It is no small thing to say that when someone thinks of movie music, John Williams is probably the first name that comes to mind. Cinephiles and historians know Max Steiner, Bernard Hermann, John Barry and Jerry Goldsmith. But everyone, even the most casual filmgoer, knows John Williams. And even if they don't know his name, it's guaranteed they know his music. Jaws and Star Wars alone stand as two of the most famous, celebrated, and brilliantly composed musical scores in all of film history. John Williams' music is probably better known than the music of Elvis, the Beatles, or Michael Jackson. There's no way to really prove that but chances are pretty good that almost everyone on the planet knows the Star Wars theme and, given the ongoing and unending popularity of those films, chances are that generations from now, people will still be familiar with the theme.
John Williams started out in the movie business playing the piano on some very famous scores, including South Pacific and To Kill a Mockingbird. By the late sixties, he was doing his own composing for the movies and his score for The Rievers caught the attention of a young director by the name of Steven Spielberg. Spielberg bought the soundtrack for The Rievers and, in his own words, wore it out he played it so much. He told himself if he ever got out of television, where he was working at the time, and into theatrical releases, he was going to look this Williams guy up and ask him to be his composer. Also, he thought Williams was a lot older than he was.
During the mid to late sixties, with the advent of song soundtracks on movies like A Hard Day's Night and The Graduate and more pared down scores befitting the new wave of American cinema, like Bonnie and Clyde, full symphonic scores were used less and less. When Spielberg heard the score for The Rievers he assumed the composer must be an old man from the golden age of Hollywood. In fact, Williams was in his thirties and his devotion to full symphonic scores sent Spielberg over the moon. When Spielberg finally got the chance to do a theatrical feature with The Sugarland Express, he contacted Williams and an unequalled career collaboration was born.
Williams would go on to work with Spielberg over 25 times but it was his second outing that was, arguably, the most important. John Williams' score for Jaws is one whose importance cannot be overstated. To say it changed the way people thought about movie scores is to only touch the surface of its importance. Jaws immediately became a recognizable theme on the same level as Bernard Hermann's theme for Psycho, possibly the most important score of them all, and established musical motifs in cinema like never before. After Jaws, Williams outdid himself with one of the most triumphant movie scores ever, Star Wars in 1977. It would be hard to imagine a score so perfectly wedded to its material than Star Wars and it brought full symphonic scores screaming back into popularity.
Over the years, Williams has won numerous awards, including several Oscars while earning 50 nominations, more than anyone in history. Steven Spielberg thinks he knows why. In an AFI Master Class with John Williams, Spielberg told students that all the great composers have styles that can be easily discerned out of context. Bernard Hermann, for instance, Spielberg says, has a style that the listener immediately knows is Hermann. He's great, no doubt, but his style fits into the movies he composed for. Williams, on the other hand, Spielberg says, creates a new style for each movie. He has the familiar bombast for the action adventure movies but for, say, a Schindler's List, he switches gears and goes for something quieter, with more pathos.
There is no doubt that John Williams is one of the most successful composers of all time. As far as awards and box office goes, there is no argument that he is indeed the single most successful movie composer ever. That he would be the first non-actor or non-director to receive the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award is no mystery. There is no other composer more deserving. The only mystery, given that the award was handed out in 2016, is what took them so long?
By Greg Ferrara
