then the composer will show it to the director, who will give notes—the director always has the last word on the score. And then the composer will create the actual score with a line of music for every instrument. Then the whole orchestra gets in a room to record. The composer has the movie in front of them on a screen and the musicians all have earphones on with a click track, which sets the tempo for them and helps them understand cues. 

These days, a composer can do a lot of this electronically. They have software with samples of sounds so they don’t even necessarily need an orchestra.