As a life long fanatic about film scores, the beautiful new documentary, MUSIC BY JOHN WILLIAMS hit every perfect note with me. Funny, insightful and informative, it's a crash course in an art that may soon be lost.
Starting with his early days as a young jazz band pianist, it's fascinating to watch a young "Johnny" Williams follow in his parents footsteps and how they inform and encourage his path.
At 92 years of age, Williams tells his story on camera with a self effacing humor and a constant base of "I was in the right place at the right time" attitude that's humble & sincere.
I loved all the insight into his early TV days (that new theme for "Lost in Space" was stuck in my young brain the moment I heard it) and how that morphed into opportunities in film.
His meeting with Steven Spielberg to score the young director's first studio film, "The Sugarland Express" in 1974 served up a collaboration that is 50 years strong. I never knew that Williams was on the fence to score Spielberg's debut or "A Bridge Too Far", a job that John Addison eventually took. Thank heavens John chose Steven!
Spielberg is a constant presence in the film, bouncing stories back to back with Williams in a way that only true friends can.
The film devotes nice chunks of running time to the pivotal scores that made Williams the film music maestro. "Jaws", "ET", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind","Raiders of the Lost Ark" and alongside an appreciative George Lucas, "Star Wars".
As a film music nerd, I also loved the references to scores like "The Poseidon Adventure", "The Towering Inferno" and his brilliant, jazz infused music for "Catch Me If You Can". "Empire of the Sun" has always been one of favorite Spielberg/Williams collaborations. He even highlights a music piece called "The Land Rush" from Ron Howard & Tom Cruise's "Far and Away", one of the all-time great pieces of thrilling, building film music that's been a personal favorite since the film's release.
Footage from the release of "Jurassic Park" in theaters really takes you back as well.
Spielberg shared his own home movies with documentary filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau, revealing plenty of never before seen footage of their discovery and recording sessions.
Bouzereau (Faye, Five Came Back) has been creating incredible behind-the-scenes docs about movies since the early days of Laserdiscs, where his Making-Of Docs were the highlights of many collectable discs for movie lovers. Yes, I still have them!
Look at 1993. Williams wrote two scores for Spielberg that year. His "Jurassic Park" score that stands alongside the CGI breakthrough dinosaurs as the reason the film became a landmark, and "Schindler's List" for which he created one of the most moving, gut wrenching emotional scores ever written.
The range of those two scores side by side, in the same year, is a testament to the composer's genius.
As much as I love the electronic driven scores of Hans Zimmer and his modern brethren, there is nothing like the impact of John Williams and his hand written scores & orchestrations for a full orchestra. Think back to sitting in a darkened theater and hearing the massive PUNCH of the opening notes of the "Star Wars" main title, or Williams soaring score tearing into you as Elliott and ET rode that bike across the moon. Remember seeing Indiana Jones running from the temple in the opening of "Raiders" or the Mothership in "Close Encounters" lifting up into the sky as that full orchestra exploded in your ears? Williams again.
He still writes his full scores by hand, on sheet music for all his films. He has created most of the memorable character themes of the past five decades, one note at a time with pencil to blank page.
Williams shares the story of talking to Spielberg moments after his first viewing of "Schindler's List" and saying, "Steven, I'm not good enough to write the music for this film, it's a masterpiece. You need someone better."
To which Spielberg replied, "I know...but they're all dead!"
Let's hope the true art of full orchestra, live performance film music doesn't pass with this 92 year old genius.
Darken your room, turn up your best sound system and revel in the film music of John Williams.
MUSIC BY JOHN WILLIAMS is as good as it gets, wrapping itself around your movie memories and soaring to a perfect A+.
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