A Farewell To John Williams, The Maestro Of The Movies

Forbes Lifestyle Arts A Farewell To John Williams, The Maestro Of The Movies Darryn King Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. Coverage and contemplation of art, design, tech, and pop culture. Following Jul 31, 2023, 06:45pm EDT | Press play to listen to this article! Got it! Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 14: John Williams performs onstage during the Indiana Jones and the .

. . [+] Dial of Destiny U.

S. Premiere at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on June 14, 2023. (Photo by Jesse Grant/Getty Images for Disney) Getty Images for Disney On June 30, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” opened in theaters.

The fifth and final Indiana Jones adventure featured a new score by legendary film composer John Williams. With Williams signaling his readiness for retirement from film scoring, there’s reason to believe it may be his final film score. For the occasion, Mike Matessino, one of the foremost experts in the music of John Williams, who has produced numerous Williams soundtrack albums over the years, reflected on the composer’s extraordinary career.

Mike, how would you sum up the significance and the legacy of the Spielberg-Williams collaboration? Mike: There is really nothing to which one can compare the 50+ year collaboration of John Williams and Steven Spielberg. Any relationship that lasts that long must have trust at its core. But one thing I think it speaks to is that Steven Spielberg has never wavered on his love of film music and his feelings about how important he considers music to be to the art of cinema.

If we consider everything that goes into the making of the movie, then when Mr. Spielberg says that going to the scoring sessions is the one thing he looks forward to the most, then that means a lot. From the outside looking in, what it means to the rest of us is that we have been given a tremendous gift of stories that inspired great music which can then inspire all of us.

It’s mind-blowing to consider that basically no one under the age of 50 has experienced a world without Steven Spielberg and John Williams working together, with said world being richer and sometimes more tolerable because of it. What are your thoughts on “How to Steal a Million” — often cited as a highlight of Williams’ ‘60s work? Mike: If one looks at the earliest feature films John Williams scored, you see some fairly prominent director names that today are mostly known only among cinephiles — Frank Tashlin, Andrew McLaglen — and then Frank Sinatra, for whom John scored the only movie the actor/singer directed, “None But the Brave. ” But then comes “How to Steal a Million” and three-time Oscar winner William Wyler.

So this is the first project for a truly A-list director, and it remains, I think, the most sophisticated of the comedies that John Williams scored during that important period where he was based at 20th Century-Fox Studios. MORE FOR YOU Apple Leaks Detail All-New iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro Design Changes Apple iPhone 15 Pro New Leak Reveals Awesome Updates In Definitive Report WWE NXT Great American Bash Results: Winners And Grades On July 30, 2023 I once asked Ian Fraser, who worked with Williams on “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” a couple years later, if had any sense on that project of just how great a composer Williams would become, and he said, “I knew it when I went to the sessions for ‘How to Steal a Million,’” as Fraser was at 20th at that time working on ‘Doctor Dolittle.

’ The “Million” score is a mixture of comedic elements and some terrific half-tongue-in-cheek suspense writing that showed just how versatile John Williams could be. It’s also significant in that it is the first time he was given the opportunity to completely re-record music from the film for his own soundtrack album, so it really was a significant career milestone. Williams has also been quoted as saying that “Jane Eyre” is one of his favorite scores of his own.

Mike: “Jane Eyre” is a delight. I think John was really starting to feel at home in England during this period, having done “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” and then “Fiddler on the Roof,” with “Jane Eyre” scoring in the middle of the latter project.

So the composer’s penchant for “English-ness” really comes out (which we really wouldn’t hear again until the Harry Potter scores) and there was an additional level of comfort in that it was his third project with director Delbert Mann. There is some fantastic period instrumentation in the piece, and then you also have suspenseful music along with some sweeping melodies that certainly make it one of the finest scores ever done for television, absolutely deserving of the Emmy award John received for it. Williams has said that, if he composed for the concert hall rather than for the cineplex, his music would be more like his score for Robert Altman’s “Images.

” Mike: “Images” allowed John Williams to continue working in London following “Goodbye, Mr. Chips,” “Fiddler on the Roof” and “Jane Eyre,” but it was as far removed as one could get from those works – as well as from the Americana-based scores and disaster movies he was moving into at the time… not to mention “The Long Goodbye,” which he did later that year with the same director, Robert Altman, whom he’d worked with on TV projects much earlier. It’s completely experimental and it remains a rarity in that it’s a score that is essentially free of narrative concerns and the need to follow action with mathematical precision.

The music represents the main character’s mental state, which is anything but stable, so the score reflects that. Music sticking to a time signature would actually have sabotaged the impact of the film. Concert works are also free of narrative restrictions, so if there’s any connection between Williams’ concert repertoire and his music for Images, it would be that.

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