50 YEARS OF JAWS
THE DIRACTION
LEIGH WHANNELL PAYS TRIBUTE TO STEVEN SPIELBERG’S GOBSMACKING ARTISTRY
WORDS HELEN O’HARA
LEIGH WHANNELL FIRST saw Jaws as a child. Transfixed by the cover in the Betamax section of a video store, he’d initiated a weeks-long campaign to convince his parents to allow him to see it, and when they finally caved it was, he says, “instant love, instant obsession”. He watched it weekly for a year and “just never stopped”, inspired for life, going on to direct his own genre —and monster —hits (including Upgrade, The Invisible Man and Wolf Man). Who better, then, to talk us through Spielberg ’s enduring handiwork. Via Zoom, Whannell showed us office shelves lined with his own films’ memorabilia (Saw’s Jigsaw features heavily), but also laden with models of the Orca, Jaws books and a shark with a hinged jaw halfway through swallowing Quint. He’s gonna need a bigger office.