Action & Adventure Films, Film Pictorials, Horror Films

Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard

Name: Jaws: Memories from Martha's Vineyard
Author: Matt Taylor
ISBN: 9781781163023

by Matt Taylor

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Overview

Benjamin Franklin Award Finalist for Interior Design (3 or More Color)

Bill Fischer Award Finalist for Best First Book (Nonfiction)

The filming of the blockbuster film Jaws is regarded as a landmark event in both the history of motion pictures and the quaint New England island of Martha’s Vineyard, where the geographic isolation necessitated the hiring of hundreds of locals to work as actors and laborers. Among this virtual army of hometown participants were numerous professional and amateur photographers, each with full access to the production’s inner workings—for the first time ever this compiles their behind-the-scenes photographs and stories into a treasure trove of Jaws rarities. Included are a foreword by director Steven Spielberg, interviews with production designer Joe Alves, screenwriter Carl Gottlieb, location casting director Shari Rhodes, and more, providing an unprecedented all-access pass to the creation of some of the most memorable and terrifying scenes in film history. This unique compendium is the first to focus on the production’s local participants, telling their stories at last.

About the Author, Matt Taylor

Matt Taylor is a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, where he studied early American history. He is a 15th-generation resident of Martha’s Vineyard. He lives in West Tisbury, Massachusetts.

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Editorials

Kirkus Reviews

Loaded with archival material, Taylor's coffee table book captures the impact a major Hollywood production can have on the area in which it was filmed, as well as the people who live there. There have been dozens of books about the making of Steven Spielberg's wildly influential 1975 film Jaws, but never before has the production been so exhaustedly chronicled from the viewpoint of the outsiders--the men and women of Martha's Vineyard whose lives were turned upside-down by the making of the movie. It's shocking that this many black-and-white photographs of the filmmaking process were even taken during the much-chronicled production, let alone that Taylor and his team were able to track them all down and, most importantly, provide context and continuity to link them into a gorgeously produced coffee table book; much more than a mere series of pretty stills, Taylor's work ambitiously offers what amounts to a nearly scene-by-scene accounting of the making of one of history's most-beloved films. The volume is so impressive that Spielberg himself penned the foreword, in which he seems truly grateful for the anecdotal history provided by Taylor. Divided into six chapters that cover events from the pre-production in the winter of 1973 to the film's release on June 20th, 1975, the book intercuts archival material, such as newspaper clippings from the era and hundreds of never-before-seen photos taken by local bystanders, with interviews from both sides of the production--the locals and the filmmakers. The result is a remarkable collection of viewpoints that chronicles how a film can impact a locale, from the men and women cast as extras to the mailman derailed by street closures. It's a wonderfully diverse array of interview subjects, not merely focusing on the people credited at the end of the film. Taylor has taken his love for a specific film and turned it into something greater--a beautiful compendium of not just memorabilia, but commentary on the importance of community in the art of filmmaking.