On the occasion of the release of “The Fabelmans” by Steven Spielberg, Wednesday, franceinfo paints the portrait of this old accomplice of the director, who composed the iconic soundtracks of the greatest successes of Hollywood cinema.
“I can still see him, with a mountain of music paper in his hands. At each break, he bent over a table and corrected his scores with a pencil, adjusting a note here, another there, so that his composition sticks as closely as possible to what appeared on the screen.” Maxine Kwok will remember her debut with the prestigious London Symphony Orchestra all her life. In 1999, the haired violinist roses participates in the recording of the soundtrack of the new Star Wars, The Phantom Menaceunder the baton of a legend : the American composer John Williams, author of some of the most famous film scores in the world.
The orchestra of a hundred musicians plays in front of a cinema screen. The most absolute secrecy is kept on the scores, which the musicians discover at the last moment. “We guessed when we played the music for a battle scene or a chase in space. When we had a little time without being asked, we would glance sideways at the screen to see the film”, says the musician, a mischievous look at the evocation of this memory. Recording music for a film with an orchestra usually takes a day. With John Williams, it’s a minimum of a week. The maestro then releases this sentence to the beginner, engraved in her memory : “You find me fussy ? It’s because there will be more people hearing this music than going to your concerts in your lifetime.”
This scene is a summary of what John Williams represents. A craftsman. The latest composer in Hollywood to refuse software to write his music. A worker who himself writes the scores for all the instruments, without delegating this task to an underling. A master whose compositions have become as famous as the films they have accompanied for half a century. Star Warsit’s him. IndianaJonesSame. Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, ET, Jurassic Park, Harry Potter… All those tunes that stuck in your head when you left the cinema. Or the music you whistle in the shower in the morning. And now a new soundtrack for The Fabelmansthe latest film by his old accomplice Steven Spielberg, which will be released in France on Wednesday 22 February, before a reboot of the music ofIndianaJones for the fifth part of the adventures of the archaeologist in the fedora. Its place is in a museum. Well, we would not have already told Indy, precisely ? A little, unfortunately.
The Raider of the Lost Music
How do you recognize music by John Williams? ? The composer doesn’t really have his own style, whether it pleases Ennio Morricone – doubtless the only film score composer who was able to overshadow him – who accused him of “photocopy” the steps of Richard Wagner. “It’s true that he really likes military marcheslaughs the German conductor Frank Strobel, one of the pioneers of the cine-concert in Europe. Just in Star Wars, even the opening theme is one. Not to mention the music associated with Darth Vader: The Imperial March…” One could cite among his influences Debussy, Ravel, for the classics, or Korngold, among the composers of the Hollywood golden age.
“He synthesized all the music of the twentieth century”, ignites Alexandre Desplat, who succeeded him in the music of the saga Harry Potter. A synthesis, but anything but a simplification. “It seems simple to you, but it took me days to find a leitmotif for the character of Indiana Jones”, explained the maestro himself in an interview with the Berlin Philharmonic*. “It’s very restrictive and very frustrating to write for the cinema”he confided to Classic FM*. “It’s the highest level of film musicadds the composer and conductor Laurent Petitgirard, who conducted The Imperial March. Admittedly, we are not on a level of complexity worthy of a concerto by Bartók [réputé difficile d’accès]. But his music largely supports being dissociated from the image.”
The composer takes care to involve all the musicians, points out Erwann Chandon, a young French composer claiming to be John Williams (go listen to the soundtrack of The Last Life of Simon) : “No one is bored, everyone has something to play, everything fits together perfectly, without being too dense. It’s a constant preoccupation with me: if I were the trombonist in the orchestra, I would be happy to have more to play than a squeaker every two minutes.” No doubt a legacy of John Williams’ past as a studio musician and his training as a jazzman in the 1950s.
Even if there was a recipe, the veteran chef – he just celebrated his 91 years – has imperceptibly changed the ingredients over the years. In the backfiring style of The Empire Strikes Back to more intimate scores like that of Pentagon Paperspassing through the jazzy tone ofCatch Me If You Can or Christmas carols Mom I missed the plane. Yes, they are also by him, and this is not his least interesting score, between fugues and references to Tchaikovsky. “When we look at his work over time, we see that he uses an orchestra with less brass than at the beginning, with more wood and delicate sounds, on the harp for example.supports musicologist Chloé Huvet. The color of the orchestra changes. It gives more and more place to percussion too. Some pieces of Minority Report or lost world are almost entirely composed of it.”
The Superman of film music
The New Yorker has however gone beyond the absolute principle of film music, enacted, among others, by Bernard Herrmann (PDF), legendary resident composer of Alfred Hitchcock : “Good film music is music that goes unnoticed.” The John Williams touch is quite the opposite. George Lucas had this famous phrase* : “The films of the saga Star Wars are in fact almost silent films. In most films, the story is carried by the dialogue; In Star Warsthe music carries the story.” To the point thatthere is a version of the episode 8*, The Last Jedi, without dialogue, only with the music of John Williams.
The most striking example remains the scene of the arrival by helicopter on the island of Jurassic Park. “This song is absolutely fascinatingignites Frank Lehman, author of a book on the music of scenes of action of John Williams. It commands the attention of the viewer, and even from a pure musical point of view, by disregarding the film, it goes far beyond a simple bonus to what we see on film. Rehearsals, climaxes, leitmotifs, there is everything you would expect from a classic piece that stands on its own.” To study in all music schools, according to him. “Fortunately there are still directors who allow John Williams to go on such flights.”
Because today in Hollywood, an eight-minute piece is almost as much science fiction as seeing unsightly aliens riding bicycles in the moonlight. “The number of films that lend themselves to symphonic music with an orchestra has become rareadvances Emilio Audissino, author of a book on the work of John Williams. With digital editing, and the fact that we rework the film almost until its release, by taking 10 seconds off a scene, it’s complicated to have to adjust a symphonic piece. Hence the emergence of a ‘sound design Hans Zimmer style. Compare the partition of the first Superman from 1978 to that of man of steel from 2013, forty years later. The whole evolution of fashion in Hollywood is summed up there.” To make matters worse, if you want to treat yourself to the London Symphony Orchestra and the legendary Abbey Road studios, with their incomparable sound, you will have to spend lavishly. It is rumored that the soundtrack of The Phantom Menace cost the trifle of 10 000 euro per minute.
The sorcerer without a school
This is probably why his style has not been so popular. “It’s the last survivor of Hollywood music”nicely wrote his French counterpart Bruno Coulais in a book dedicated to him, John Williams: A musical alchemist in Hollywood (ed. L’Harmattan, 2011). Not even, according to the principal concerned. When Steven Spielberg asked him to write the music for Schindler’s List, John Williams then argued that he would have to find “a better composer” for such a serious film, dealing with the Holocaust, tells the musician to Vanity Fair*. “I know… But all the others are dead”, had quipped the filmmaker. Here again, John Williams has reinvented himself, appropriating Yiddish tunes on the violin to write a legendary soundtrack. “It’s easier to pastiche Hans Zimmer than John Williams”, emphasizes Erwann Chandon. Alexandre Desplat supports : “Hollywood was invaded by musicians less gifted to write melodies.”
Question of heritage, John Williams has managed to give an incredible facelift to classical music. As during the concert he gave, in December 2022, at the prestigious Scala in Milan. “I’ve seen people in their twenties pull out their phones to film when we played the Harry Potter themesays Raphaël, who traveled from Nantes to attend the concert. For movies like IndianaJones Or Star Wars, people beat time, without dancing, but almost. We heard cries of joy !”
A far cry from the somewhat stuffy image one might have of classical music audiences. “He is the only one who managed to make the link with concert music, supports Alexandre Desplat, two Oscars for best film music on his fireplace. The musicians like to play it, the programmers of the mythical rooms want it too. It has become popular music, in the noblest sense possible, just like the Bolero of Ravel.”
* Links followed by an asterisk lead to content or articles in English.