The landing of a young Steven Spielberg in Martha’s Vineyard to roll ‘shark’ changed that American island forever and with it, the international box office. The film, released on June 20, 1975, just half a century ago, also instigated a collective fear to bathe in the sea.
The filmmaker was 27 years old and his career treasured barely short, some television tape, such as ‘duel’ (‘The devil on wheels’) and ‘The Sugarland Express’ (‘Loca Evasion’), his prima opera for the big screen.
To the renamed as Amyly Island arrived in the low season, without anticipating that the filming was going to lengthen and that the setbacks would be compensated by the good reception of the public.
Fifty years later, the place is a time capsule: their shops remember the film that placed them on the map, their movie theater continues to program it and some of its participants still live there.
Tom Scott, one of them, then went to the institute. His mother worked by doing beds at the hotel where part of the team was installed and together with his brother he got a role: he as one of the children running from the water and the brother as one of those attending the parade of July 4.
“My mother told me to wear a shirt because the water was cold. We were all white, I did not want to expose me.
Scott never saw the white shark that frightened the local population or almost Spielberg on the tape. “We never really sat down with Him. He didn’t have time for extras, it was not he who told us what to do, but his people,” he adds on a scene that made him missing class from Wednesday to Friday.
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‘Shark’, half a century of collective trauma and tourist magnet for the island where it was filmed
In Martha’s Vineyard, which has six small municipalities, about 20,000 people live, which in summer reach almost 200,000. The premiere of ‘Shark’ made it a tourist Mecca, points to Efe John V. Tiernan, manager of the Dockside Inn hotel, near the dock reached by the ferris in Oak Bluffs.
“‘Shark’ brought a lot of money to the island and continues to do it. Martha’s Vineyard was never from rich people, but currently the price of a house starts from 1.2 million dollars,” he says proud that the place has known how to preserve her bubble, without large chains such as McDonald’s and with families, such as his, who reside there for generations.
To his posterior fame he has contributed that he is chosen as a summer site of leaders such as Democrats Bill Clinton (1993-2001) or Barack Obama (2009-2017), or black points of the social chronicle, such as the plane accident that killed John F. Kennedy Jr., his wife, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, already in July, 1999. Her mother, former first lady Jackie Kennedy, bought a house there in 1979.
The anniversary causes the eyes to aim at that territory of the East American, near Boston. His local museum commemorates him with an exhibition on the secrets of filming, the legacy of the film both in the collective imaginary and in the Hollywood industry and a weekend of party, this next, which promises to give new impulse to the phenomenon.
“Only a few films continue to captivate after fifty years.
Spielberg did not want a great name as the protagonist because the star should be the shark, the same one that caused him nightmares because his mechanical replica (baptized ‘Bruce’ in honor of his lawyer, Bruce Ramer) oxidized again and again.
The film is considered the first blockbuster in history. He raised 470 million dollars and obtained three Oscar, for the best assembly, the best original soundtrack (John Williams) and better sound. He was also nominated for best film, but he stayed with this statuette ‘Someone flew over the cuckoo nest’ (‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’).
Scott saw her a week after her premiere. “It seemed incredible to me,” he says of an experience that says he will remember all his life, but that he did not change: “I was with all my friends, they did not pay me, we simply had a good time.”
With EFE information.
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