There is nothing fast-paced about the coronavirus. For months, dread has slowly accumulated in my midsection. Every day brings a succession of new anxieties about the virus and the economy; about my family and friends; about my hands and the many, many things they touch, particularly my face. Above all, there is the sense that everything that is bad today will be worse tomorrow. And the movie that best reflects that reality is not Contagion<\/i> but Steven Spielberg\u2019s Jaws.<\/i><\/p>\n
It is notable that the shark is barely in the movie, appearing for all of four minutes. This was not by design. Initially, Spielberg had three mechanical sharks made, but they looked hokey and frequently broke down. He was forced to embrace his inner Hitchcock, rarely showing the movie\u2019s titular villain. As a result, the shark was more of an invisible threat, which turned out to be even scarier. \u201cThe visual ellipsis,\u201d Molly Haskell wrote in her critical biography<\/a> of Spielberg, \u201ccreated far greater menace and terror, as the shark is nowhere and everywhere.\u201d Sound familiar? If Jaws<\/i> had been made only a few years later, we would have almost certainly been burdened with a CGI shark. Forty years after its release, the movie\u2019s great white works as a metaphor as well as it does as a shark.<\/p>\n One of the strangest things about the coronavirus panic is how normal everything seems. Even with few people going out, my neighborhood looks the way it does on a Sunday morning. The difference is that I\u2019m bombarded by a constant stream of push alerts and texts. That is a key part of what makes Jaws<\/i> work. Even when everything appears fine, you know that terror is lurking just beneath the surface.<\/p>\n Our world is also divided between the types that Jaws<\/i> establishes. There is Roy Scheider\u2019s Sheriff Brody: apprehensive, well-meaning, but out of his depth. Then there is Richard Dreyfuss\u2019s chatty Spielberg stand-in, Dr. Hooper: jittery, neurotic, a sudden expert on whatever topic is in front of him. The scene in which Brody, a transplanted New York cop who is afraid of boats and open water, comes home to spend the evening reading about sharks, feels particularly relevant. Set in 2020, he would be scrolling Twitter for updates\u2014or, for that matter, watching Contagion.<\/i><\/p>\n Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Above all, coronavirus stirs the sense that everything that is bad today will be worse tomorrow. And the movie that best reflects that reality is not \u201cContagion,\u201d but Steven Spielberg\u2019s \u201cJaws.\u201d https:\/\/t.co\/krT1XndTVy<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 The New Republic (@newrepublic) March 20, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n