10 Genius Edits That Totally Saved Movies
9. The Shark's Presence Was Minimised - Jaws
Much has been written about the troubled production of Steven Spielberg's Jaws, which saw the now-legendary filmmaker effectively spin a series of on-set gaffes into pure blockbuster gold.
Though it's well-known that Spielberg took the production's malfunctioning shark props as an opportunity to only show the movie's toothed antagonist infrequently, this was an idea further iterated upon by his editor, Verna Fields.
Fields, who won a Best Film Editing Oscar for her exemplary work on Jaws, was the one who suggested to Spielberg that he hide the shark in only the quickest, most fleeting cuts, in order to avoid over-exposing the prop and revealing how laughably fake it looked.
The result was anxiety-inducing cinematic alchemy, and some 45 years after the film's release, Jaws remains the blueprint for wringing maximum suspense out of a minimalist presentation.