A lot changed after Steven Spielberg released “Jaws” in 1975. Widely considered as the first summer blockbuster, the film revolutionized how Hollywood distributed its big-budget spectacles. But, as Bruce Springsteen laments, the iconic shark thriller killed one of America’s favorite pastimes: skinny dipping.
“One of the great pleasures on the Jersey Shore in 1975 was night swimming, preferably naked with someone you wanted to have sex with,” Springsteen quipped Thursday night at the Museum of Modern Art. “Steven Spielberg fucked that up. He fucked it up good. Over the years, I asked myself, ‘Why would a nice man like that — why would he do that?’”
Springsteen eventually befriended Spielberg. But in their 30 years of friendship, including several trips aboard Spielberg’s boat, Springsteen seemed perturbed that he’d never seen the “Jaws” director set foot in the water.
“You know the bigger boat that they needed in ‘Jaws’? He’s got that, only much nicer,” Springsteen said. “Now, that boat is surrounded by the ocean. That’s a lot of water. I’ve been on that boat, and I can tell you, Steven Spielberg does not go in that water. You see, this boat is so fucking big, it has a pool on it. Steven Spielberg does not go in that fucking pool. I’m not sure I’ve seen him in a bathing suit. But the reason night swimming is fucked — not just on the Jersey Shore, but every fucking place in the world — is because that very nice man, Steven Spielberg, is scared of the water.”
Springsteen capped off a cavalcade of industry titans who took the stage at MoMA and Chanel’s 18th Annual Film Benefit, honoring Spielberg’s decades-spanning career. Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Martin Scorsese, Cate Blanchett, Drew Barrymore, Steve Martin and Stephen Colbert were among the Hollywood legends in attendance to celebrate the director, who humbly described the evening as “a family affair.”
“Everybody who’s coming tonight, I mean, they’re all close friends,” Spielberg told Variety on the red carpet. “We all started at one point or another. Either I hire them to be in my movie, or they enlisted me to direct them in something else. And so this is really a family affair for me. There’s nobody attending tonight who I don’t know and love.”
Opening remarks came from Cruise, who starred in Spielberg’s “Minority Report” (2002) and “War of the Worlds” (2005). His appearance was a last-minute surprise, even to Spielberg himself.
“I’m very grateful for the moments we’ve shared personally. Since I was a young man, you were always very generous with me,” Cruise said. “It’s been an absolute privilege to make two films with you.”
Scorsese spent his speech marveling at the longevity of their careers, closing with a question for his longtime friend: “How did we get to be in our 80s?” After guests dined on American Wagyu, a scene from “Disclosure Day” played in which Blunt’s character unwittingly taps into her newfound mind-reading ability to dodge a speeding ticket. After taking the stage, she walked the audience through what it’s like to experience Spielberg’s infectious wonder after capturing a take he liked.
“You’ll see him coming right out of the tent with his fists in the air and he’s cheering,” Blunt said. “It’s like the best damn moment of your career.”
“Disclosure Day,” which saw Spielberg revisit his fascination with alien life nearly 50 years after “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” grossed a modest $248 million worldwide this summer. Though the director has previously teased that he’s developing a “kick-ass” Western, he played coy about whether it would be his next project.
“I’ve got a lot of things in development right now,” he told Variety. “I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to make next.”
Thanks to Spielberg and his famous friends, the MoMA’s 18th Annual Film Benefit raised the most money in the entire history of the event, which helps the museum acquire and restore classic films for future generations. Chanel has backed the annual benefit since 2011 and served as MoMA’s lead film sponsor since 2021.
Previous MoMA Film Benefit honorees include Sofia Coppola, Samuel L. Jackson, Guillermo del Toro, Penélope Cruz, George Clooney, Laura Dern, Martin Scorsese, Julianne Moore, Tom Hanks, Cate Blanchett, Alfonso Cuarón, Tilda Swinton, Quentin Tarantino, Pedro Almodóvar, Kathryn Bigelow, Tim Burton and Baz Luhrmann.
