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Whenever I watch a music documentary, I consider it a challenge for the filmmaker to convince me that the artist or musical genre at the center of the film is worthy of an entire feature film. Obviously, a doc about legendary film composer and five-time Academy Award-winner (nominated 54 times) John Williams doesn’t have a problem doing just that, so with Music by John Williams, the challenge instead is to show me something beyond Williams’ work with Steven Spielberg or on Star Wars movies.
Thankfully, it seems director Laurent Bouzereau had the same mission, as he walks us through Williams’ childhood, his career before teaming with Spielberg on Sugarland Express or creating the iconic Jaws theme. The documentary also dives deep into his lesser-known film work, including concert compositions and years as a conductor of various symphony orchestras.
The interviews are all quite stirring, with various comments from top-tier filmmakers (Spielberg, George Lucas, Ron Howard, Chris Columbus, J.J. Abrams, James Mangold, Lawrence Kasdan), other composers (Alan Silvestri, Thomas Newman), musicians (Yo-Yo Ma, Branford Marsalis, Itzhak Perlman, Anne-Sophie Mutter), and even actors (hearing recent Oscar winner Ke Huy Quan talk about having a theme song for his Indiana Jones character Short Round is quite moving). But it’s the interviews with Williams that reveal the most about his theories on music, how he came up with various film scores, and why it’s so important that the dying art form of real, analog (as opposed to synth-created) music needs to be preserved.
The stories about his early years in Hollywood, growing up in a musical family, and trying to support his family by working constantly are all terrific and provide details about his life I’ve never heard before. I especially enjoyed hearing him discuss his work on films like Close Encounters of the Third Kind, arguably his best score since music itself is an integral part of the story. Even his work with director Oliver Stone (Born on the Fourth of July, JFK) is detailed and analyzed, especially since Stone had Williams cut a few pieces of music before ever seeing a frame of the film.
Music by John Williams also examines a time in recent history when film compositions were not considered real classical music, and some orchestral musicians bristled at the idea of playing these pieces in a concert setting. When Williams became the conductor of the Boston Pops, this was a real issue with many of the players, to the point where Williams resigned (only to return a few short weeks later). The film is not only about the life and career of one of the greatest film composers in history, but it uses certain elements of music theory as its necessary backdrop, giving the movie depth and layers it isn't required to embrace in order to be entertaining and engaging. There are also times when the film is frustratingly a love-fest, but Williams seems like a person worth of a great deal of love.
The film is now streaming on Disney+.
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