Steven Spielberg is producing a documentary about his old buddy John Williams
Spielberg's Amblin Television is working on a documentary about his legendary composer and long-time friend
Aux News John Williams
At this point in movie history, it’d be fair to say that there’s no more iconic pairing of director and composer than Steven Spielberg and John Williams. Since 1974's The Sugarland Express—and with shockingly few exceptions across two 50-plus-year careers—Williams has been the sound of Spielberg’s films, right up through this year’s semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans, almost literally making his music the soundtrack of Spielberg’s life.
Now, Spielberg is set to return the favor: THR reports that the director is moving forward, with Amblin Television, as a producer on an upcoming documentary on Williams’ life and career. Co-produced with Imagine Documentaries and Nedland Media, the film will be directed by Laurent Bouzereau. Bouzereau is, among other things, the documentarian behind docuseries like Five Came Back, in which Spielberg prominently featured, talking about the works of director William Wyler (He’s also Spielberg’s go-to director for behind-the-scenes and making-of featurettes on his films.)
Williams, who’s 90, worked most recently on the score for the new Spielberg-produced Indiana Jones movie, James Mangold’s Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny. He’d been making some noises about retiring, but then about-faced on that during a conversation with Spielberg recently. (Who responded by noting that he’d better start figuring out his next movie, then; he also remarked, on his “perfect marriage” with Williams: “I mean, what am I going to do? Sit down and write the music myself?”)
Williams has more than 100 film and television scores to his name (even after you filter out god knows how many credits he’s picked up for his work on Star Wars alone). We’d normally list a bunch of accolades here, but it’s John Williams: He’s got every major composing award you could care to name, he’s scored some of the m0st influential films in human history, and he shows no signs of stopping any time soon.
14 Comments
…he’s scored some of the most influential films in human history…
Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Daddy-O; the list just goes on and on.
To say nothing of both original series Lost In Space theme tunes.
Fun fact: When John Williams was with Henry Mancini’s band, his nickname was “Curly”.
I think I’d prefer a Tim Burton directed documentary about Danny Elfman.
John Williams is one of the greatest film score composers of all time. I have absolute no desire whatsoever to watch a documentary about John Williams. Both of those sentences are very extremely true.
I mean, the guy was *already immortal* for writing all those classic musical cues and stings for “Gilligan’s Island”, for crying out loud.
Im only here to say Emancipation is a fantastic film….Yes… Will Smith sucks, it’s still a good movi3
Can we get over….whatever, and recognize decent film? Yes…. we all hate Wiĺl…
Whatever….Emancipation…. you fucking assholes, is a fantastic movie.
That’s all very well, sir, but this is a bakery.
Do try to focus on the subject at hand.
You and he were buddies, weren’t you?
Not my favorite film composer but his was the first music I ever noticed and the first musician whose name I ever paid attention to (it was his work on the Irwin Allen shows, most of it very good stuff). I followed his career from TV to film, making regular trips to Camelot Music for the soundtrack albums to “The Poseidon Adventure,” “The Towering Inferno,” “Earthquake” and “Jaws.” and can vividly remember spening a huge chunk of the fall of ‘77 and winter of ‘78 locked away in my bedroom listening to “Star Wars” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.”I didn’t care for a lot of his more sugary work in the 80s and 90s although there were some surprising low-key gems for otherwise forgettable films like “The Accidental Tourist” and “Sabrina” that showed was a solid craftsman he really was. It’s nice to finally see how much love he’s getting from the classical world as a generation of musicians who grew up on his work sans the elitism of their predecessors are taking the reins. Williams reportedly got a lot of friction from some within the Boston Pops when he was first appointed as their music director but the albums he recorded with them helped reestablish some of the credibility they lost after Arthur Fiedler’s more questionale latter records (“Saturday Night Fiedler” anyone?) and did sell very well. He really is the last of the great classic Hollywood film composers and he deserves a long victory lap.
Why a documentary “movie”, when it would take a ten-episode docuseries to cover all the great work Maestro John Williams has produced over decades? Don’t short change us fans.