Editor’s Note: Usually I decided to do a post about a horror/thriller or black comedy. But I felt in light of things in my own life and with the country, we really need something everyone can enjoy.
One of the most interesting details in Music by John Williams is how much of a contribution he has made to music on TV and in the movies as well as on the stage in his life time. I was surprised to discover, he had helped out with “The Peter Gunn Theme.” It’s hard to mention a fraction of his accomplishments because it doesn’t do justice to the others.
Yes, he’s known for the Jaws theme, so simple but so terrifying. Or he added a classical music playfulness to Home Alone and its sequel that elevated it above the usual cache of children’s movies being released. And then there is the Oscar-winning score to Schindler’s List with its violin music that while adding a somber and sad old-time feel to it relays the horrors of the Holocaust.
Williams, who is 92, has had a collaboration with Steven Spielberg since the early 1970s. You can’t think of him without the scene of young Elliott with E.T. in a basket flying through the full moon night sky. Or the way everyone looks surprised and excited upon seeing the alien beings in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Then, there’s the excitement he brought to the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchise.
It just seems he has a knack to see a scene or overall movie and know what works. Spielberg says he originally wanted an entirely different music to Jaws but Williams felt that there should be some swashbuckling sea fare joy to the scenes of the Orca as its pursuing the shark. I’ve often thought his score to Born on the Fourth of July is one of his most underrated. People associate him too much with Spielberg, George Lucas or other big-budget popcorn movies.
For a movie that a lot of people probably don’t care for on account of it’s anti-war stance, there’s almost a pro-patriotic cadence to the score as it shows the life of Ron Kovic from All-American boy to Marine in war and then later as he struggles with his own paralysis, alcoholism, guilt and post-stress trauma. Some people might feel Kovic is still a traitor but Williams’ score makes us feel the difficulties Kovic dealt with.
Spielberg jokes that he thought Williams was British and for a long time he was credited as Johnny Williams. But Williams is an American-born citizen. There’s just something about the name John Williams that makes it sound more prestigious than Johnny Williams, which sounds like you belong in a bluegrass or jazz band. Needless to say, Williams himself is also a jazz music fan. Also his male pattern baldness and beard made him look like a British professor at Oxford.
For the most part, the documentary currently streaming on Disney-Plus is really just 105 minutes of filmmakers like Lucas, Spielberg, Ron Howard and Chris Columbus among others talking about how great he is while musicians like Branford Marsalis, Thomas Newman, Alan Silvestri and Yo-Yo-Ma echo the same comments.
It’s a documentary for music and movie lovers as well as movie music lovers. Spielberg says he was worried in the 1970s that movie scores would become a thing of the past as filmmakers used more regular popular music. Needless to say, his friend and collaborator Lucas did just that with American Graffiti, for which Howard, thought was a song-and-dance musical because that’s what originally heard it was. But Lucas used popular music, while Spielberg felt a musical score was more efficient.
Now that I think of it, most of Spielberg’s movies use very little popular music by bands and singers/musicians. It just goes to show how valuable Williams is when he can change how Spielberg of all people wants to tell a story.
What do you think? Please comment.
Zane Says 