Gramophone's Original Reviews of Williams Scores..

[pete 907]

The Jaws review from 1975 is the earliest and hence most interesting:
https://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/john-williams-greatest-film-soundtracks

 

Also included: Star Wars, ET, Close Encounters - the 1998 expanded release, Schindler's List, The Lost World, Amistad, Geisha, and War Horse. Kind of an odd mixture of scores. No Indy, Superman, and Potter.

[Ludwig 1,120]

Quote

One can imagine each scene even without seeing the picture, so vividly pictorial is his writing. 

 

That nicely sums up how I feel about Williams' film scores in general.

 

I very recently rewatched Jaws with a particular ear to how the themes are used. While everyone of course comes away humming the famous shark ostinato, I was reminded of how wonderfully varied the statements of that theme are: they might have that countermelody or not, be thickened into dissonant Rite of Spring-like chords, be spun out to include the entire sixteen-note ostinato (and not just its first two) with those appropriately jarring off-beat accents, and there was one time the countermelody appears with a version of the ostinato going down instead of up, and with a whole step instead of a half step, and in a higher register. This is when Brody is sifting through the book with pictures of shark attack victims, and with all of its changes, the theme is transformed from expressing imminent mortal danger to something more distant though still threatening, which aptly gives the impression of Brody's thoughts on the shark without it literally being around:

 

 

Anyway, this all reminded me of how great this score is, but for more reasons than simply having a perfect theme.