John Williams Interview - Cinema Magazine

Interview by Thanos Fourgiotis


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Prologue
No, John Williams doesn't feel disappointed that, although his double nomination won neither the Oscar for Best Original Score (JFK) nor the Oscar for Best Original Song (Hook). Being almost sixty years old, the composer who gave us unforgettable moments, considers himself a "lucky man": Four Oscars, fifteen Grammies and music for almost eighty movies is already too much for the career of a composer that started in 1961. Today he's in the heart of all friends of cinema and in the heart of Steven Spielberg. He talks about Hook, Steven Spielberg, film music, and remembers old associates and maybe behind his phrases you'll discover the incredible personality of a calm man. The personality that no Oscar will ever be able to reward.

John Williams: As you may know, the Oscar Nominees for Best Score are chosen by the members of the Academy who are composers of music or songs. But the winners are voted by all members of the Academy and usually they choose to reward the composer whose music elevates the film. The experience has shown that, when a musical is nominated for Best Original Score then the members of the Academy... respond and reward it. Something like that happened this year. I was nominated for an Oscar for my work on JFK which is a dramatic movie. But instead the Oscar went to Beauty and the Beast , which of course has beautiful music but "lighter". It's the music of a musical. I totally understand that it was difficult for the members of the Academy to reward a serious, and dramatic score, like the one for JFK. Choosing Beauty and the Beast was closer to Hollywood tradition and less risky for all!

Cinema: So you weren't disturbed...

John Williams: Not at all! Don't forget that I'm used to choices like that. 30 Nominations for an Oscar are too many for a composer, and the only thing I could say is that I am happy that the members of the Academy prefered my music so many times.

Cinema: But you also didn't win the Oscar for Best Song.

John Williams: I didn't expect to win it! I am in a position to know how some things in Hollywood work and so I don't have false hopes.

Cinema: For Hook you associated with lyricist Leslie Bricusse for three songs. I know he is someone you appreciate, and you have also associated with him a lot of times in the past. But, there is a big confusion about him, especially in Greece. Would you like to talk about him?

John Williams: When you say confusion, you mean that a lot of people think he's a woman? (laughs)

Cinema: Yes. That too!

John Williams: (laughing) I thought so! Greece isn't the only place this happens... In order to stop any misunderstanding, I should say that Leslie Bricusse is a exceptional associate, a British gentleman who has done many wonderful things. In the sixties, he wrote the lyrics and the music for several musicals.

Cinema: Some of them reached the Oscars.

John Williams: Yes. I met Leslie two years later as musical director of the film Goodbye, Mr. Chips starring Peter O'Toole. He wrote the lyrics and the music for this film and we ran together for an Oscar on 1969. Of course we didn't win. We couldn't compete Hello Dolly with Lenny Heiton and Leslie Newman who proved to be invincible... Leslie has also associated with other famous composers like John Barry. Considering us, after our very successful co-operation on Home Alone I decided to ask him to write the lyrics for the songs in Hook. Something he accepted with great pleasure.

Cinema: In which way did you approach Hook?

John Williams: I approached it as a fairy tale and I think I was right!

Cinema: And the result was a "dream" music?

John Williams: (laughs) I hope so! I must tell you that Hook is a typical movie in which Steven fully uses his imagination. He doesn't deal with the real world, but with the world of our imagination. The one we would like to exist and the one only children have the privilege to dream of or create. This area, the area of fantasy, is the best one that can exist for music. Because only there music has the ability to create what it is trying to do, transfer people elsewhere, disconnect them from anything human, and trite. Composing music for films like Hook is a wonderful gift. The composer no longer has to deal with restrictions which he would probably have with a more realistic picture. The music is always present in the picture. The orchestra keeps playing and the ear of the listener can accept the bombardment of music even if what his eyes see don't agree with what his ears are listening to. Music in these type of films play a very important part because only music can make the audience believe what they see. Only music can make fantasy, reality. For instance, how can the audience believe Robin Williams is flying, if music accompanying the picture won't help. So, this is the axiom on which I was based for what my music had to do (and me as a composer) in Hook. I used music which could be also named "theatrical" or "ballet music". When Peter Pan manages to fly, the orchestra plays music that reminds us of a very fast dance of a ballet. The same in the Ultimate War sequence. The music follows the rhythm of the picture, underlines the action. Somebody makes an intense move and the orchestra follows him with an emphasis, like the strings. Somebody else is dreaming and the orchestra describes the sense of this dream. In other words, my music for Hook doesn't abstain from that of a cartoon, where the music has to be attached in the picture. All these of course concerning the conception of the idea for the part music had to play in the movie.

Cinema: Did you compose Hook's music after the shooting was over or you did you started it before?

John Williams: What we usually do with Steven is me watching the movie after the editing. We time the parts of the movie that need music with absolute precision and we discuss the part that music has to play in each scene. When I record in the studio, I demand the recording to take place while I am watching the movie on the screen. The orchestra is in front of me and I am in front of the screen.

Cinema: Which do you consider your best score for a Steven Spielberg movie?

John Williams: That's a tough, very tough question (thinks). As I always say, each film composer's music has but very weak parts. There will always be instances or parts of a film you feel proud of, and others you wished you could do better. Personally, I was never totally satisfied with my music. I think that with my collaborations with Steven, the music I love the most is the one for Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Not because I think this music is perfect or couldn't be better in some parts, but as a film was so magical, so pioneer and inspired that gave me the amazing opportunity to compose "special" music, even within the limited borders of film music. A chance one has few times in his life. I think something like that happened with E.T., but not so intensely. That's why my preference inclines to Close Encounters.

Cinema: And a Spielberg's movie for which you were dissatisfied with your music?

John Williams: To tell you the truth... I don't know! We've done so many movies together and it's hard for me to say that I was disappointed by one. Maybe I have some doubts for the first movie we did together, Sugarland Express in 1973-74. It's a very good movie but I wasn't given the chance to develop my music as much as I wanted.

Cinema: Aren't you frightened that after your long collaboration with Spielberg, soon you'll face satiation?

John Williams: Collaborations are like marriage! Sometimes they succeed, sometimes they do not. Sometimes the couple is used to living together and each interest fades away. Sometimes in small wrangles and ...infidelities the interest is "renewed" or the final break up occurs. Considering my long collaboration with Spielberg, I must say, that we are not tired of each other. We are very good friends. We're not just associates but something more. The interest of one another is renewed all the time but, my collaboration with Spielberg doesn't forbid me to associate with other directors. So therefore I can compose music for the films of Alan J. Pacula, Ron Howard or Oliver Stone! And I have enough available time through those relationships to find again Steven Spielberg having the feeling that something new is starting, a new adventure begins. The best antidote anyone can ever find against monotony!

Cinema: The last year, newspapers, magazines and the radio talk about film music more often. The composers give interviews and there are soundtrack albums that touch the "big crowd". Are you in conscious of this fact and what is the message, in your opinion?

John Williams: I will use the term "popular" to describe what I believe. Yes, it's a fact that film music is not in the margin, where it was placed, and it's becoming more and more popular. Remember that in the '30s, in the beginning of talking movies, film music was very popular, too. Today we relive this situation. More and more people are interested, buying and listening to film music. The really interesting music is developed and recognized at the same time. I feel very happy about it, not only as a composer, but as simple listener. Moreover, I feel satisfied that important composers, are turning to movies and no longer face film music as secondary or unworthy.

Cinema: Which means that film music itself will be helped to become even better...

John Williams: Of course! Because, while in the past, many important composer were mercantile, music that wasn't artistically worthwhile to them. Now that they realised that many pieces of important music are famous through films, they've changed their opinion. Everybody now believes that movies are the strongest and most popular art form in the whole world. And that for composers is the only way out to compose "worthy" music. It's no accident that famous orchestras have included in their programs film scores. Neither that many films have "pure" symphonic music for background! So I believe that today, we have more and more important composers that are working for films and this is positive, as much for film music, as for music in total.

Cinema: Between the new composers we have discovered from the movies, are there some you appreciate?

John Williams: There are a lot of remarkable composers here in Los Angeles. Real workers of the movies such as James Horner, James Newton Howard or George Fenton. There are others in Europe or Greece, I am ignorant of. I believe that talents exist everywhere.

Cinema: When you were a student, could you have ever imagined that you would someday become the famous film composer, John Williams, that now everybody knows and appreciates?

John Williams: Certainly not! When somebody's young, it's very hard to predict where his life will lead him. What I kept repeating to myself was that there would be no bigger reward for me than follow the path I had already chosen, the path of music. No matter how many sacrifices had to be done. And I think I made it. So, I was lucky!




© 1992 Cinema Magazine