Rock musician Bruce Springsteen brought a Jersey Shore grievance to Steven Spielberg’s career celebration at the Museum of Modern Art on November 12: Jaws had made his beloved late-night ocean swims a lot harder to enjoy.
At MoMA and Chanel’s 18th Annual Film Benefit, Springsteen recalled seeing the movie in June 1975, at 25, in a small theater directly across from the Atlantic Ocean. Back then, a hot August night could end with a naked swim after the bars closed, a few drinks and someone he wanted to be with. “There was nothing like after the bars closed, you had a few drinks in you,” he said.
“Steven Spielberg f–ked that up. He f–ked it up good,” Springsteen said.
The complaint came with 30 years of friendship behind it, including trips aboard the director’s boat. “You know the bigger boat that they needed in ‘Jaws’? He’s got that, only much nicer,” he joked.
Springsteen said he’d never seen Spielberg enter the ocean on those trips. Even the boat’s swimming pool apparently offered little temptation. “Steven Spielberg does not go in that f–king pool. I’m not sure I’ve seen him in a bathing suit,” he said.
Springsteen offered his own explanation for the filmmaker’s effect on swimmers: “that very nice man, Steven Spielberg, is scared of the water.”