FEATURE:
The Digital Mixtape
The Great John Williams
_________
PERHAPS the…
IN THIS PHOTO: Steven Spielberg and John Williams at Symphony Hall, Boston in 1998/PHOTO CREDIT: Boston Globe/Getty Images
most recognisable and greatest film composers of all time, John Williams is the subject of a new documentary. He is undeniably one of most versatile composers ever. In terms of all the films he has brought to life with his compositions. Still composing to this day, I wanted to recognise his brilliance by compiling a playlist featuring gems from his wonderful scores. Before coming to that playlist, Mark Kermode wrote for The Guardian about the new documentary and John Williams’ impact:
“Now streaming on Disney+ is a new documentary, Music By John Williams, in which the French-American film-maker Laurent Bouzereau (creator of umpteen behind-the-scenes movie docs) interviews the American composer, who has defined the face of modern orchestral movie music. Williams’s recollections, from his earliest days as a hard-practising pianist (he has a background in jazz) to his blockbuster collaborations with film-makers such as Spielberg and George Lucas, are as clear and concise as his earworm theme tunes for Superman (1978), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Star Wars (1977) – the last of which spawned a double-LP soundtrack that became the biggest selling symphonic album of all time.
Williams is undoubtedly the greatest “whistle test” composer of his age – a purveyor of instantly memorable tunes that both capture and breathe life into the movies they accompany. In Bouzereau’s documentary we see archive footage of the late Christopher Reeve (also the subject of a new film in cinemas: Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story) declaring that “I owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to John Williams. Without his music, Superman’s powers are greatly diminished.” Reeve adds that Williams’s score in effect enabled him to fly. Elsewhere, Spielberg confirms the oft-told story that when Williams played him the two-note theme for Jaws (1975) on the piano, “at first I thought he was joking” – only to realise that “his musical shark worked a lot better than my mechanical shark!”. And we hear the violinist Itzhak Perlman sheepishly admit to telling Williams that he would “think about” playing on his 1993 Schindler’s List score, the Oscar-winning strains of which reduced Spielberg and his wife, Kate Capshaw, to tears after just 10 notes.
Born in New York in 1932 and classically trained at the city’s Juilliard School, Williams played in Hollywood studio orchestras for many years – he’s there on hits as diverse as West Side Story and To Kill a Mockingbird – before turning to orchestration and composition. On his early film scores he was credited as “Johnny Williams”, becoming John only when a colleague told him he needed a name that people would take seriously. And how they did; to date, Williams has racked up five Academy Award wins and a whopping 54 nominations, most recently for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) at the age of 91, making him the oldest nominee in any competitive category in the awards’ history.
The range of Williams’s film scores is extraordinary, from the old-school twang of The Reivers (1969) to the experimental edginess of his work with Japanese percussionist and keyboardist Stomu Yamash’ta on Robert Altman’s 1972 psychodrama Images (which Spielberg used as an early temporary soundtrack to Jaws), to the jazzy sounds of Catch Me If You Can (2002). He has also scored disaster movies – The Poseidon Adventure (1972), The Towering Inferno (1974), Earthquake (1974); Hitchcock’s last feature, Family Plot (1976); prime-period Oliver Stone hits Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and JFK (1991); and the first three Harry Potter movies (2001-4)”.
To salute and recognise the magic and genius of John Williams, below are examples of his fine work. From classics through to films you might not know about, his music is timeless. That interaction and relationship between music and film. How a wonderful score can elevate scenes and make a bigger impression that what is on the screen. Here are some incredible pieces of music from a composer and cinematic visionary who…
HAS no equals.