スピルバーグ監督の作品で一番好きなのは，「ジョーズ」です。小学生のときに映画館で観ました。あまりの衝撃に，水につかることさえ怖くなり，しばらくは湯船にも入れなかったのを覚えています。
The movie I love best among the ones directed by Steven Spielberg is “Jaws”. I saw it in a movie theatre when I was an elementary school boy. I was so shocked that I was afraid of even bathing and couldn’t get into the bathtub for a while.
70年代は，動物パニック映画の全盛期だったように思います。ルーツをたどれば，ヒッチコックの「鳥」（1963年）あたりになるのでしょうか。ちょっと思い浮かべるだけで，巨大な人食いグマが登場する「グリズリー」，シャチによる人間への復讐劇を描く「オルカ」，巨大化した蟻が襲ってくる「巨大蟻の帝国」など，次々と浮かんできます。中には子供心に駄作では，と思うものもあり，ともすればＢ級感あふれる動物映画の中で，ジョーズだけは別格でした。
In the 70’s, thriller films featuring animals were in their golden age. If I check this genre back to its roots, perhaps I found the movie “The Birds”, directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1963, the first one. I can enumerate soon such movies as “Grizzly” about a huge man- eating bear, “Orca” which depicts a revenge drama of a grampus on humans, “Empire of the Ants” featuring gigantic, man-attacking Ants, and so on. Some of them were trash even for children and most of them were full of a sense of B-grade, but only this “Jaws” was something special for me.
動物パニック映画に見られる共通項として，一部の人間，特に権力者の欲得や利権によって，防げる被害が防げず，むしろ事態を悪化させるという設定が多いようです。ジョーズでは，美しい海水浴場を売りとするアミティ島において，観光イメージを優先し，風評被害を防ごうと右往左往し，いたずらに被害を拡大させる市長をはじめとした大人たちの姿が描かれます。そこでかき立てられるもどかしさは，当時の若者の価値観形成に，大きな影響があったのではないでしょうか。恐怖心のあおり方とあわせて，こうした人間描写の上手さが，スピルバーグ映画の特徴のように思います。もちろん，登場人物の味付けも最高に魅力的で，ロイ・シャイダー，リチャード・ドレイファスなどの演技に心躍らせたものでした。
今観ても十分に面白く，色あせない魅力を感じます。やはりすごい映画だと思います。
Something common among thriller films featuring animals is a situation that some people, especially influential ones, give priority to their own interests or profits so they can’t avoid damages which is avoidable and the situation grows more serious. In “Jaws”, which takes place on an island with a beautiful swimming beach called Amity, the mayor and some people try to give priority to the good image as a tourist spot and try to avoid the damage caused by rumors, then eventually they can’t make right decisions and make bad things even worse. At that time, in my opinion, the feeling of impatience of the situation shown in this movie might have affected young people in their forming a sense of values. With the way of stirring up people’s fear, the skill in depicting how people act in some situations is the characteristic of Spielberg's movies. The characters are also very attractive, of course, and I was excited with the performances of Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss.
Even now, this movie is so thrilling that I feel its attractiveness never fades. I think this movie is really great.
