How many film scores written by John Williams do you LOVE, how would you rank them and how many GREAT scores has he written?

[Lewya 360]

I only love two Williams scores - A.I. Artificial Intelligence and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Ok, maybe three - the Star Wars saga, counted as one body of work.

 

That's it for me - three scores. Jurassic Park, Seven Years in Tibet, Nixon, Images etc are all great, but I can't say I love them as a whole to the degree as I do with the top 3 I mentioned above.

 

I would easily put all three of the Williams's scores that I love in the top 25 film scores of all time and at least one of them in my top 10 of all time.

 

I certainly do not consider Williams the best film composer of all time (he is not even the greatest living film composer - that honor goes to Thomas Newman), but I do believe that he has written as many great scores as anyone else in film history. 

 

I think he has written around 15-25 great scores (closer to 15 if we count some franchises as one entry), the rest of the best may be very good or good, but not great. I can not think of any other film composer who has written more than 15-25 great film scores.

 

Here are all of the 25 film scores that he has written that I would consider great film scores or fairly close to that:

 

A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Nixon

Images

Jurassic Park

All three of the original Indy scores

All of the eight Star Wars scores - especially the original trilogy, The Phantom Menace and Revenge of the Sith

Seven Years in Tibet

Born on the Fourth of July

The Witches of Eastwick

The Long Goodbye

Catch Me If You Can

Memoirs of a Geisha

Jaws

Schindler's List

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial

 

The last five scores or so on the list are somewhat reluctantly included, they are on the edge for me of being "just" very good. They are not any favourites of mine even if they all contain some brilliant writing.

 

I think Williams, Goldsmith and Takemitsu may be the ones who have the most great film scores to their name. Possibly North, Morricone and Herrmann too.

 

The difference is that while I don't think any other film composer have written more great film scores than Williams, some of them were clearly better composers in almost all areas than him. His greatest strength may be his gift as a melodist and perhaps his versatility.

 

What do you say?

[Will 2,215]

 

[Thor 7,465]

The parameters are a little wide and vague for me. What I love, I usually also consider great and vice versa. Are you basically asking what my favourite John Williams soundtracks are?

[SteveMc 2,674]

@Lewya, a couple of thoughts.

 

One, I believe it may be constructive to be a little more objective when approaching the question.  You may love Thomas Newman and think his writing is excellent, but going beyond that, has he had the influence on film music and general culture that John Williams has had?  Does his music stack up, on a technical level, with some of the acknowledged classical masters, as Williams, Rozsa, and sometimes Goldsmith do?  

 

I think Williams's masterwork is CE3K.  But I say that objectively.  My subjective favorite is Schindler's List.

Similarly, many Mendelssohn pieces move me more that most Mozart pieces.  Yet, I cannot honestly deny that Mozart was the superior composer.

 

Anyway, subjectively, I love a lot of what Williams has done.

Objectively, these are his great scores:

Jane Eyre

Jaws

CE3K

Star Wars

Superman

Empire

Raiders

E.T.

Empire of the Sun

The Last Crusade

Hook

Far and Away

Schindler's List

Jurassic Park

A.I.

Catch Me If You Can

Revenge of the Sith

WarHorse

Lincoln 

The Book Thief

The Force Awakens

The Last Jedi

 

 

[Lewya 360]

1 hour ago, Thor said:

The parameters are a little wide and vague for me. What I love, I usually also consider great and vice versa. Are you basically asking what my favourite John Williams soundtracks are?

Yes, basically - and the ones you consider great that you may not consider top favourites. Only the three I listed first are favourites - the rest I acknowledge as great film scores, but I don't love (at least not as a whole).

[Nick Parker 3,040]

Interesting, @Lewya, you usually slag Williams pretty hard, I'm surprised to see you hold so much of his work in such high regard.

 

Though when did Jaws become a "very good" score? What else could it have done to be considered great in your eyes?

 

 

[Wojo 2,453]

Seven. 

[Will 2,215]

If I'm understanding @Lewya correctly it seems that he only will say he "loves" a score when he enjoys all or virtually all of it. If that's the standard then I might agree with him that there are very few genuinely fantastic Williams scores -- although I would also conclude that there are very few genuinely fantastic musical works, period. 

 

I tend to focus more on fantastic individual cues or moments, so I might say I "love" a score if I adore a handful of cues and find the rest merely average. So my standard is much lower than Lewya's, which, frankly, seems way too strict to me given the way I approach music listening. 

 

@Steve McQueen, I'm not so sure that it's possible to draw such a sharp distinction between subjective and objective musical "greatness." This is an age-old debate here on the forums (I seem to remember TGP and Loert being two of the most eloquent participants) and I don't mean to totally derail the thread by mentioning it. But I tentatively feel myself coming around to a version of TGP's view: I interpret objective greatness in music as a rather elusive concept because the criteria for "greatness" are so contested (a debate that may be intractable). It's much more productive, imho, to talk about A) what music each of us subjectively loves and B) what objective features of the music (rhythm, mood, harmonies, etc.) cause us to subjectively enjoy listening to it. We can talk all we want about how prolific a composer is, what great harmonies they use, etc., but there's no direct line from these genuinely objective observations to some objective "greatness." 

 

(Of course, this analysis may be contingent on a lack of strong belief in God. If a religion believes that God decides what is objectively great, then adherents might think of the music so designated by God (through scripture or prophets, say) as objectively great -- and, under the logic of their belief system, they would seem to be correct.) 

 

This is all sorta "pop philosophy" - I'm not very well read on these matters - but it is interesting to think about. 

[SteveMc 2,674]

And your thoughts are worthy ones.

[Chewy 2,376]

7 hours ago, Lewya said:

he is not even the greatest living film composer - that honor goes to Thomas Newman

Oh

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Thomas Newman is fantastic, but I must admit I usually just find the 3-5 cues per score that I really love and just return to those.  In terms of listening to on their own, I mean.  In film, he's one of the greatest currently working for sure.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,496]

13 hours ago, Thor said:

The parameters are a little wide and vague for me. What I love, I usually also consider great and vice versa. Are you basically asking what my favourite John Williams soundtracks are?

Perhaps another way of asking the question, is: "what are your best of the best, the ones you never grow tired of, the ones you would take to a dessert island?", in which case, and in chronological order:

THE TOWERING INFERNO,

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND,

SUPERMAN,

1941,

THE WITCHES OF EASTWICK,

EMPIRE OF THE SUN,

THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST,

J.F.K.

[Will 2,215]

35 minutes ago, Richard said:

Perhaps another way of asking the question, is: "what are your best of the best, the ones you never grow tired of, the ones you would take to a dessert island?"

 

I would take an ice cream cake and a box of Oreos. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

My dad makes something called a "lane cake" every holiday season.  It's my favorite cake.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lane_cake

[SteveMc 2,674]

Publix Carrot Cake!

 

 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Just now, Steve McQueen said:

Publix Carrot Cake!

 

 

 

Publix could never in their wildest dreams bake a cake as good as Disco Dad!

[SteveMc 2,674]

I believe it.  Best cake I have ever had was a one off thing my grandmother made for me on one of my early birthdays.

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

A lot

[Naïve Old Fart 9,496]

You ejits! I meant "desert"!

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

I'm not sure what the question really is, but I'll just lost my top Williams scores (Star Wars not as a whole though) by how much I enjoy them, how much I listen to them (as a result of liking them) etc. Star Wars scores take up most of the space because that was my first Williams score love.

Jerry's Top 10 John Williams Scores

1. Star Wars

2. The Empire Strikes Back

3. Jaws

4. Return of the Jedi

5. Jurassic Park

6. The Phantom Menace

7. Raiders of the Lost Ark

8. E.T. the Extra Terrestrial

9. The Force Awakens

10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

 

[crumbs 14,300]

Geez, threads are really becoming too complicated on JWfan these days. 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Tiresome is the word I'd use

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

Complicated and, as a result, tiresome.

[Naïve Old Fart 9,496]

55 minutes ago, Jerry said:

I'm not sure what the question really is...

 

I think it has something to do with cake and ice cream 

 

55 minutes ago, Jerry said:

...I'll just lost my top Williams scores...

 

You lost your top Williams scores?! Oh, no!

 

55 minutes ago, Jerry said:

10. Close Encounters of the Third Kind

 

10?...10?!...10???!!!!!!

Get thee to a fucking nunnery, right now!!!!!!!!!!!

[The Illustrious Jerry 3,356]

Rich buddy. Everyone is different. 

[Bryant Burnette 654]

[Joni Wiljami 1,206]

I love them all. Only a couple of them little less but still they are great. 

[Naïve Old Fart 9,496]

I still love them. I still love them, only slightly, only slightly less than I used to...my love.