As an added little bonus to yesterday’s John Williams celebrations, here’s a great article from Film Music Society, which features snippets about Williams from Spielberg and George Lucas.
My favourite section is this fascinating insight into the Spielberg/Williams working relationship:
“I usually try to give him the book or the script to go on. Sometimes he reads it and sometimes he doesn’t, depending on how busy he is. What John prefers to do is just talk a lot with me, before I even make the movie — about what the picture’s about and how I see it. Then after I’m finished with the picture, I show John a very rough assembly. And then John, without really needing to hear any more from me because the film pretty much says it all, goes off and writes his themes. Then he performs sketches of the themes for me on the piano.
“I usually fall in love with all of his themes. I’ve often made a fool of myself sitting there weeping, hanging over the piano after he’s played me something, either from E.T. or Schindler’s List. Or I just admire what he’s done. More often than not, the first thing he plays me is what goes into the movie.”
