On Location peels again the curtain on a few of your favourite movies, tv exhibits, and extra.
There are locations that lean into their film lore—and then there may be Martha’s Vineyard. On this sleepy New England island crammed with cedar shingle homes, working harbors and coastal allure, the legacy of Jaws feels much less like a Hollywood movie set and extra like one thing you possibly can nonetheless step into. When Steven Spielberg arrived over fifty years in the past to shoot the now-classic movie, he barely needed to do something by the use of set dressing—he merely needed to seize Martha’s Vineyard because it was as a way to painting the fictional Amity Island.
Today, the movie nonetheless looms giant in our collective creativeness, shaping how the world views this island. Jaws obsessives nonetheless present up each summer season, shark-obsessed and camera-ready, and they’re handled to one in every of the most genuine corners of New England, the place the line between movie and actual life feels delightfully blurred. Kids nonetheless leap off the identical bridge. Fishermen nonetheless set sail from Menemsha Harbor earlier than daybreak. And beachgoers nonetheless preserve a cautious eye on the surf, simply in case a fin ought to emerge.
What’s putting is that the locals nonetheless have a good time Jaws, too. As against different locations round the world which have extra of an arm’s size, sophisticated relationship with how Hollywood has portrayed them, Vineyarders are likely to have a loving relationship with Jaws. The movie has endured for over half a century due to its genuine, loving depiction of this island.
The magic is which you could choose in or out of experiencing Martha’s Vineyard by means of the lens of Jaws. You can go to the most iconic Jaws filming places (which we’ve gathered right here, beneath) or you possibly can merely expertise the island for what it’s at all times been: a spot of quiet rhythms, salt air and rustic magnificence that lengthy predates Hollywood’s digicam.
Edgartown—or, “Amity”
Start in Edgartown, the polished harbor village that doubled as Amity’s city middle. Here you’ll discover whitewashed captain’s houses the place summer season renters get pleasure from cocktails on their patios, and ice cream retailers that mainlanders fantasize about visiting all 12 months spherical. It’s additionally house to Faraway Martha’s Vineyard, one in every of the greatest resorts on the island. Wander down Main Street, go by Edgartown Town Hall and you’re principally exploring a film set—nearly nothing has modified since Jaws filmed right here.