The worst experience of Steven Spielberg’s career: “I’ll never do it again”
Steven Spielberg is one of the truly great filmmakers of the 21st century, with a prolific body of work that has touched global audiences through their deeply humanitarian core and heartfelt characters. He is a master of filmmaking who is all too aware of the tricks of the trade, with a knack for understanding the emotional undercurrent of cinematography and creating impactful stories that remain timeless.
However, while we collectively regard him as one of the greats, he was not always the wunderkind of Hollywood and started his career with a fateful production that he never wanted to repeat the likes of again.
Jaws was commonly nicknamed ‘Flaws’ during its production, with countless issues that made it infamous for being a severely dysfunctional and chaotic set. Audiences now return to the film every summer when in need of a good scare, with a menacing score from John Williams and a slow-building approach to horror that is still terrifying today, and while it was immediately successful at the box office and became one of the highest grossing films of the time, it wasn’t always predicted to be such a success.
It remains as a miracle that the film was even completed, with Spielberg speaking about the enormous challenge of shooting at sea, with the production being plagued by choppy waters, disagreements between the cast members, a severely delayed production schedule that caused a huge increase in costs and an animatronic shark that kept breaking. All of this led a young Spielberg to be living on the edge of a constant breakdown, with so many external stressors and complications that made his job nearly impossible.
Instead of shooting in a water tank on a Hollywood backlot, Spielberg insisted on shooting at sea, which meant it was one of the first productions to attempt this feat. While it is now a glittering achievement within his career and something that set him apart from other filmmakers, it began to plague Spielberg and the camera team, causing great issues in setting up the equipment and working against the tide, with the team sometimes only getting two shots in one day.
It was ultimately a test of Spielberg’s resilience, and even though the studio threatened to shut down the production, he kept going. Naturally, he doesn’t have the fondest memories of the shoot, later describing the strained production by saying, “Whenever I talked about the possibility of me being fired or the show being shut down, most of the crew was happy about it — this wasn’t a labor of love for anybody. This was a physically impossible chore and people wanted to go home… ’Jaws’ was the worst filmmaking experience of my life”. I had terrible, despairing days where I could see nobody hiring me again, and I could imagine Jaws being my last studio movie. … Basically, I didn’t have much hope for any longevity for my career, but I wanted to finish Jaws because I had never stopped believing in the movie.”
Despite the chaos of the production, Spielberg’s perseverance on the project is a testament to his innovation, and without the struggle of Jaws, perhaps the director wouldn’t have built up the strength and creative power that he possesses today.
