A documentary to delve into the secrets of the cult film "Jaws"

Half a century, and yet it hasn't aged much. In June 1975, American cinemas discovered a film that would both traumatize an entire generation and mark the history of the seventh art: Jaws . Fifty years later, the French director based in Los Angeles, already behind documentaries dedicated to Faye Dunaway and John Williams, returns with a new and unique proposition: going back behind the scenes of the making of this cult film.

Presented as a European premiere at the Oceanographic Museum of Monaco and available today on Disney + before being broadcast on National Geographic, Jaws: Secrets of a Cult Film , returns with numerous testimonies (Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, JJ Abrams, Emily Blunt, Guillermo del Toro, etc.) and archive images on the secrets of one of the greatest films of all time. Behind the scenes of this exciting film, Laurent Bouzereau was like a fish in water.

Where do you place "Jaws" in the history of cinema?

For me, who saw the film around the time it came out in France, there was cinema before Jaws , and there was cinema after. It's a film that had a huge impact on me at an age when you don't have much life experience yet, and it opens your eyes to so many cinematic things. It's really a pivotal film, because at that time, you had a number of directors who were revolutionizing cinema: Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, William Friedkin, George Lucas, and even if they all had very different styles, they were all lovers of cinema. They were filmmakers who were very influenced by the greats of cinema, like Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, William Wyler, George Stevens. It's a universal film, because young people who discover this film for the first time should feel comfortable in the environment it represents.

What's fascinating about your film is that we realize that everything is handmade on set, it's almost an ode to cinema, to resourcefulness, does that also explain why the film has aged so well?

Yes, it's artisanal, but very high-level craftsmanship. I find that the shark still has the same impact; it's a monster, even if it's abstract today. It's fun to see how the film evolves over time. The extraordinary thing that hasn't changed is the shark's voice, which is musical, via John Williams' music. It's the most international language that exists, and it doesn't need subtitles or dubbing. Conceiving the shark's presence through two musical notes is completely brilliant.

You mentioned John Williams' music, there's that poster, the title, the cast, some iconic lines, we have the impression that there's no false note in the sense that everything is perfect from beginning to end, whereas the film was late and could have marked the end of Spielberg's career...

The miracle is above all not having abandoned the film, trying not to get fired either and above all remaining faithful to his original vision, to his creative vision. It's really a film about survival, once you've survived Jaws, you can do whatever you want, and that's a little bit of a lesson that also applies to the story itself, because if these three men manage to survive the shark, they'll be able to have a normal life. There's something quite interesting in the production of the film, where Steven can't get the shark to walk and it almost becomes his number one enemy, it's a parallel that I find fascinating. Just as Robert Shaw's drunkenness, and his arguments with Richard Dreyfuss, helped to involve the actors in the characters, hence these absolutely extraordinary exchanges between these three men on the boat, the line between fiction and reality was very thin at certain moments.

As a director, what is your favorite scene from the film?

The first scene, the first sequence with the young woman, the entrance into a film, it's something essential, and to be able to grab us like that, from the start, is very powerful. We know that we have just seen something atrocious, and at the same time fascinating, and it raises questions about the rest of the film. It's a very good way to create suspense, to maintain attention, and when you start filming with so much violence, something really very powerful, you can take your time to explain the characters and the context. There is real genius in the design of this introduction, it takes us back to the fear that we all have in common, this fear of not seeing what is happening below the surface of the water. Suggesting fear is what Hitchcock did very well in Psycho .

There are many directors who speak, James Cameron, Robert Zemeckis, Cameron Crowe, JJ Abrams, we have the feeling that this film has marked several generations of very talented filmmakers...

It was very important to find directors who each had a slightly different experience and had received slightly different lessons, for example, Guillermo del Toro, who explores the notion of monster in all his films; James Cameron, who is also someone who deals a lot with the ocean and sharks, and who has made many films with the theme of water or the ocean, each brings a different dimension to his appreciation of the film. Now, it's obvious that Star Wars had a gigantic impact too, but it's a somewhat nostalgic impact, I think, today, whereas that of Jaws is really a cinematic impact. It's a baroque opera made by a great author.

In 1975, the film traumatized some viewers, creating a fear of going swimming. This could have given rise to phobias, but at the same time it opened the debate on the fact that this species must be protected, understood...

Initially, there was a very negative reaction to sharks. There was a rise in the slaughter. It was already something that existed in the business. Jacques-Yves Cousteau, who made the film The Silent World , showed himself and his crew slaughtering sharks in the film. It's something he always regretted. With Jaws , there was a turnaround against sharks. It was the author of the book that inspired the film, Peter Benchley, during his lifetime, with his wife, who said that the dialogue around shark protection changed, because they were very involved in their protection. There aren't many films that have impacted our view of the ocean in this way, on what happens in the ocean jungle. It was important to talk about it without wanting to be too academic or preachy.

What's fascinating about the film is that, at the beginning, for budgetary reasons, the shark is suggested rather than shown. It's a bit of a trademark of the film, this monster that we see very little or only late...

Absolutely. When you read the original script, there were indeed intentions to show the shark a little earlier. But Steven quickly understood that the key to the film lies in the audience's imagination. He suggested things, just like Hitchcock. Like the shower scene in Psycho where you see very little, just a silhouette. But it was edited in such an innovative way that everyone was convinced they were seeing the knife go in. The exaggeration that comes with imagination fuels this kind of apprehension and suspense. All of a sudden, you're playing hide-and-seek with the director, it's fantastic. There are very few films that manage to achieve that kind of victory.

Jaws: Secrets of a Cult Film , available on Disney+ and broadcast on July 13 at 6:20 p.m., on National Geographic.