Susan Backlinie Helps Make ‘Jaws’ One of the Scariest Movies Ever Made
It isn’t easy to be scared. Well, in real life it is (just check out some of Tyler Doupé’s column to see), but cinematically, fear is difficult to convey. A bad horror performance is like the Wilhelm Scream, just without the irony and sound designer camaraderie. Horror is more than fear, that physical embodiment of whatever threat the characters are facing on-screen, but it starts, and ends, with just that. A good scream, panic, and desperation aren’t easy things for a performer to accomplish well. Think of Leslie Grossman being menaced as Mary Cherry in Ryan Murphy’s Popular, but, again, without the intentional spoofing. There are plenty of strong horror performances out there, but none manage to be quite as effective, and quite as simple, as Susan Backlinie in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.
One Shark’s Massive Impact
Jaws is everything. It’s not just one of the scariest movies ever made. Several outlets have deemed it the greatest movie, regardless of genre, in the history of American cinema. Even cinephiles who aren’t keen on the first-ever blockbuster have to concede its integral role in the development of the American cinematic landscape. Everything we’re seeing today can be traced directly back to Jaws. Moreover, Jaws’ own strengths can be traced to its now iconic opening sequence and the late Susan Backlinie’s strength as both a performer and stuntperson.
Famously, unless you’ve been living on a buoy in New England, Jaws’ succeeds because it withholds the shark. On account of technical difficulties and shifting artistic preferences, the shark isn’t seen in full until 82 minutes into the movie. Prior to that, the toothy terror is alluded to, with Spielberg cleverly making use of subjective camera techniques—augmented by John Williams’ iconic score—to suggest, rather than show, the true scale of the terror targeting Amity Island. For that to work, however, that terror still needs to be realized. Spielberg could withhold his shark, but he couldn’t withhold a shark attack. That’s where Susan Backlinie comes in, cementing Jaws’ legacy in just four minutes.
Who Was Susan Backlinie?
Susan Backlinie had grown up in Florida where she excelled as a competitive swimmer. Fresh out of high school, she performed as a mermaid at Weeki Wachee Springs State Park before moving to California. Her experience with swimming and stunt work (and a strategic photo submission) made her the ideal candidate for Jaws’ opening scene, a scene co-star Richard Dreyfuss found absolutely terrifying when first shown dailies of the shoot.
An evocative opening credits sequence shifts to a beachside bonfire. Backlinie’s Chrissie Watkins meets a cute boy, Cassidy (Jonathan Filley), and soon jets off. “Where are we going?” He shouts after her. “Swimming,” she yells back, giddy (and probably a little buzzed). Now, this was 1974, and I can’t account for how quotidian restrictions on dusk swimming were. I moved from Florida to Maryland at the age of five, though even by then, I knew well enough to stay out of the water as the sun went down.
Jaws, of course, had a much more profound impact. Beyond beaches, no one wanted to swim anywhere when it was first released. My mom and I had a conversation about Backlinie when we heard the news of her passing, and she shared a story from a childhood pool party. She and her friends had all just seen Jaws and had firmly convinced themselves, no matter how impossible the idea was, that a great white shark was hiding just beneath the surface toward the deep end of the pool.
Backlinie’s Big Moment in Jaws
Chrissie Watkins doesn’t possess that kind of mindfulness as she races toward the shore and strips her clothes off. Cassidy can barely keep up (he even trips at one point), as the pair, mostly silhouettes in the setting sun, rush ahead. Chrissie dives in quickly, swimming quite a ways out before urging Cassidy, still on the shore, to “Come on in the water.” He’s had a bit more to drink than she did, so as he frenetically tries to remove his clothes, he wears himself out. One of the final shots before Chrissie’s death is Cassidy, still on the beach, passed out at the coastline.
Chrissie doesn’t know this, and despite her brief appearance, Backlinie imbues her with just enough everyday charm to render her death that much more shocking. Filmic Chrissie is just a young woman, a kind of collective vessel for standard adolescent jubilance and frivolity, and she needs to be. Contrary as it might seem to the ideals of horror characterization, the less specific Chrissie is, the better.
Backlinie puts her past experience to good use, ably treading water and swimming about as Spielberg captures her from beneath the water with his POV shots of something—something big—floating around just beneath her. Sharks are not monsters, but this one absolutely is. Those shots alone, with Chrissie swimming at the top of the frame, something unknown watching from fifteen feet down, remain some of the genre’s most iconographic moments. They’re terrifying in their simplicity, the way they target that enduring fear of being stalked by something bigger, and more violent, than we are.
How Did They Film The Iconic Opening Scene Of Jaws?
Spielberg’s camera approaches Chrissie’s legs. He then cuts to her, bobbing on the surface, before something nips and yanks her. Backlinie’s face does all the work here, and that encroaching realization, the way her eyes tighten and her gaze becomes more focused, is truly sensational stuff. She’s yanked again, her neck snapping back beneath the surface before coming back up, and that’s when her breathing intensifies. Here, Backlinie allows the fear to truly set in.
Strapped to a harness, something beneath the surface starts pulling her along. Backlinie screams, a mix of inaudible yelps and cries of “Oh, God.” Decades later, it remains one of the purest exhibitions of fear ever committed to screen. She is thrashed about, the music intensifies—we cut to Cassidy just snoozing in the sand—and soon, Chrissie grabs hold of a lone buoy, a last-ditch effort to stay afloat. It’s for naught. She’s taken again, brought forward in the frame, her final cries of “Oh, God. Help…” cut off as she’s yanked beneath.
The Scariest Opening In Horror History
Famously, nobody told Susan Backlinie when her harness would pull her underneath the water. While rumors have spread that Chrissie’s anguish is on account of injuries Backlinie sustained in the mechanism, those have been widely debunked. Instead, her first tug came as a surprise. She’d been anchored to a line on the ocean floor, not warned about when she was going to be pulled. Her first moment of fear is organic, a beat of earnest—and frightened—surprise. The rest, however, is all Backlinie.
Everything Jaws does well is conceptualized in those first four minutes, though that would not have been the case had it not been for Backlinie’s performance. One of the scariest movies ever made—perhaps the scariest movie ever made—owes a great debt to Backlinie. The shark helped to sell Jaws, but Backlinie sold us on the shark in the first place.
You can stream Jaws now on Starz. Let me know what the scariest moment in the movie is for you over on Twitter @Chadiscollins.
Categorized:Editorials
