John Williams
Travers Jacobs
Music by John Williams, the documentary that is now airing on Disney+ after premiering at AFI Fest in October, is a love letter to the world’s famous living composer. But, quite frankly — what’s not to love?
The five-time Oscar winner and probably the only film composer that most people can name has scored dozens of movies, many of whose themes are embedded in our collective consciousness, whether it be the two-note refrain to Jaws that instantly causes heart-pounding anxiety, the five-note theme to Close Encounters of the Third Kind that conjures images of alien life — or, of course, the bombastic opening fanfare to Star Wars that ushered fans into the kind of movie-going experience they had never witnessed before. “It’s the most famous anthem in music history,” filmmaker James Mangold says.
“The music comes from the sky and envelopes him. It’s the purest form of art I’ve experienced from any human being,” says director Steven Spielberg of the 92-year old’s prowess. The two have worked together continuously, starting with Spielberg’s first theatrical release, The Sugarland Express in 1974.
As Coldplay’s Chris Martin simply sums, “Nobody has a worse day from hearing some of this music.”
As the documentary notes, before Williams started composing classic scores, he played piano on some of the most recognized television and movie themes, including Henry Mancini’s Peter Gunn theme and the child-like, magical opening theme for To Kill a Mockingbird by Elmer Bernstein.
The film, directed by Laurent Bouzereau, is produced by Spielberg, as well as Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. And while it’s easy to wish it had a little more teeth — has Williams ever disagreed with a director or a studio? (The only mention is that George Lucas asked him to rewrite a cue for one of the Star Wars films and he said “sure.”) Was there a film that he could not get a grasp on or a director that he couldn’t relate to? Is there a score that he doesn’t like? Maybe his career has simply gone that smoothly. Regardless, it’s a career that deserves to be celebrated.
Here are six facts we learned watching the new documentary.
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Williams and Spielberg are BFFs
The affection and love between John Williams and Steven Spielberg (whom Williams calls “sweetie”) are palpable and the footage of them together is a highlight of the doc, but they also have fun busting on each other. After watching a rough cut of Schindler’s List, Williams was speechless and turned to Spielberg and said, “This is a great, great film and you need a better composer to do the score.” Spielberg looked at him and said, “I know, but they are all dead.” Williams has composed the music for all but a handful of Spielberg’s movies over the last 50 years, and most recently scored 2023’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Williams simply says, “Meeting Steven Spielberg was the luckiest day of my life.”
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A Tragedy Changed Williams’ Life and Career
As Williams’ career was flourishing in the early ‘70s and he and his wife (an actress named Barbara) and their three teenage children were living in Los Angeles, tragedy struck when his wife died suddenly at 41 of an aneurysm. He was left to raise their three children (one of whom, Jenny, is interviewed for the documentary). He remarried in 1980, but it’s clear the death still haunts him — and his friends observe that her death added a depth to his composing, as one director suggests he went from a “journeyman to an artist,” and her spirit continues to guide him today.
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Itzhak Perlman’s Request
The world’s foremost violinist Itzhak Perlman plays on the score for 1993’s Schindler’s List and notes, “I can go all over the world, and the only thing that people ask specifically from me is, ‘Can you play ‘The Theme to Schindler’s List?’” And it’s no wonder. The theme is one of the most beautiful, delicate pieces of film music ever composed. The score to the movie about Oscar Schindler and his effort to save Jews in the Holocaust deservedly earned Williams his fifth Oscar — best original score at the 1994 Academy Awards.
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Chris Martin Hearts E.T.
Coldplay’s Chris Martin is a frequent talking head in the film, and his love for Williams goes back to his childhood, when E.T. was the first film he ever saw in a movie theater. He loved the main theme so much that he wrote Williams and Spielberg to ask if Coldplay could use the E.T. flying theme as their walk-on music for a recent tour. “It’s the feeling of flight and lift,” he says, the expression on Martin’s face clearly transporting him back to his childhood. Similarly, outgoing Los Angeles Philharmonic conductor Gustavo Dudamel has a likeminded feel about Jurassic Park: He says the main theme made him want to be a musician, and he saw the movie growing up in Venezuela at least 10 times. Everybody remembers their first Williams score.
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Williams Is His Own Worst Critic
Incredulously, but endearingly, Williams says he doesn’t really like any of his scores all the way through. He admits to liking certain themes, like Yoda’s theme in Star Wars and parts of E.T. , but he’s hard-pressed to come up with a score he likes from start to finish. Makes you wonder if he’s hearing the same thing we are.
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Williams and the Art of the Orchestral Score
In the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, orchestral scores were being replaced by songs — think 1967’s The Graduate, which is filled with Simon & Garfunkel tunes, or 1969’s Easy Rider, which contained songs by Steppenwolf, The Byrds, Jimi Hendrix and other rock fixtures. But Williams continued to operate in the tradition of the great composers who came before him, like Jerry Goldsmith or Elmer Bernstein, keeping the orchestral score alive. And now he’s doing it again: As the film points out, at a time when many composers have moved from orchestras to electronic scores for both ease and economics, Williams continues to write for (and record with) a full orchestra — and, in some ways, is keeping orchestral music alive through his film and classical scores.