I’ve previously waxed poetic about my love for film music scores. As a word girl, the great scores take my breath away with how I’ll viscerally react, “YES, that is the exact feeling for this moment!” Even when I cannot name the emotion yet myself. An undisputed legend in the field is composer John Williams. You may or may not know him by name, but you absolutely know his work. He shaped the sound of the Harry Potter movies with “Hedwig’s Theme.” He marshalled in “The Imperial March” to help us easily identify a villain in a galaxy far, far away. And he bestowed an elusive predator with arguably the most terrifying two notes in movie music history.
At 93, Williams has earned the honor of being the most nominated Oscar recipient alive, with 54 nominations and five wins under his belt. (The 1978 ceremony was a particularly good year, when he beat out his own score for Close Encounters of the Third Kind to win for his Star Wars score.) Surely he must feel proud, having left such a vast and indelible mark on his craft and for audiences around the world, yes? Turns out no! Author Tim Greiving interviewed Williams extensively for an upcoming biography, and Williams was quite blunt: “I never liked film music very much.”
He doesn’t like it AND it’s not good! “Film music, however good it can be – and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there … I just think the music isn’t there. That, what we think of as this precious great film music is … we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way … Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think.” He added: “A lot of [film music] is ephemeral. It’s certainly fragmentary and, until somebody reconstructs it, it isn’t anything that we can even consider as a concert piece.”
The biographer was shocked: “His comments are sort of shocking, and they are not false modesty. He is genuinely self-deprecating, and deprecating of ‘film music’ in general. … He has this internalised prejudice against film music. It’s a functional type of music, which is funny because I consider his film music to be kind of sublime art at its best. That’s not modesty. He’s just saying it’s a lesser art form. Typically that is true, though. It is written much quicker and much more economically. But I do think his music defies that. He perfected the art of film scoring. He took it to its greatest heights. He elevated film music to a high art form.”
Film music was ‘a job to do’: “If I had it all to do over again, I would have made a cleaner job of it – of having the film music and the concert music all being more me, whatever that is, or more unified in some way. But none of it ever happened that way. The film thing was a job to do, or an opportunity to accept.”
Singing praises for Spielberg: With Spielberg, he has had a “very special collaboration”, he said. “He’s more … musically educated than most of the directors that I’ve worked with. He grew up with his mother who played … Clementi and Bach and Chopin and so on. And she took him to concerts … He played a little clarinet. And he is very musical.”
Don’t worry, he’s worked in music genres he actually likes: Away from film, Williams has composed dozens of concerti, fanfare and other concert works. He was music director of the Boston Pops for more than a decade, inspiring countless children to pursue a career in the orchestra and winning the respect of the classical community worldwide, Grieving said.
Man, human beings are just wild. How many Antonio Salieris must be out there only wishing they had a grace note of the talent John Williams has. Meanwhile the man himself is like, “Eh, it’s a living.” I wonder if the high brow vs low brow thinking is especially prevalent for composers, given that training is so steeped in classical music. Just a thought. I rewatched Jaws recently (in honor of my friend escaping a shark sighting on his own July 4th beach venture), and the score really is exceptional. Not only in the music Williams composed, but also in where he knew not to add any soundtrack, that the quiet of real life was chilling enough as is. Jaws was one of his five Oscar wins, along with the aforementioned Star Wars, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Schindler’s List, and then I was surprised by this: his first win was in 1972 for Fiddler on the Roof, back when the category included adapted scores. L’chaim!
Joe Sutter, PacificCoastNews/Avalon, Getty
There is a podcast about music called Strong Songs and I highly recommend the episode “John Williams’ Star Wars Legacy.” It’s about 90 minutes long (the last 30 min of the episode shifts to a discussion of jazz musician Charles Mingus) and it’s “music geeky” without needing you to be a musician yourself to enjoy.
Sorry. I have to disagree with John Williams. I went to a concert featuring only his film scores and all of us in the audience were able to vividly SEE, in our minds’ eye, the action scored by the music. It was that powerful.
Not a lesser art form; a different art form. Both worthy of note (heh) and enjoyment.
I do get why he self-flagellates. Fragmented is the right word, unlike say a symphony. Film music will always be in the background even when done well.
The music of Ennio Morricone is close to breaking that background music criticism.
Mmmm … yeah. That’s why I’m thankful for movie soundtracks. I can sit back and listen to the whole thing, no fragments. lol
I am a John Williams super fan. He wrote the theme music for my life. E.T., Superman, Indiana Jones, the Olympic theme music, Chariots of Fire, Schindler’s List, of course Star Wars and Harry Potter, it goes on and on. His influence on cinema can’t be overstated.
Other iconic film scores Williams did: the original Superman movies and the Raiders of the Lost Ark series. I also disagree with him. His film music is still being used today. They evoke memories of great films but also wonder, adventure, and hope. I adore John Williams. Disagree with him but still a fan.
Have you listened to the theme of “Catch me if you can”? That he so effortlessly transitions between genres is fascinating to me. One of my favorite movie scores of his is Jurassic Park. I would listen to the soundtrack on repeat for days. But, outside of films, he gave us the 1984 Olympics fanfare (another fav!), many iconic NBC themes (he was busy with NBC in the ’80s), and look up his concertos when you have time.
I am so aware of his body of work compared to his age… I will be grieving when he passes on to the next life. He is a true national treasure.
Kismet brought up a good point. Musicians are so trained in classical some of them kind of look down on other/“easier” to perform types of music. My daughter plays violin and she plays all kinds of music beautifully, but there’s a snobbery there when she plays something modern. I’m shocked to hear John Williams say this, his film scores play a huge roll in the soundtrack of my life. I wonder how he feels about pop music since his son is a member of Toto.
When I read this in the Guardian, I was a bit disappointed, but at the same time I get what John Williams is trying to say. These pieces are commissioned, the composers are not creatively free to do what they want to do, they are constrained by e.g. having to frame dialogue while keeping an eye on the length of a scene.
But he’s still one of my favourite scorers of films — if he wants to retain the right to be called composer for works he wants to put out there.
One of my favourite pieces of film music by John Williams, apart from the usual suspects, is “Incident at Isla Nublar” from Jurassic Park, slightly menacing and with a foreboding of things to come.
Agreeing with you. To expand a bit: in the past, composers had patrons who commissioned works. Or they compose “for the glory of God”. Still working within a framework. Perhaps not quite as strictly as with a film, but still a framework.
Bottom line, composers of old produced master pieces that were commissioned and for a set purpose; John Williams and his peers did likewise. We get to enjoy. Yay!
He is a master! It makes me kind of sad that he doesn’t seem to realize how special his talent is.
Like any master I think he sees the pursuit in perfection. I think he underestimates the impact his music has had on so many people because there is so much nostalgia now in his life’s work. But I suspect he sees continuous improvement with each one.
I think part of the problem is that he raised the visibility and importance of leitmotifs* in film scores. Because film chops up the action, and the music must be timed to the film, it can restrict the composer from building up to a fuller, freer movement. The restrictions imposed on a composer for a film score do not permit full creativity. Whenever you think of classic John Williams scores, the leitmotif is usually the 4-8 bar melody that comes to mind. For a composer, i think being revered for his film scores would be akin to a 3-star Michelin chef being recognized mainly for his amuse-bouches.
*leitmotif – a musical theme or melody associated to a specific character, idea, or situation that is reused throughout the media to provide an audible reminder to the audience about what is happening visually or coax the audience into a particular emotional state
I think that’s a good analogy. There’s some artistic insecurity in Williams and the regrets are there. But perhaps he should also embrace what his music means to people. He’s popular for a very good reason, but whether he wants deeper interpretation to his music is another.
I think some film scores are at the level of classical music. Howard Shore’s compositions for the LOTR films come to mind.
We went to a concert in the spring, Star Wars versus Star Trek. It was sold out and was a fantastic concert. My daughter did a mini enrichment course in high school, music at the movies. I find it sad to hear him disparage this field because it is creative and impactful as he himself has proven
Disney has a documentary on John Williams called “Music by John Williams”. It’s very interesting. He talks about his childhood, how he got into music, etc.
I was going to mention this special. It was fascinating! I loved hearing him share all of his stories on creating his iconic music and hearing about his life! A must watch!
I wonder if some of his mindset is due to struggling with a major imbalance that he can’t help but realize. There is no other orchestral composer in world history whose music has been as widely disseminated, heard by as many other people and as downright *lucrative* as his. He is without a doubt in my mind the best-compensated composer ever. (I am not counting Paul McCartney as a *pure* composer here, but even then, I think it would be a close battle). That’s got to feel a little weird when you’ve been trained in the tradition of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and many others who had to struggle financially while creating the classical music canon – meanwhile, you’re writing music for the battle of the Ewoks and making big money.
I’m thinking along the same lines.
The Home Alone song!
John Williams is a genius. Maybe once in a lifetime talent. Where would those movies have been without the scores that define them and complete them. They wouldn’t have been the same or maybe as memorable. They flesh the movie out. The themes are stand alone.
I don’t understand what he’s saying… it doesn’t make sense, on its own terms. Film music is incidental music; is he saying incidental music is bad? Because Tchaikovsky and Mendelssohn would like to have a word. And it’s not “concert-worthy”, unless it’s reconstructed? Well, he’s directed plenty of concerts of his own film music, so, that doesn’t seem to be a real obstacle/objection.
He’s written plenty of the other kind of music (not-for-film), but people don’t listen to that. Maybe that’s his hangup.