Steven Spielberg Says CGI Effects Would Have Ruined JAWS
While talking to Steven Spielberg at the press event for The BFG the subject of CGI effects came up. A lot of CGI animation was used in the creation of The BFG, and I thought it was handled well and was really quite beautiful. The film felt like a work of art because of it.
At one point he said that five years ago he wouldn’t have been able to make The BFG in this way because the technology just wasn’t there. At this point, the classic film Jaws was brought up in the conversation, and the director was asked if he ever thought of what it would have been like had today's technology existed back when he made Jaws. He replied:
“Well, I think if I had the computer, and if I had digital artists the way we have them today, in 1975, ’74 - I probably would have ruined the movie, because you would have seen nine times the amount of shark. And I think what makes the movie is the dearth of shark.”
It’s true! One of the greatest things about Jaws that is one of the film’s strengths is that you don’t see the shark that much. You know it’s there, lurking around, you just don’t know when it’s really going to strike until that awesomely eerie musical score starts to play.
Keeping the visuals of the threat at a minimum in a film like Spielberg did with Jaws is a genius and effective storytelling tactic that builds the intensity, and it’s something other filmmakers have replicated over and over and over again over the years. I’d like to think that even if Spielberg had the technology, he still would have made the film the same way. He obviously thinks he wouldn't have, but I guess we’ll never truly know.
Regardless of that, we are left with a movie masterpiece that will continue to entertain movie lovers for years to come.