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A review by jstilts
The Jaws Log: Expanded Edition by Carl Gottlieb
funny
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
3.5
It's rare I get through a non-fiction book so quickly, and I was a little surprised as this book - first published in 1975 - alternates between being quite dry and oddly jovial but in a very old-fashioned kind of way, so not an obvious page-turner.
Indeed it's slow to start as it covers the ENTIRE making if the movie starting with purchasing the rights for the book through to the first test screenings - but it becomes quite compelling from about Chapter 4 onwards when it becomes clear to the reader and the crew that nobody had ever made a film like this before, with challenges that just couldn't be properly planned for.
It's not an entirely satisfying book - way too much is crammed in to go into as much annecdotal detail to truly bring it to life, and coming from just one voice gives the whole book too much of the same flavour.
Nevertheless this is still essential reading for anyone who has ever been interested in what goes in to making a movie, especially a movie as great as this and as insanely ambitious in how it was shot. Almost any one incident in the shooting of this for any other movie would make you go "wow, what a crazy thing to happen, lucky that movie ever made it to the screen!" but here it's an endless stream of wild occurrences that should have ruined the movie or resulted in the death of cast, crew or destruction of finished film, sets and equipment.
Indeed it's slow to start as it covers the ENTIRE making if the movie starting with purchasing the rights for the book through to the first test screenings - but it becomes quite compelling from about Chapter 4 onwards when it becomes clear to the reader and the crew that nobody had ever made a film like this before, with challenges that just couldn't be properly planned for.
It's not an entirely satisfying book - way too much is crammed in to go into as much annecdotal detail to truly bring it to life, and coming from just one voice gives the whole book too much of the same flavour.
Nevertheless this is still essential reading for anyone who has ever been interested in what goes in to making a movie, especially a movie as great as this and as insanely ambitious in how it was shot. Almost any one incident in the shooting of this for any other movie would make you go "wow, what a crazy thing to happen, lucky that movie ever made it to the screen!" but here it's an endless stream of wild occurrences that should have ruined the movie or resulted in the death of cast, crew or destruction of finished film, sets and equipment.