Definitely makes Benchley seem like the better person. It's heartening to see how kind he was in return, and how he went out of his way to praise Spielberg's own work, despite the public scorn for his. Spielberg never managed to do that in his own apology (say anything nice about Benchley's work), although at least he had the decency to feel bad about what he'd said.
Here’s some more context courtesy of Joseph McBride’s biography of Spielberg:
Further tension arose when Benchley visited the location. Spielberg asked him to play a TV reporter broadcasting a report from the beach about shark attacks. As it happened, the day Benchley arrived on Martha’s Vineyard was the day the Newsweek article hit the stands with Spielberg’s bad-mouthing of the novel. When Benchley stepped off the plane at the local airport, he was met by unit publicist Al Ebner and Los Angeles Times reporter Gregg Kilday, who was there to do a feature on the filming. As Benchley recalls, Kilday announced: “Spielberg says your book is a piece of shit.”
“You must understand,” Benchley shot back to the reporter, “there has never been a question of controversy. I understood what they had to take out. When I finished my version of the screenplay, Brown said it was wonderful. Zanuck said it was OK. Spielberg didn’t say anything. After Howard Sackler did his rewrite, I sent an angry letter to David Brown. I accused one of the characters, the oceanographer [Hooper], of being an insufferable, pedantic little schmuck. I think Spielberg took it to mean him. [Benchley laughed.] But that is not what the letter said.” “Spielberg needs to work on character. He knows, flatly, zero. Consider: He is a twenty-six-year-old [actually twenty-seven] who grew up with movies. He has no knowledge of reality but the movies. He is B-movie literate. When he must make decisions about the small ways people behave, he reaches for movie clichés of the forties and fifties.”
Recalling that outburst twenty years later, Benchley said, “In the great catalogue of stupid things one says in life, that ranks high on the list. It was an extremely unfortunate bit of anger. We had both been manipulated by the press. We were both extremely naive. I regretted my petulant response immediately and I tried to take it back [Kilday reported both versions in his July 7 article]. Universal was getting upset we were pissing all over each other in public. They said, ‘Please stop this.’ After that, the two of us got together and told each other we were really sorry. In a way, my remark was a cleansing.”
Spielberg claimed Newsweek had misrepresented his comments. He explained to Benchley that what he really felt was, “The book is not a good book as a film.” Benchley took that convoluted statement to mean: “You couldn’t just shoot the book.” Nevertheless, Benchley laments, “Steven had an unfortunate tendency to denigrate the book in public.” Three months before Jaws was released, the film magazine Millimeter published an interview Spielberg had given on Martha’s Vineyard. This time the director was quoted as saying, “If we don’t succeed in making this picture better than the book, we’re in real trouble.”
A time when people were capable of apologies...
Definitely makes Benchley seem like the better person. It's heartening to see how kind he was in return, and how he went out of his way to praise Spielberg's own work, despite the public scorn for his. Spielberg never managed to do that in his own apology (say anything nice about Benchley's work), although at least he had the decency to feel bad about what he'd said.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing
Here’s some more context courtesy of Joseph McBride’s biography of Spielberg:
Further tension arose when Benchley visited the location. Spielberg asked him to play a TV reporter broadcasting a report from the beach about shark attacks. As it happened, the day Benchley arrived on Martha’s Vineyard was the day the Newsweek article hit the stands with Spielberg’s bad-mouthing of the novel. When Benchley stepped off the plane at the local airport, he was met by unit publicist Al Ebner and Los Angeles Times reporter Gregg Kilday, who was there to do a feature on the filming. As Benchley recalls, Kilday announced: “Spielberg says your book is a piece of shit.”
“You must understand,” Benchley shot back to the reporter, “there has never been a question of controversy. I understood what they had to take out. When I finished my version of the screenplay, Brown said it was wonderful. Zanuck said it was OK. Spielberg didn’t say anything. After Howard Sackler did his rewrite, I sent an angry letter to David Brown. I accused one of the characters, the oceanographer [Hooper], of being an insufferable, pedantic little schmuck. I think Spielberg took it to mean him. [Benchley laughed.] But that is not what the letter said.” “Spielberg needs to work on character. He knows, flatly, zero. Consider: He is a twenty-six-year-old [actually twenty-seven] who grew up with movies. He has no knowledge of reality but the movies. He is B-movie literate. When he must make decisions about the small ways people behave, he reaches for movie clichés of the forties and fifties.”
Recalling that outburst twenty years later, Benchley said, “In the great catalogue of stupid things one says in life, that ranks high on the list. It was an extremely unfortunate bit of anger. We had both been manipulated by the press. We were both extremely naive. I regretted my petulant response immediately and I tried to take it back [Kilday reported both versions in his July 7 article]. Universal was getting upset we were pissing all over each other in public. They said, ‘Please stop this.’ After that, the two of us got together and told each other we were really sorry. In a way, my remark was a cleansing.”
Spielberg claimed Newsweek had misrepresented his comments. He explained to Benchley that what he really felt was, “The book is not a good book as a film.” Benchley took that convoluted statement to mean: “You couldn’t just shoot the book.” Nevertheless, Benchley laments, “Steven had an unfortunate tendency to denigrate the book in public.” Three months before Jaws was released, the film magazine Millimeter published an interview Spielberg had given on Martha’s Vineyard. This time the director was quoted as saying, “If we don’t succeed in making this picture better than the book, we’re in real trouble.”
Benchley's reply left me chuckling.