Quint (Robert Shaw): Japanese submarine slammed two torpedoes into our side, Chief. We was comin' back from the island of Tinian to Leyte... just delivered the bomb. The Hiroshima bomb. Eleven hundred men went into the water. Vessel went down in twelve minutes. Didn't see the first shark for about a half an hour. Tiger. Thirteen footer. You know, you know that when you're in the water, chief? You tell by lookin' from the dorsal to the tail. Well, we didn't know. 'Cause our bomb mission had been so secret, no distress signal had been sent, huh. They didn't even list us overdue for a week. Very first light, chief. The sharks come cruisin'. So we formed ourselves into tight groups. You know it's... kinda like 'ol squares in battle like uh, you see on a calendar, like the battle of Waterloo. And the idea was, the shark goes to the nearest man and then he'd start poundin' and hollerin' and screamin' and sometimes the shark would go away. Sometimes he wouldn't go away. Sometimes that shark, he looks right into you. Right into your eyes. You know the thing about a shark, he's got... lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll's eye. When he comes at ya, doesn't seem to be livin'. Until he bites ya and those black eyes roll over white. And then, ah then you hear that terrible high pitch screamin' and the ocean turns red and spite of all the poundin' and the hollerin' they all come in and rip you to pieces. Y'know by the end of that first dawn, lost a hundred men! I don't know how many sharks, maybe a thousand! I don't know how many men, they averaged six an hour. On Thursday mornin' chief, I bumped into a friend of mine, Herbie Robinson from Cleveland. Baseball player, Bosun's Mate. I thought he was asleep, reached over to wake him up. Bobbed up and down in the water, just like a kinda top. Up ended. Well... he'd been bitten in half below the waist. Noon the fifth day, Mr. Hooper, a Lockheed Ventura saw us, he swung in low and he saw us. He's a young pilot, a lot younger than Mr. Hooper, anyway he saw us and come in low. And three hours later a big fat PBY comes down and start to pick us up. You know that was the time I was most frightened? Waitin' for my turn. I'll never put on a lifejacket again. So, eleven hundred men went in the water, three hundred and sixteen men come out, the sharks took the rest, June the 29, 1945. Anyway, we delivered the bomb.
I will never forget the first time I saw this scene. I was too young then to truly comprehend all of what Quint says, but the presentation...chilling, haunting, and delivered in a way that truly recognizes why this man does what he does. That, and the aftermath not long after--when Shaw meets his destiny in the same fashion as those who died in those chilly waters decades before his speech--lend this power that ultimately defines the irony in its effect.
Shaw's work here--arguably the best of his career in a part that is so identifiable 40 years after Jaws hit theaters--is a work of art. What he does is, much like the camera itself, draw you in. The words are chilling, but what makes it even more captivating and compelling is how Shaw tells it. It is so pure in its telling, you (or I think you would as I did) believe Shaw is reliving it all as he speaks. It is as if a reel rolls and it all plays out as it happened to him. As if he can hear the screams and see the sharks as they emerge ready to eat.
I think, though, the fate of Shaw only lends extra potency to the story he relives as it recognizes that if you pursue what once stared you right in the face, the second time may not allow you to escape. It doesn't for Quint.
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