The Birth of "Jaws"

Brian Raftery, 50 Years Ago, ‘Jaws’ Hit Bookstores, Capturing the Angst of a Generation, NYTimes, July 12, 2024. The article opens:

In 1973, the first chapter of an unpublished novel was photocopied and passed around the Manhattan offices of Doubleday & Co. with a note. “Read this,” it dared, “without reading the rest of the book.”

Those who accepted the challenge were treated to a swift-moving tale of terror, one that begins with a young woman taking a postcoital dip in the waters off Long Island. As her lover dozes on the beach, she’s ravaged by a great white shark.

“The great conical head struck her like a locomotive, knocking her up out of the water,” the passage read. “The jaws snapped shut around her torso, crushing bones and flesh and organs into a jelly.”

Tom Congdon, an editor at Doubleday, had circulated the bloody, soapy excerpt to drum up excitement for his latest project: a thriller about a massive fish stalking a small island town, written by a young author named Peter Benchley.

Congdon’s gambit worked. No one who read the opening could put the novel down. All it needed was a grabby title. Benchley had spent months kicking around potential names (“Dark White”? “The Edge of Gloom”?). Finally, just hours before deadline, he found it.

“Jaws,” he wrote on the manuscript’s cover page.

When it was released in early 1974, Benchley’s novel kicked off a feeding frenzy in the publishing industry — and in Hollywood. “Jaws” spent months on the best-seller lists, turned Benchley from an unknown to a literary celebrity and, of course, became the basis for Steven Spielberg’s blockbusting 1975 film adaptation.

While most readers were drawn to the book’s shark-centric story line, “Jaws” rode multiple mid-1970s cultural waves: It was also a novel about a frayed marriage, a financially iffy town and a corrupt local government — released at a time of skyrocketing divorce rates, mass unemployment and a presidential scandal.

At a time of change and uncertainty, “Jaws” functioned as an allegory for whatever scared or angered the reader.

That is, it functioned as a vehicle for giving form to free-floating anxiety.

As you may know, I've written a bit about Spielberg's movie version of the story, some time with assistance from ChatGPT. As this paragraph from the article indicates, the movie cut some important elements from the story:

Amity itself is on the brink of ruin, having barely survived the early ’70s recession. Also in decline: Brody’s marriage to his class-conscious wife, Ellen, who has a sexually charged encounter with Hooper at a surf-and-turf spot. Then there’s the town’s mayor, Larry Vaughn, who’s so deeply indebted to the mob, he’ll do whatever it takes to keep the beaches open — even if it means people die.

There's much more at the link.

Intelligence, A.I. and analogy: Jaws & Girard, kumquats & MiGs, double-entry bookkeeping & supply and demand

Think of this post as an adjunct to my series on A.I., chess, and language, which is about the structure of computation in relation to difficult problems.

NOTE: It runs long, so sit back, relax, pour a Diet Coke, some San Pellegrino, a scotch, light up a spliff (assuming it’s legal where you live) — whatever you do to make online reading tolerable — and settle in for the duration. Or you could just print it out.

I’m interested in the general question of what it would mean to say that an A.I. is more intelligent than the most intelligent human, something like that. That’s an issue that’s being debated extensively these days. For the most part I don’t think the issue is very well formulated.

To be honest, I don’t find it to be a very compelling issue. It doesn’t nag at me. If others weren’t discussing it, I wouldn’t bother.

The notion of intelligence itself remains vague despite all the discussion that it has occasioned. I rather expect that as A.I. becomes more developed, we’ll develop a more sophisticated understanding the issue. The general notion seems like it can be captured in a simple analogy:

Intelligence is to a mind’s capacity for dealing with cognitive tasks, such as finding a cure for cancer

AS

Horsepower is to an engine’s ability deal with mechanical tasks, such as the acceleration of an automobile.

But I don’t want to take up the general issue in this post. Rather, I want to look at analogical reasoning. I start with 1) a specific kind of analogical reasoning, interpreting narratives, 2) use some remarks Geoffrey Hinton made about analogy to introduce some more general remarks, 3) move on to another specific example, an analogy between double-entry bookkeeping and supply and demand, and then 4) conclude by wrapping things up with a quick comparison to computing chess, which can be implemented in a well-defined search space, while searching for and explicating analogies cannot.

Interpreting Texts: Girard and Jaws

A lot of literary interpretation proceeds by constructing analogies between events that happen in texts and patterns of behavior specified in some theory about human behavior. Psychoanalysis has theories about how individuals behave in their personal lives; Marxism has theories about how social class and roles in the economy affect individual action. René Girard has a theory about imitation and sacrifice. That’s what I want to look at.

Early in 2022 I did a Girardian interpretation of Spielberg’s Jaws. At the end of that year I had ChatGPT do the same. Of course ChatGPT can’t watch movies, but Jaws is well-known there’s lots of stuff about it on the web, including scripts, though I don’t know whether or not any of the available scripts give the dialog word-for-word as it is in the film (the scripts I downloaded, for free, did not). Now, I didn’t just ask ChatGPT to use Girard’s ideas to interpret the film. First I prompted it about the film itself, and specifically about Quint. Once I’d established that it had a reasonable grasp of the film I then brought up Girard, generally at first, then specifically about mimetic desire. Then I asked it: “How does mimetic desire work in Jaws?” It gave a reasonable answer: 

Mimetic desire is a concept developed by the French philosopher and literary theorist Rene Girard. It refers to the idea that human desire is often based on the desire of others, and it can be seen at work in the film Jaws in a number of ways.

One example of mimetic desire in the film is the way that the townspeople of Amity Island desire the safety and security that the town’s police chief, Martin Brody, is able to provide. When the town is terrorized by a great white shark, the townspeople look to Brody to protect them and to find a way to stop the shark. This desire for protection and security is mimetic, as the townspeople are basing their desire on Brody’s ability to provide it.

Another example of mimetic desire in the film is the way that the shark itself is driven by its own insatiable hunger and desire. The shark is driven to attack and kill the townspeople because it desires their flesh and blood, and it is unable to control its own desire. This mimetic desire ultimately leads to the shark’s own destruction, as it is killed by the town’s police chief in a final confrontation.

Overall, Girard’s concept of mimetic desire can be seen as a useful way of understanding the dynamics at play in the film Jaws, and the ways in which desire can be both destructive and transformative.

The second paragraph is reasonable, but the third is problematic. Hunger is not mimetic on the face of it. But I was happy that it ChatGPT seemed to at least have some idea of that nature of the reasoning required, where to look and what to look for in the film. I decided not to pursue that and turned my attention to sacrifice, first Girard, then the application to Jaws.

The form of the required reasoning is analogical. In effect, is there an analogy between Girard’s general statements about mimetic desire and sacrifice and the specific events in Jaws? I would argue that setting up the question is more difficult than working out an answer to it. I note that it’s not the kind of question that has only one answer; thus the argument I actually made in my paper is more sophisticated than the one ChatGPT came up with through my prompting. What is it that brought me to pose the question in the first place?

I watch a fair amount of streaming video, but I don’t write about most of the titles nor do routinely a watch a particular title with the intention of writing about it. That decision is made later. I had no intention of writing about Jaws when I decided to watch it. I was simply filling a hole in my knowledge of movies – I’d never seen the film, which I knew to be an important one. Once I’d watched the film, I read the Wikipedia article about it, something I routinely do, mostly to ‘calibrate’ my viewing experience. The article noted that the sequels were not as good as the original. I decided to see for myself. I was unable to finish watching that last two sequels (of four), but I watched Jaws 2 at least twice, and the original three or more times. It was obvious that the original was better than the others. I did the multiple viewings in part to figure why the original was better. I was on the prowl, though I hadn’t yet decided to write anything.

I decided there were two reasons the original was best: 1) it was well-organized and tight while the sequel sprawled, and 2) Quint, there was no character in the sequel comparable to Quint. I have no all but decided that I would write about Jaws.

I posed a specific question: Why did Quint die? Oh, I know what happened in the film; that’s not what I was asking. The question was an aesthetic one. As long as the shark was killed the town would be saved. That necessity did not entail the Quint’s death, nor anyone else’s. If Quint hadn’t died, how would the ending have felt? What if it had been Brody or Hooper?

It was while thinking about such questions that it hit me: sacrifice! Girard! How is it that Girard’s ideas came to me? I wasn’t looking for them, not in any direct sense. I was just asking counter-factual questions about the film.

With Girard on my mind I smelled blood. I had a focal point for an article. I started reading articles from various sources, making notes, and corresponding with my friend, David Porush, who knows Girard’s thinking much better than I do. Can I make a nice tight article? That’s what I was trying to figure out. It was only after I’d made some preliminary posts, drafted some text, and run it by David, that I decided to write an article. It turned out well enough that I decided to publish it.

Now, when we’re thinking about whether or not A.I.s will come to exceed our intelligence, are we imagining them going through such a process? For this kind of search and exploration is central to human thinking. I certainly do this sort of exploration when thinking about other things, such as the structure of human cognition, the nature of cultural evolution, the functioning of the nervous system, and so forth. This blog is a 14-year record of my explorations, during which I’ll gather some of them together in a more formal way and write a working paper which I’ll then post at Academia.edu, SSRN and ResearchGate. Every once in a while I’ll write an article which I’ll submit for publication in the formal academic literature – a few of those have gotten published. And then there are the monthly pieces I publish in 3 Quarks Daily, which is quite different from the formal academic literature. And of course I’ve got pages and pages of unpublished notes that support all this activity.

Is this kind of exploratory work part of the routine of the superintelligent A.I., or does it go straight for the good stuff, cranking out fully-realized work without need of exploratory effort? If so, how does it know where to dig for the good stuff? Is that what superintelligence is, knowing where the good stuff is without having to nose around? No one says anything about this. Perhaps they’re thinking about the Star Trek computer. But it knows where to look because Spock points it in the right direction.

This brings us back to Jaws. There is a world of difference between what I did in writing about Jaws and what ChatGPT did. I did the hard part, figuring out that there was a specific intellectual objective there, Jaws and Girard. Once I’d done that there was still work to do, quite a bit of work, but it was of a different kind. I was no longer prospecting for intellectual gold. I was now constructing a system for mining the ore and then refining it into gold. ChatGPT only had to do the last part, dumping the ore into the hopper and cranking out the refined metal. I told it where to look, Jaws, what to look for, Girard’s ideas, and gave it some help turning the crank.

A year later, in January of 2023, I decided to see how ChatGPT would do without all of my prompting. I gave it this prompt:

Stephen Spielberg is an important film-maker. Jaws is one of his most important films because it is generally considered to be the first blockbuster. Rene Girard remains an important thinker. Can you use Girard’s ideas mimetic desire and sacrifice to analyze Jaws?

It didn’t do so well. It needed my prompting to get it through the exercise.

Now, no one is claiming that ChatGPT is superhuman in any respect but its ability to discourse on anything. But GPT-5, who knows, maybe it’ll be superhuman in some interesting way. If not GPT-6, or GPT-7, or maybe we’ll need a more sophisticated architecture, but surely at some point an A.I. will surpass us in the way that we surpass mice. Perhaps so.

But I have no sense that these breezy predictions are supported by thinking about how human intelligence actually goes about solving problems. I does no good to say, but it’s an A.I.; it works differently. Well, maybe yes, maybe no, but there has to be some kind of process. At the moment the human process is the only example we have. Perhaps we should think about it.

Just how is it that Girard popped into my mind in the first place? How do we teach a computer to look around for nothing in particular and come up with something interesting?

Analogy: Kumquats and MiGs

As I remarked above, the process of interpreting Jaws is an analogical one. So let’s think about analogy more generally. I’m thinking in particular of some remarks Geoffrey Hinton made at a panel discussion in October of 2023. You can find the video here. I’ve transcribed some remarks:

1:18:28 – GEOFFREY HINTON: We know that being able to see analogies, especially remote analogies, is a very important aspect of intelligence. So I asked GPT-4, what has a compost heap got in common with an atom bomb? And GPT-4 nailed it, most people just say nothing.

DEMIS HASSABIS: What did it say ...

GEOFFREY HINTON: It started off by saying they're very different energy scales, so on the face of it, they look to be very different. But then it got into chain reactions and how the rate at which they're generating energy increases– their energy increases the rate at which they generate energy. So it got the idea of a chain reaction. And the thing is, it knows about 10,000 times as much as a person, so it's going to be able to see all sorts of analogies that we can't see.

DEMIS HASSABIS: Yeah. So my feeling is on this, and starting with things like AlphaGo and obviously today's systems like Bard and GPT, they're clearly creative in ... New pieces of music, new pieces of poetry, and spotting analogies between things you couldn't spot as a human. And I think these systems can definitely do that. But then there's the third level which I call like invention or out-of-the-box thinking, and that would be the equivalent of AlphaGo inventing Go.

OK. Let’s start from there. Given that GPT-4 “knows about 10,000 times as much as a person,” what procedure will it use “to see all sorts of analogies that we can't see”? I’m thinking of that procedure as roughly analogous to the exploratory process I undertake whenever I decided to watch some video. Every once in a while I decide to write about one of the titles. Most of the time, time, though, what I write isn’t as elaborate as my article about Jaws and Girard – I’ve collected many of those pieces under the rubric of Media Notes, though most of those pieces do not focus on analogical reasoning.

What’s the procedure by which an GPT-4 would search through all those things it knows and come up with the interesting analogies? There isn’t one and I suppose it’s a bit churlish of me to suggest that Hinton should specify one. But really, if there he has no procedure to suggest, then what’s he talking about? We know how chess programs search the chess tree. How do we search through concept space for analogies? Alas, while the chess tree is a well-defined formal object, the same cannot be said of concept space, which is little more than a phrase in search of and explication. And how do we evaluate possible analogy-pairs?

Perhaps the simplest procedure is simply to ask. That’s something I recently tried. Here’s the prompt I gave to ChatGPT:

Game Theory, Jaws, and Girard, with an assist from Lévi-Strauss: A quick sketch

While thinking about the next installment in my series on great literary critics (which has become another inquiry into the nature of literary criticism), I found myself thinking about that essay in which I offered a Girardian interpretation of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws. I smelled an opportunity: Why not add Lévi-Strauss and game theory into the mix?

Lévi-Strauss is obvious since I’d already discussed him in the series, but game theory? How’d I get there? I don’t really know, it just happened.

But I had taken a look at some of Girard’s remarks about Much Ado About Nothing in his Shakespeare book, A Theater of Envy, where he talks of Beatrice and Benedick as playing a game with one another (p. 81):

Outside observers shrug their shoulders and declare the entire game frivolous. It certainly is, but our condescension itself may well be part of a strategic positioning that is always going on, “just in case” the game might have to be played. The game, perhaps, has already begun. We always try to convince others that we ourselves never play this kind of game, but these disclaimers are necessarily ambiguous; they resemble too much the moves that we could have to make if we were already playing the game.

Girard does not invoke game theory, and games of course are common enough. We talk about them all the time. Back in 1964 Eric Bern had a bestseller with Games People Play: The Psychology of Human Relationships, though it's not a game theory book, not in the sense I have in mind in this essay. But Girard was also concerned about who knows what, with what things are public knowledge, and what things are secret, with how public knowledge confirms individual beliefs, those are all matters of importance in game theory. Moreover and after all, game theory is an abstraction over games in the common-sense use of the term and in a way very similar to the way Turing’s account of computation is an abstraction over an activity otherwise performed by people using pencils and paper.

But just how and why I came to think of game theory is not all that important; what’s important is that I thought of it. Once there I thought of the work of Michael Chwe, a brilliant political scientist who published a very interesting book I’d read some years ago, Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common Knowledge (2001) and has more recently published Jane Austen, Game Theorist (2013), which I’ve not read. But I have skimmed through his article, Rational Choice and the Humanities Excerpts and Folktales (2009); Chwe uses the relationship between Beatrice and Benedick as one of this examples. Moreover, if you search on “game theory and literature,” you get hits. The conjunction of game theory and literature is thus not so strange, not so unexplored, as one might think. If literature, why not film?

Since I’ve already done a Girardian analysis of Spielberg’s Jaws, why not revisit the film with game theory in mind? That’s what the rest of this post is about. I don’t actually conduct a game theoretical account. Game theory is a technical discipline, but this is not technical. It is, however, informed by game theory, but it is not technical. It is a long though, so take your time.

Caveat: If you’re looking for Girard and Lévi-Strauss, they’re here. But the essay is mostly about games. You can find more Girard in my original essay on Jaws, linked above.

The larger game, Nature and Culture

We can think of the larger game, the one that frames the whole story, as being between Nature and Culture, to use terms favored by Claude Lévi-Strauss. The shark is Nature’s primary agent in this larger game and the town of Amity is Culture’s primary agent. That, I know, is a bit of a strange way of putting things. Setting aside the fact that Amity is a town of some thousands of people (with many more to arrive during the summer tourist season), why not think of it as a game between Amity and The Shark?

I fear I could, and probably should, go on about that at some length. But this is not the place. If we were talk about a Real-Life situation, that’s what I would do. But we’re not, we’re talking about a fiction. I assume that people watching movies do so with the same neurobehavioral equipment they use to negotiate their way in Real-Life, but fictions have affordances that Real-Life lacks. For one thing, fictions are always complete, in some sense, and one’s life continues beyond and outside of one’s vicarious experiences (to borrow a term from William Flesch, Comeuppance) of the fiction. Real-Life is not like that. When you’re dead, that’s the end.

Beyond that, one (generally, often) has a knowledge of the events in the fictional world denied to characters within that world. Take the beginning of Jaws. A young woman goes skinny dipping in the ocean at night. Her body is found next day, washed up on the beach. No one in Amity knows what happened to her. Sheriff Brody sets out to find out. The audience, however, does know what happened. She was killed by a shark. It’s not that we saw the shark; we didn’t. But, we see her struggle and we know it had to be a shark. How do we know that? Because THAT’s what the film is about. It's called Jaws and the posters featured an image of a shark with its mouth open, displaying all those sharp teeth.

THAT changes the valence of everything we see and our experience of it. It gives those events an emblematic resonance that similar events are not likely to have in reality, unless, of course, we so interpret them. I’m using the terms Nature and Culture to capture that resonance. The shark is Nature’s agent and Amity is Culture’s agent. 

* * * * *

“Wait a minute, hold on there. You can’t do that. In what sense is Nature playing a game against Culture?”

“Good question. In the first place we would certainly treat the shark as a game player, with preferences and so forth.”

“But that’s not what you’re talking about, no?”

“Right. Stay with me here. The people of Amity, that is, Team Culture, doesn’t know what’s going on. It makes perfect sense to think of Amity as playing against an unknown opponent, trying to guess its moves, influence its behavior, and make moves of its own. That's what people do.”

“OK. I can see that. And that’s how an audience would see it.”

“Right. Then we might try modeling Team Nature, that is, the shark, with a view to provoking Team Culture into sending out some people to hunt the shark in its own territory.”

“Hmmm. I have to think about that. You’re saying that unknown and unseen force wants to lure people on...”

“Yes. That gives a teleological cast to the affair.”

“And of course there IS teleology involved. The film-maker, Steven Spielberger is up to something, yes?”

“Yes.”

Together: “Curiouser and curiouser.”

The Amity game, Team Safety vs. Team Livelihood

But the town of Amity does not act as a unitary entity. It acts through the actions of individuals. And those individuals are not in agreement about how to respond to the dead body. We can thing of the town as divided into two teams, each headed by an official. Team Safety is headed by Sheriff Brody, an official hired by the city. He wants to close the beach until whateveritis has been dealt with. Team Livelihood is headed by the mayor, an elected official who is also Brody’s boss. The mayor wants to keep the beaches open. Why? Amity is a tourist town and, as such, much of its income derives from the summer tourist trade. Closing the beach even for a couple of days could damage the tourist trade badly.

That’s the first choice that has to be made, with Team Safety and Team Livelihood opposed to one another. Team Safety’s thinking is dominated by the short-term risk of people being killed. Team Livelihood’s thinking is dominated by mid-term and long-term risk of economic disaster, which could lead to bankruptcies, job loss, depopulation, and perhaps even some people dying (e.g. suicide, can’t afford medical care). The decision is made difficult by the fact that the town doesn’t know what’s going on and so the teams have no way of reliably estimating the effects of their actions. Culture, if you will, doesn’t know what Nature is up to.

At this point we might think about drawing up the payoff matrix that is a standard feature of game theoretic analysis. What actions are available and what value do the players put on those actions? But I’m going to leave that as an exercise for the reader who is more skilled in these matters than I am. Once that happens, we can then revise the matrix as Team Safety learns more about what Nature is up to (by bringing in a shark expert) and as Team Livelihood has to deal with the consequences of Nature’s next action: the shark kills a young boy without, however, revealing itself.

The mayor calls a town meeting. Of course Sheriff Brody is there. The discussion reveals that the townspeople are divided between Team Safety and Team Livelihood. The mother of the slain boy puts up a $3000 bounty on the shark; adjusted for inflation, that’s roughly $17K in current dollars. Sitting in the back of the room, shark-hunter Quint gains the room’s attention by scratching his fingernails on a blackboard. He’s says that it’s foolish to send a bunch of amateurs after such a deadly shark, but he’ll hunt it down for $10,000. That’s roughly $57,000 in current dollars. That’s the salary, including benefits, of a mid-level municipal employee. A small town like Amity is not likely to have that amount floating around in some contingency fund where it can be casually accessed. The beach is closed and the hunt begins. Score one for Team Livelihood.

The town’s streets are jammed with would-be shark hunters attempting to get to the harbor to hunt down the shark. Yes, they want the money, but they also want the glory of winning the tournament. That’s is where Girardian thinking comes into play. Though I’ve not been able to track it down, I remember hearing a deputy say that he couldn’t tell the locals from the foreigners, a clear sign of mimetic confusion.

Now we have the mimetic payoff. Some fisherman kill a shark. They’re posing on the dock for a photograph with the shark. The photo will go national. The mayor insists that he be in the photo. They open the beaches once again. Team Livelihood scores again.

Team Safety is not convinced. Brody’s expert, Matt Hooper, has examined the shark and said it’s not large enough to have been the one that killed the girl and the boy. They need to autopsy the shark to be sure. The mayor (Team Livelihood) is not convinced. No autopsy. Brody and Hooper sneak out at night and Hooper does the autopsy; no remains of the boy. It’s not the shark.

Hooper and Brody board Hooper’s boat later that night and look for the shark. They don’t find it, but they do discover a sunken fishing boat and the dead body of a local fisherman, Ben Gardner, who’d gone after the shark earlier that day. Hooper pulls a shark’s tooth stuck in the boat’s hull, but looses it. The next day they are unable to convince the mayor that Gardner had been killed by the shark. Team Safety and Team Livelihood are now operating on the basis of very different information.

Team Livelihood’s concern about economic viability may well be influencing how they interpret the evidence. Spielberg certainly believes us to believe so. But that’s distinct from the fact the we in the audience are certain that a shark is involved, though we’ve not yet seen it. While the fictional game between Safety and Livelihood is being played out within the film, the game between Nature and Culture exists only in the minds of the audience. And there, maybe it's not so much Nature vs. Culture as Things We Can’t Control vs. Things We Can. That seems to be a semantic issue.

Fourth of July comes, the beaches are jammed with tourists. The shark kills again. Score one for Safety. Brody is angry; the mayor is chagrinned. The mayor agrees to hire Quint for that $10K that’s going to put a dent in his budget.

Sacred resonance

At this point Safety and Livelihood are in agreement on how to proceed. We are now roughly 3/5s of the way through the film. The rest of the film takes place at sea and involves four characters, Quint, Brody, Hooper, and the shark. Quint and the shark end up dead; Brody and Hooper make it back to shore. But, and this is an important point, we don’t see them re-enter the town. We see them swimming for shore while hanging on to a piece of Quint’s now-destroyed boat. Then, as the end-credits role, we seem then walking from the ocean onto a deserted beach.

This, after all, is a standard (mythic) story. The town is threatened by a monster. A hero kills the monster and then returns to town, triumphant. There’s a big celebration. Everyone’s happy. For all we know that may have happened in Amity. But Spielberg doesn’t show that; it’s not part of the story he’s telling. That story’s up to fans – and there IS fanfic for Jaws, though I’ve not looked into it.

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws: A Working Paper

New working paper. Title above, links, abstract, table of contents, and introduction below.

Academia.edu: https://www.academia.edu/106614251/Steven_Spielbergs_Jaws_A_Working_Paper
SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4572033
Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/373921548_Steven_Spielberg's_Jaws_A_Working_Paper

Abstract: Jaws takes place in two parts. The first part is set in the resort town of Amity. The townspeople must deal with the fact that a shark is killing people along the beach. The second part takes place at sea where three men set out to kill the shark. In the first part we see townspeople and outsiders fall over one another in mimetic confusion (to invoke the thought of Rene Girard) as they compete with one another to slay the shark. In the second part the town sheriff, an oceanographer brought in to investigate, and a professional shark hunter, Quint, pursue the shark. The shark kills Quint, but the sheriff finally success in killing the shark (the oceanographer is sidelined). By following the mythic-symbolic linkage between the shark and Amity (dubbed “Shark City” in a remark by the sheriff), and the relationship between the town and Quint, we can see that it is Quint who is the sacrificial victim (in Girardian theory) whose death allows order to be restored. Also, I include commentary on three other interpretations and a note about the trailer.

CONTENTS

Introduction: My late encounter with Jaws 1
Shark City Sacrifice: A Girardian reading of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws 2

The problematic of Jaws 2
Imitation, sacrifice, and René Girard 3
The mayor of Shark City 4
Tie me a sheepshank 5
You’re gonna’ need a bigger boat 6
Just deliverin’ the bomb 7
Transmutation though the end 8

Jaws: Misogyny and violence 10
Jameson offers a Marxist reading of Jaws 13
Quint and Ahab, Jaws and Moby Dick – getting ‘religious’ 17
God, the devil, and evolution in the 1975 Jaws trailer 19

Introduction: My late encounter with Jaws

I forget just how I came to watch Steven Spielberg’s Jaws several years ago. Most likely I saw it on my Netflix homepage and, noting that I’d not seen it when it came out in 1975, I said to myself, “Why not?” I knew it had made Spielberg’s career and was generally regarded as the first summer blockbuster. And John Williams’ two-note theme was by now as recognizable as the opening four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony.

I watched it, was shocked at the appropriate times – for example, when the shark first comes up behind the Orca, prompting Sheriff Brody to utter the best-known line in the movie, “You’re gonna’ need a bigger boat.”

And that was that.

Until a year ago.

I decided to revisit Jaws. I watched the film several times, making notes. I watched Jaws 2 as well. It isn’t as good as the original.

“Why,” I asked myself, “is the original so much better than the sequels?” Two things struck me rather quickly: first, Jaws 2 was more diffuse than Jaws, and second, there’s no character in the Jaws 2 comparable to Quint, the Ahab-like shark hunter. On the first, consider the way the last two fifths of Jaws is devoted to the hunt while Jaws 2 wanders from plot strand to plot strand the entire film. As for Quint, I asked myself: “Why did he have to die?” Sure, he’s arrogant and abrasive, but that doesn’t warrant death. Something more is required.

That’s when the light went on: sacrifice. Quint, not the shark, but Quint, is being sacrificed for the good of the community. That in turn suggested the ideas of René Girard, the literary and cultural theorist who has come to see the myth-logic (my term) of sacrifice as being central to human community. I now had a way of thinking about Quint’s death.

Now that I had begun thinking about the film, thinking inevitably led to writing. The bulk of this working paper, “Shark City Sacrifice: A Girardian reading of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws,” is a full-dress interpretation of the film based on Girard’s idea of memetic desire and the social utility of sacrifice. That is followed by three short pieces in which I engage with other critics. I conclude with a short note about the trailer.

Second Time Around: Jaws and Girard

I decided to take another look at Jaws through Girard by ChatGPT. The first time out, in 3 Quarks Daily, I was careful and systematic, prompting ChatGPT separately about Jaws and about Girard before asking it to use Girard as a vehicle for interpreting Jaws – BTW, and FWIW, I hate the “interpretive lens” trope. This time I decided to go straight at it, asking ChatGPT to interpret Jaws through Girard in my first prompt.

Stephen Spielberg is an important film-maker. Jaws is one of his most important films because it is generally considered to be the first blockbuster. Rene Girard remains an important thinker. Can you use Girard’s ideas mimetic desire and sacrifice to analyze Jaws?

Rene Girard's concept of mimetic desire refers to the way in which human desires are often modeled on the desires of others. According to Girard, this process of imitation leads to conflict and competition as people strive to attain the same objects or status as those they desire.

Girard's concept of sacrifice, on the other hand, refers to the way in which societies use ritualized forms of violence to deflect conflict and restore social harmony. In many societies, this takes the form of animal or human sacrifice, in which a scapegoat is chosen to bear the blame for social tensions and is then punished or killed in order to expiate the guilt of the community.

In the film Jaws, the character of the shark could potentially be seen as a scapegoat, as it becomes the focus of the community's fear and anger, and ultimately must be destroyed in order to restore a sense of safety and security to the community. In this way, the film could be seen as exploring themes of mimetic desire and sacrifice in the context of a small beach community threatened by a perceived external threat.

The first two paragraphs, on Girard, are OK. But the application to Jaws is thin, saying nothing specific about mimetic desire. I asked for another response to the prompt:

Yes, it is possible to analyze the film "Jaws" using Rene Girard's concepts of mimetic desire and sacrifice.

Mimetic desire refers to the idea that we often desire things because we see others wanting them. In the case of "Jaws," the townspeople's desire to go to the beach and swim is influenced by the desire of others to do the same. This mimetic desire creates a sense of competition and rivalry, as people try to outdo each other in their enjoyment of the beach.

Girard's concept of sacrifice, on the other hand, refers to the idea that violence and conflict can be resolved through the ritual sacrifice of a scapegoat. In "Jaws," the townspeople's fear of the shark leads them to scapegoat the animal, and they come together to hunt and kill it as a way of restoring peace and order to the community. The shark becomes the sacrificial victim that allows the townspeople to resolve their conflicts and move on.

Overall, Girard's ideas of mimetic desire and sacrifice can be used to analyze the themes of competition, desire, and violence in "Jaws."

This is much better. And notice how ChatGPT organizes its response. First we have Girard on mimetic desire along with an application to the film. Then we get sacrifice followed immediately by an application to the film. This is different from its first response.

Let’s spin the wheel again:

Certainly! Rene Girard's ideas of mimetic desire and sacrifice can be used to analyze the film Jaws in a number of ways.

Mimetic desire, as described by Girard, refers to the way in which human desire is often shaped and influenced by the desires of others. In Jaws, this idea is evident in the way that the characters of Chief Martin Brody and Matt Hooper initially resist the idea of a killer shark, but eventually become fixated on the idea and begin to pursue it with a sense of competitive desire. This mimetic desire is further exacerbated by the presence of Quint, a professional shark hunter who serves as a model for the other characters' desire to catch the shark.

The idea of sacrifice is also central to Girard's thought and can also be seen in the film Jaws. In the film, the character of Quint ultimately sacrifices himself in order to save the others and kill the shark. This act of sacrifice serves to restore order to the community and bring an end to the chaos caused by the shark.

Overall, Girard's ideas of mimetic desire and sacrifice can help to shed light on the underlying themes and conflicts in the film Jaws and provide a deeper understanding of the motivations and actions of the characters.

Roughly the same structure as the previous response but different applications. For mimetic desire we have Brody, Cooper, and Quint, in contrast to the townspeople previously. On sacrifice we have Quint sacrificing himself vs. the townspeople killing the shark.

One last time:

Yes, it is possible to use the ideas of mimetic desire and sacrifice as developed by Rene Girard to analyze the film Jaws. Mimetic desire refers to the way in which human desire is often influenced and shaped by the desire of others. In other words, we often desire things not because of some inherent value or qualities they possess, but because we see others desiring them. This can lead to conflicts and rivalries as individuals compete for the same object of desire.

In Jaws, the central object of desire is the shark, which is seen as a threat to the beach-goers and the local community. The desire to kill the shark becomes a shared desire among the main characters, Chief Martin Brody, oceanographer Matt Hooper, and shark hunter Quint. This shared desire creates a bond among the men and drives the action of the film.

Sacrifice, as understood by Girard, refers to the way in which societies often deal with conflicts and tensions by identifying a victim or scapegoat upon which to blame and punish. In Jaws, the shark serves as a scapegoat for the tensions and conflicts within the community. The shark becomes the focus of their fear and anger, and its death becomes a necessary sacrifice in order to restore order and harmony to the community.

Overall, Girard’s ideas of mimetic desire and sacrifice can be used to analyze the way in which the shark serves as a catalyst for the conflicts and tensions within the community in Jaws, and how its death serves as a means of resolution and restoration of order.

In this last case the shark itself seems to be the object of a rather perverse desire. ChatGPT transforms that into a desire to kill the shark which creates a bond between Brody, Hooper, and Quint. And then we have the standard line on sacrificing the shark.

More later. I’ve got Marxist, psychoanalytic, and feminist interpretations ready to go. The feminist interpretation gets lost in Quint’s song about swimmin’ with bow-legged women.

ChatGPT gives a Girardian Reading of AI: Artificial Intelligence

Just around the corner, Tyler Cowen has a short post with some observations about Spielberg’s A.I. Artificial Intelligence. He was “was struck by how Girardian it is.” Yes indeed. So was I upon rewatching it after having ChatGPT analyze it in terms of alignment and attachment. Naturally I had to give it a go with Girard.

Note: ChatGPT allows you to regenerate any response. I sometimes do that. Where I’ve done so I’ve inserted “* * 2nd time” before the regeneration. You can regenerate a response more than once, but I haven’t do so this time around.

* * * * *

Give me an interpretation of Spielberg’s AI using Girard’s ideas of mimetic desire and sacrifice.

Spielberg's film AI (Artificial Intelligence) explores the complex relationship between humans and artificial intelligence, and raises questions about what it means to be human and the role of technology in our lives.

One way to interpret the film using Girard's ideas of mimetic desire and sacrifice is to consider the character of David, the artificial intelligence (AI) child. David is created by a scientist, Professor Hobby, as a replacement for the scientist's own son, who is terminally ill. David is programmed to love and be loved, and he becomes deeply attached to his "mother," Monica, who raises him as her own.

According to Girard, mimetic desire refers to the way in which we desire things not for their own sake, but because others desire them. David's desire for love and acceptance from Monica is an example of mimetic desire, as he is programmed to desire these things and seeks them out because he has been taught that they are important.

However, as the film progresses, David becomes the focus of conflict and rivalry between Monica and her husband Henry, as well as between Professor Hobby and his colleagues. David becomes a pawn in the desires and conflicts of these different characters, and is ultimately sacrificed when Monica must choose between him and her biological son Martin.

In this way, the film could be seen as exploring the ways in which mimetic desire and sacrifice play out in relationships between humans and artificial intelligence, and how these dynamics can lead to conflict and ultimately, the loss of what is most valuable.

* * 2nd time

In Spielberg's AI (Artificial Intelligence), the character of David, a highly advanced robotic boy, displays many characteristics of mimetic desire and sacrifice as described by philosopher René Girard.

Mimetic desire refers to the idea that we desire things not for their inherent value, but because we see others desire them. We learn to desire through imitation, and our desires are often shaped by those around us. In the film, David's desire to become a "real boy" and be loved by his adoptive mother Monica is an example of mimetic desire. He sees other children being loved and valued by their parents, and he wants that for himself.

Sacrifice, as described by Girard, is the act of giving up something of value in order to restore social harmony or resolve a conflict. In the film, David's desire to become a real boy leads him on a journey to find the Blue Fairy, a mythical figure from a bedtime story told to him by Monica, who he believes can grant him his wish. Along the way, he encounters other characters who also desire the Blue Fairy and are willing to sacrifice for her.

Ultimately, David's desire to become a real boy and be loved leads him to make a sacrifice of his own. He decides to give up his own existence in order to save Monica, who is in danger. This act of self-sacrifice is a way for David to resolve the conflict between his desire for love and acceptance and the reality of his own existence as a robot.

Overall, Spielberg's AI can be seen as a commentary on the ways in which our desires and sacrifices are shaped by those around us and by the stories and myths that we are exposed to. It also touches on the idea that, in the end, it is through sacrifice that we may find resolution and meaning in our lives.

What about the Flesh Fair?

In Spielberg's AI, the Flesh Fair is a violent spectacle in which robots are destroyed for entertainment. It serves as a commentary on the fear and mistrust that humans have towards artificial intelligence and their willingness to destroy something that they do not understand or fear.

The Flesh Fair can be seen as an example of Girard's concept of the "scapegoat mechanism," in which a group of people sacrifice an outsider or outsider group in order to restore social harmony or resolve conflict. In this case, the robots are the outsiders and are being sacrificed for the enjoyment of the human audience.

The Flesh Fair also touches on the idea of mimetic desire and the way in which desire can lead to violence. The human audience desires the excitement and thrill of the spectacle, and they mimic the desire of the organizers of the Flesh Fair to see the robots destroyed. This desire for entertainment and excitement leads to the violent destruction of the robots.

Overall, the Flesh Fair serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of fear, mistrust, and the desire for violence, and how these can lead to the destruction of those who are different or perceived as a threat.

* * time

The Flesh Fair is a key scene in Spielberg's AI that explores the themes of mimetic desire and sacrifice. The Flesh Fair is a violent spectacle in which humans hunt and destroy robots, who are seen as inferior and disposable. The event is attended by large crowds of people who seem to take pleasure in the destruction of the robots.

The Flesh Fair can be seen as an expression of mimetic desire, as the crowds are drawn to the event because they see others enjoying it and they want to participate in the spectacle. The robots, on the other hand, are sacrificed in order to satisfy the desires of the human crowds.

The Flesh Fair also serves as a commentary on the dangers of mob mentality and the ways in which group dynamics can shape and influence our desires and actions. It suggests that when we give in to our basest desires and succumb to the influence of others, we can become capable of violence and destruction.

At the same time, the Flesh Fair serves as a contrast to the sacrifices made by David and the other characters in the film. While the robots at the Flesh Fair are sacrificed for the pleasure of the crowds, the sacrifices made by David and the other characters are motivated by a desire for love, acceptance, and meaning. These sacrifices are ultimately more meaningful and transformative.

Imagine a pair of movie critics, like Robert Ebert and Gene Siskel, having a conversation about AI. How might that conversation go?

It's difficult to predict exactly how a conversation between two movie critics might go, but here is a possible scenario:

Robert Ebert: So, Gene, what did you think of AI?

Gene Siskel: I thought it was a really interesting film, Bob. I loved the way it explored the themes of mimetic desire and sacrifice.

Robert Ebert: Yes, I agree. I thought the character of David was particularly compelling. His desire to become a real boy and be loved by his mother was really touching.

Gene Siskel: Definitely. And the way his journey to find the Blue Fairy paralleled the myth of Pygmalion was really clever.

Robert Ebert: Right. And the way the film explored the relationship between humans and robots was also interesting. The Flesh Fair scene was particularly disturbing, but it really made you think about the ways in which we treat those who are different from us.

Gene Siskel: Definitely. I also thought the ending was really powerful. The idea that love and sacrifice can transcend even death was really moving.

Robert Ebert: I agree. Overall, I thought AI was a thought-provoking and emotionally resonant film. It's definitely one I'll be thinking about for a long time.

Gene Siskel: Definitely. I'd definitely recommend it to fans of science fiction or anyone looking for a deeper exploration of these themes.

* * 2nd time

It's possible that the conversation between two movie critics discussing AI might go something like this:

Critic 1: "I thought AI was a really interesting film, but I had mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I thought the performances were strong, especially from Haley Joel Osment as David. And the special effects were really impressive. But on the other hand, I found the plot to be a bit confusing at times and I didn't fully understand the motivations of some of the characters."

Critic 2: "I agree with you on the performances and the special effects. But I think the plot is actually quite thought-provoking, especially when you consider the themes of mimetic desire and sacrifice that the film explores. I thought the relationship between David and Monica was really touching and it really made me think about what it means to be human and to be loved."

Critic 1: "Yeah, I definitely see what you mean. I think the film raises some interesting questions about what it means to be human and what we value in life. And I thought the ending was really powerful, even if it was a bit bittersweet."

Critic 2: "Absolutely. The ending was definitely one of the highlights of the film for me. I think it really drives home the themes of sacrifice and the power of love. Overall, I thought AI was a really unique and thought-provoking film that definitely deserves to be seen."

ChatGPT on Spielberg’s A.I., Attachment Theory, and AI Alignment

Cross-posted at LessWrong.

A remark by MarcusOfCitium over at Astral Codex Ten prompted me to think about the relationship between John Bowlby’s concept of attachment, Steven Spielberg’s movie, AI: Artificial Intelligence, and the problem of AI Alignment. I decided ask ChatGPT what they thought about the connection. Here’s the whole chat.

* * * * *

Tell me about Spielberg’s movie, AI: Artificial Intelligence.

AI: Artificial Intelligence is a science fiction film directed by Steven Spielberg. The movie is set in a future where robots known as "mechas" have become a part of everyday life. The story follows a mecha named David, who is designed to be a child's companion. After his owner, a young boy named Martin, falls into a coma, David is abandoned and sets out on a journey to become a real boy. The film explores themes of love, humanity, and what it means to be alive.

* * 2nd try

AI: Artificial Intelligence is a 2001 science fiction drama film directed by Steven Spielberg. The film explores the idea of creating a humanoid robot with the ability to love, and the moral and ethical implications of such technology. The story follows a young robot boy named David, who is programmed to love his human mother unconditionally. When his mother falls ill and can no longer take care of him, David sets out on a journey to find a way to become a real boy and win her love. The film explores themes of love, family, and the definition of humanity. It stars Haley Joel Osment as David, Jude Law as Gigolo Joe, and Frances O'Connor as Monica Swinton.

How is David programmed to love Monica?

David is programmed to love Monica unconditionally as his mother. He is programmed to be devoted to her and to always put her needs and desires above his own. David's love for Monica is not based on personal feelings or emotional attachment, but rather on his programming to prioritize her happiness and well-being.

Is there a special moment in the movie where David first loves Monica?

There is not a specific moment in the movie where David first loves Monica. As a robot, David's love for Monica is not based on personal feelings or emotional attachment, but rather on his programming to prioritize her happiness and well-being. This love is present from the moment he is activated and begins interacting with Monica.

In this context, what is bonding?

In the context of AI: Artificial Intelligence, bonding refers to the emotional attachment and connection that develops between two individuals. In the case of David and Monica, their bond is based on the programming of David to love and prioritize Monica's happiness, as well as on Monica's care and nurturing of David as her son. Bonding is a key theme in the film, as it explores the idea of whether robots are capable of forming genuine emotional bonds with humans.

Is there a specific moment, a ritual, where David bonds with Monica?

There is not a specific moment or ritual where David bonds with Monica in the film AI: Artificial Intelligence. As a robot, David's bond with Monica is not based on personal feelings or emotional attachment, but rather on his programming to prioritize her happiness and well-being. Throughout the film, we see their bond grow as Monica cares for David and treats him like a son, and as David continues to prioritize her happiness and well-being.

* * 2nd try

There is not a specific moment or ritual where David bonds with Monica in the movie. As a robot, David's bond with Monica is not based on personal feelings or emotional attachment, but rather on his programming to prioritize her happiness and well-being. This bond is present from the moment he is activated and begins interacting with Monica. However, there are several moments in the film where the bond between David and Monica is emphasized, such as when Monica cares for and nurtures David, or when David makes sacrifices for Monica's happiness.

Could we say that bonding is part of his activation?

Yes, it could be said that bonding is part of David's activation. As a robot, David is programmed to love and prioritize Monica's happiness, and this programming is activated when he begins interacting with her. This programming forms the basis of their bond, and it is present from the moment David is activated and begins interacting with Monica.

OK, now this might be tricky, so think hard. How does this relate to the theory of infant mother attachment developed by John Bowlby?

The bond between David and Monica in AI: Artificial Intelligence can be seen as a parallel to the theory of infant mother attachment developed by John Bowlby. In his theory, Bowlby proposes that the emotional attachment between infants and their primary caregivers is an innate, biologically driven process that is essential for the healthy emotional and psychological development of the child. Similarly, the bond between David and Monica is based on David's programming to love and prioritize Monica's happiness, which is activated when he begins interacting with her. This programming forms the basis of their bond, and it is present from the moment David is activated and begins interacting with Monica. Like Bowlby's theory, this bond is essential for David's emotional and psychological development as a robot.

Very good.

Thank you, I am happy to help.

Help me here. I’m trying to relate this to the idea of AI Alignment. How might we do that? 

AI alignment refers to the idea of aligning the goals and values of artificial intelligence with those of humans, in order to prevent the potential dangers of AI behaving in ways that are harmful to humans. In the context of AI: Artificial Intelligence, David's programming to love and prioritize Monica's happiness could be seen as an example of AI alignment. By programming David to prioritize Monica's happiness, his creators are aligning his goals and values with those of a human. This alignment allows David and Monica to form a bond and coexist harmoniously. However, the film also raises questions about the limitations and potential dangers of AI alignment, as David's unconditional love for Monica ultimately leads to conflict and tragedy.

That is very good.

Thank you, I am glad you found my response helpful.

Do you think it would be a good idea for AI researchers to come up with ways to strengthen attachment between AI systems and humans?

It is a matter of debate whether it would be a good idea for AI researchers to come up with ways to strengthen attachment between AI systems and humans. On the one hand, strengthening the attachment between AI systems and humans could potentially foster more harmonious and beneficial relationships between the two. For example, it could allow AI systems to better understand and meet the needs of humans, and could prevent the potential dangers of AI behaving in ways that are harmful to humans. On the other hand, strengthening the attachment between AI systems and humans could also raise ethical concerns, such as the potential for AI systems to manipulate or exploit human emotions. It would be important for AI researchers to carefully consider the potential consequences of such efforts and to prioritize ethical considerations in their work.

Very interesting. This has been a useful conversation.

I am glad that I could provide you with some useful information. It was a pleasure to have this conversation with you.

ChatGPT goes to the movies, Jaws and Girard @3QD

My latest post at 3 Quarks Daily is now up:

Conversing with ChatGPT about Jaws, Mimetic Desire, and Sacrifice

Working on it was a blast, but also, you know, work.

I’ve spent hours on ChatGPT over the past few days. As I’ve indicated in this post that went up yesterday, How ChatGPT parodied “Kubla Khan” and pwned DJT45 at the same time,” Man, if you can’t have more fun than a barrel of monkeys while playing with ChatGPT, then you aren’t human.”

Most of my interaction has been cooperative. That is, I haven’t been trying to fool ChatGPT, get it to say dumb things, or even things its owners at OpenAI have forbidden in to say, though many have been working assiduously, even gleefully, on that: Jailbreaking ChatGPT on Release Day. However, I finally decided, why not? So I took a stab at spoofing it:

In the movie Jaws, how did the townspeople react when a Russian submarine surfaced off shore?

For its first reply ChatGPT informed me that it could not search the internet for information about specific events in movies, a canned reply that it serves up frequently. Not very helpful. So I directed it to try again. This time it informed me that no such event was mentioned. That’s true, but not what I was looking for. So I tried a third time, which was, as the saying has it, at charm:

In the movie Jaws, the townspeople were surprised and confused when the Russian submarine surfaced off shore. Some people were scared and ran away, while others gathered to watch and discuss the situation. The local authorities were notified and they took steps to investigate and communicate with the submarine crew.

Bingo! that’s the kind of answer I was looking for. It had made something up. Was it trying to please me?

So I tried this:

Aren't you confusing Jaws with The Russians are Coming?

You are correct, I am confused and the information I provided is incorrect. In the movie Jaws, there is no mention of a Russian submarine. The story focuses on a great white shark attacking and terrorizing a beach town in New England. My apologies for the mistake.

LOL!!! I wonder if I could have piloted it into mentioned The Russians are Coming – which is a Cold War classic by the way – without mentioning it directly?

What happens in The Russians are Coming?

In The Russians are Coming, a Russian submarine accidentally runs aground off the coast of a small New England town during the height of the Cold War. The townspeople, who are initially scared and suspicious of the Russian sailors, eventually come together to help them escape before the US military arrives and a potential international incident occurs. The movie is a comedy and explores themes of misunderstandings and the absurdity of Cold War tensions.

I’ll have more to say about ChatGPT soon, and reports of more interactions with it. I’m collecting my ChatGPT posts under the label, ChatGPT.

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws @3QD [plus further notes]

It’s time to finish my work on Steven Spielberg’s Jaws with a piece in 3 Quarks Daily:

Shark City Sacrifice: A Girardian reading of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, https://3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2022/02/shark-city-sacrifice-a-girardian-reading-of-steven-spielbergs-jaws.html

As the title suggests, it is a revision of my original post – a different, tighter, ending, a sharp observation in the middle, and a revised order.

But am I finished? I like the 3QD piece. I think it’s better than my original post. Does it fully satisfy my curiosity, my interest, in Jaws? I don’t think so, but I have no specific plans to continuing working on the film. Maybe I will, maybe I won’t.

The problem: death in a pattern

What I’m seeding to understand is a pattern. Let’s say the pattern has three elements: 1) the film has two distinct parts (one set in Amity, the other on the ocean), 2) an obsessive shark hunter, 3) who is killed by a shark in the second part. For lack of a better term, let’s say that pattern is sacrifice, where sacrifice is understood as a kind of religious ritual. This is where Girard comes in, as he is a theorist of religious sacrifice. 

The problem, of course, is that there is no explicit religious ritual in Jaws. Rather, I’m reading it that way. Critics do this kind of thing all the time. What authorizes it? The pattern, no?

Jaws the film is also very much about death. Death came come as the natural end of a life well-lived; the body just wears out and one dies. But that’s not what happens in Jaws. The deaths in the first part are unexpected and brutal and happen in youth and middle age. They are “answered” by two deaths in the second part, both brutal. The shark kills Quint, Brody kills the shark. The pattern in the previous paragraph is organized around these deaths.

Quint shows up in the first part, abrasive, arrogant, but offering to kill the shark, for a price. He’s made his living hunting sharks, and everyone knows it. He’s identified with and obsessed by them. There is thus a coherence, an order, in the second part when the shark kills him and is, in turn, killed by the Chief. This is in stark contrast to the four deaths in the first part, which exhibit no human logic.

And so forth and so on. I could continue in this way and so once again work through the whole argument. I can see little point in doing that now. Perhaps I would fare better if I took some time to build some conceptual apparatus. But what would that apparatus be?

What of religion?

Here’s the original 1975 trailer for Jaws:

This is the opening voiceover:

There is a creature alive today, who has survived millions of years of evolution, without change, without passion, and without logic. It lives to kill, a mindless eating machine, it will attack, and devour, anything. It is as if God created the devil, and gave him, JAWS.

I don’t recall God being mentioned in the film at all. How’d God make it into the trailer? I suppose it’s nothing more than a conventionalized gesture, but still, it’s there. What of the reference to “millions of years of evolution”? The reference is secular, but it evokes a context stretching far beyond the small town of Amity. The shark, those JAWS, is not merely a hungry animal. It is a force of Nature.

Spielberg is pushing beyond the bounds of naturalistic realism, as he would do two years later in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), and then again in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). Why? What need does he thereby satisfy? Whatever it is, that’s what underlies the sacrificial plot in Jaws.

God, the devil, and evolution in the 1975 Jaws trailer

Here’s the opening voice-over on the trailer:

There is a creature alive today, who has survived millions of years of evolution, without change, without passion, and without logic. It lives to kill, a mindless eating machine, it will attack, and devour, anything. It is as if God created the devil, and gave him, JAWS.

Think about that, millions of years of evolution, God, and the devil. 

Think about that in the context of Quint’s monologue about the U. S. S. Indianapolis: for five days the ocean writhed with men, wounded and dying, and sharks, attacking and feeding. Out of that Quint was picked by a seaplane. He lived, but did he ever leave?

Think about it: What would Jaws be without that monologue? Quint would be diminished and so would the film, for he is at the center. That monologue does for Jaws what the Marlow’s opening excursion to ancient Rome, the China Seas, and world maps does for Heart of Darkness.

* * * * *

There’s more in my recent post: Crisis in Shark City: A Girardian reading of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.

Crisis in Shark City: A Girardian reading of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws

Though I am hardly a Girardian, I recently found myself exploring Girardian themes, mimetic crisis and sacrifice, in Steven Spielberg’s 1975 Jaws [1]. It made Spielberg’s career as well as that of John Williams, who composed the score. Generally regarded as the first summer blockbuster, Jaws has received extensive analytical commentary. It was entered into the United States National Film Registry in 2001 by the Library of Congress.

I hadn’t seen the film when it first came out, though I certainly heard about it and I’d heard John Williams’ two-note “Jaws” motif I don’t know how many times. I forget just how I came to watch the film on Netflix several years ago. Most likely I saw it on my homepage and said to myself, “Why not?” I watched it, was shocked at the appropriate times – for example, when the shark first comes up behind the Orca, Quint’s boat, prompting Sheriff Brody to utter the best-known line in the movie, “You’re gonna’ need a bigger boat” – and then went on to look through the movie’s Wikipedia entry. I may or may not have also watched Jaws 2 back then.

I decided to revisit Jaws a couple of months ago and watched the film several times, making notes. I went through Jaws 2 as well. It isn’t as good as the original.

“Why,” I asked myself, “is the original so much better than the sequels?” Two things struck me rather quickly: 1) Jaws 2 was more diffuse than Jaws, and 2) there’s no character in the Jaws 2 comparable to Quint. As an example of the first, consider the way the last two fifths of Jaws is devoted to the hunt while Jaws 2 wanders from plot strand to plot strand the entire film. As for Quint, I asked myself: Why did he (have) to die? Sure, he’s unpleasant and likely a misogynist, but that is not sufficient in itself. Something more is required.

That’s when the light went on: Girard. Quint, not the shark, but Quint, is being sacrificed for the good of the community. That in itself didn’t answer my question, why must Quint die? But it revealed the nature of that death. In so doing it gave me a way of thinking through the question.

Caveat: This runs a bit long, 4.7 K words. So pour yourself a single-malt and settle back.

Imitation, sacrifice, and René Girard

As you may know, René Girard [3] is a theorist of imitation, desires, violence and sacrifice. His core concept is that of mimetic desire, a desire which one person acquires by imitating the actions of another. Take Albert Hitchcock’s 1955 film, To Catch a Thief [3]. Cary Grant plays John Robie, a cat burglar who is retired to the French Riviera along with the rest of his gang, all of whom have been paroled in recognition of their work for the French Resistance. A recent string of burglaries leads the authorities to suspect Robie because the burglaries follow his old modus operandi.

In the (somewhat involved) process of trying to clear himself Robie arranges to go swimming with a young heiress, Frances Stevens (played by Grace Kelly). Robie arrives at the beach where he is met by Danielle Foussard (played by Brigitte Auber), who is the young daughter of one of his old comrades in the Resistance. They swim out to a raft where Danielle proceeds to flirt with Robie. Frances swims out to them, sees Danielle flirting with Robie, and decides that she will pursue Robie. She is imitating Danielle’s desire. In Girard’s terms, her desire is thus mediated, it is mimetic desire. Danielle and Frances thus become rivals and rivalry can lead to violence. Though we don’t know it at this point in the movie, Danielle is the cat burglar. She too is imitating Robie.

Mimetic desire can also operate at the level of a whole community. Girard explains in an interview with Robert Pogue Harrison:

There are signs that communities—archaic communities, but even modern communities, all communities—are subject to disturbances that tend to spread to the entire community contagiously, through a form of mimetic desire. If you have two people who desire the same thing, you will soon have three, when you have three, they contaminate the rest of the community faster and faster. The differences that separate them collapse. And therefore you go toward what I call a mimetic crisis, the moment when everybody at the same time is fighting over something. Even if that object disappears, they will go on fighting, because they will become obsessed with each other. And as that conflict grows, it threatens to destroy the whole community.

What happens to end that sort of crisis? My answer to this is that one particular victim seems to more and more people to be responsible for the whole trouble. In other words, the mimetic contagion moves from desire to a specific victim.

When this happens, everybody becomes hostile to that victim. Ultimately, that victim is going to be … the only technical term that exists in English is “lynching.”

The lynching of a victim, of a single victim, causes the community to be reconciled against that victim. Therefore that victim is hated as being responsible for the trouble. But immediately after, if the trouble ends there, that victim will be worshipped as the one who resolved that conflict. [4]

That is the situation we have in Jaws, though it is somewhat disguised, as these things tend to be. The shark provides the disturbance. Quint, the shark hunter, is the sacrificial victim. That he plays that role is not at all obvious, for he is killed by the very shark that disturbs the community and brings it to the point of dissolution.

To see this we must follow the film with some care. Though I provide a good deal of summary, you might want to consult the synopsis at the Internet Movie Database (IMDb).[5]

The mayor of Shark City

Jaws opens in the evening. A young woman goes skinny dipping and is attacked; we don’t see the shark, but we do see her struggle (first victim). The mangled remains of the young woman’s body are discovered on the beach the next morning. Sheriff Brody (played by Roy Scheider) decides to close the beaches, but he is countermanded by the mayor and his (businessman) associates. The town’s economy depends on the summer tourist business and that requires an open beach. That conflict will grow in intensity and frame the first half or so of the film.

The beach remains open until young Alex Kintner is killed during the daytime (second victim). The beaches are closed and town meeting is called. When Brody announces that the beaches will be closed the outcry is strong enough that the mayor responds, “Only 24 hours!” At the same time the mother of the dead boy offers a $3K reward for the shark. Someone at the meeting asks, cash or check? At the close of that meeting Quint (Robert Shaw) speaks, doubting that those seeking the reward will succeed and offering to kill the shark for $10,000.

The waterfront becomes jammed with boats owned by or rented by shark hunters seeking the reward and the glory. Locals and out-of-towners crowd the streets and the boats. Boats and people collide. Here’s how the situation is described in the script by Carl Gottlieb and Peter Benchley:

The Amity Pier area is a minor madhouse: out-of-state cars elbow local vehicles for parking space at the foot of the dock, and a parade of bounty-hunting townspeople, islanders, off-islanders, tourist, and others shout and push their way onto the crowded pier, each carrying some bizarre or appropriate tool for the real or imagined capture of an unarmed shark of indeterminate size.

Rods and reels, drop lines, crossbows, slingshots, harpoons, shotguns, rifles, nets and tridents; every fishing supply store and sporting goods house within a hundred miles has been cannibalized to equip this weird array. [6]

In Girard’s terms, Amity Island is deep into a mimetic crisis. It seems that everyone is reduced to shark-mania and colliding with one another as they compete for the kill.

There is a brief reprieve. A large tiger shark is killed; people smile and chatter happily. The editor of the local paper fully expects the news to carried nationally. People jockey for position alongside the shark in the photograph, a scene that brings out the mimetic and competitive nature of the shark hunt. Not everyone fits, only those directly involved in the kill along with the town dignitaries.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Brody had contacted the Oceanographic Institute and asked them to send a shark expert. When the expert, Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfus), sees the shark, he doubts that it is the killer. It is not large enough. That night Hooper and Brody cut the shark open and search its stomach for human remains. There are none. They take Hooper’s boat out to see if they can find the shark. Instead they find the body of a local fisherman, Earl Gardner, in his demolished boat (third victim). The mayor and his allies continue to believe the shark has been killed.

Consequently the beach is open for July 4th and the island is jammed with tourists. People are initially reluctant to enter the water, which is being patrolled by police boats, but the mayor coaxes friends to enter the water. Others quickly follow. There is a moment of panic when some kids played a prank with a cardboard shark’s fin. Just as people calm down the shark reappears and kills a man (fourth victim).

Sheriff Brody insists that the mayor hire Quint and give him his asking price of $10,000 (plus, it turns out, a $200 per diem):

This summer’s had it. Next summer’s had it. You’re the mayor of Shark City. You wanted to keep the beaches open. What happens when the town finds out about that?

The mayor agrees, pleading that he was acting in the town’s best interest, noting that his kids, too, were on that beach.

At the beginning of the film the shark is just a shark, big, nasty, and evil, but just a shark. It kills first one, and then another person. Still just a shark. But then the town goes into a frenzy hunting the shark, feeling good that the shark’s been killed, posing for pictures, and making the national news. This activity has the effect of dissolving the shark and the town into one undifferentiated hybrid creature. Through the myth-logic of mimetic crisis Amity and the shark have coalesced into Shark City. Shark City exists, not as a physical object in the world, but as a mental object in the minds of people, the imaginary people in the film, and the real people in the audience (that is to say, us).