What score started and ended John Williams' Golden Period?

[Sandor 459]

Although Williams has scored classic and great scores in the 90's and 00's (Hook, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List, Prisoner of Azakaban come to mind), it is almost a general fact that he experienced a creative peak during the late 70's and early 80's. Scores like Jaws, Star Wars, Superman and E.T. are easily regarded as some of the greatest film music ever written and it is an amazing, never duplicated feat that one composer was able to deliver classic after classic score in just a number years.

What score started this Golden Period of John Williams in your opinion, and what score ended it?

For me it all started with Jaws in 1975, followed by Star Wars and Close Encounters (1977), Superman (1978), The Empire Strikes Back (1980), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), and was closed by 1982's E.T.

[MrScratch 292]

Jaws through Temple of Doom for me, not a bad score at all in these years.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

Jerry Goldsmith happened to have his "golden period" at around the same time with The Wind and the Lion, The Omen, Capricorn One, The Boys From Brazil, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Alien, The Great Train Robbery, The Final Conflict, Poltergeist, First Blood, The Secret of NIMH, Twilight Zone: The Movie and Under Fire... just to name a few.

[Eric_JWFAN 11]

Jaws through Temple of Doom for me, not a bad score at all in these years.

No one can touch that 9 year period.

[Koray Savas 2,095]

Jaws is an outlier. Start with Star Wars and end with Temple Of Doom.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

It started with the Towering Inferno, and ended with Empire of the Sun

Temple of Doom and ROTJ both fall under that period too.

[Unlucky Bastard 7,765]

No, it started with Images.

[scissorhands 16]

John Williams is currently reaching some peaks in his style and works not achievable by any film composer, ever. Except, maybe, for Takemitsu and Prokofiev (if those can be called film composers).

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

Starts with Jaws, ends with Jurassic Park.

Silver Age starts with Phantom Menace.

Anything else is subjective.

[Romão 1,931]

it is almost a general fact that he experienced a creative peak during the late 70's and early 80's.

No it's not

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

His creative peak was in the last few years, not the 80s.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

His creative peak was in the last few years, not the 80s.

no thats not even close to true, his abilities have been in decline since 98 with a handful of bright moments.

74 to 84 is perhaps the greatest period in film music, even greater than 39 to 49.

[FattyMcButterpants 1]

Creativity doesn't always lead into memorability or quality.

The quality was maybe higher in the 80s, but not the pure creativity.

[Ollie 859]

I'd say 74-85.

[Genius_Gone_Insane 5]

Jaws - Temple of Doom is a Platinum period, not gold.

[Marian Schedenig 5,520]

Creativity doesn't always lead into memorability or quality.

The quality was maybe higher in the 80s, but not the pure creativity.

Actually, I'd put it the other way round. As far as pure quality is concerned, Williams reached an all new level in the 90s/00s. Some of these scores I rank among his best, but others I rarely listen to.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

sorry but quality and creativity were unmatched from 74 to 84, the 00's has seen JW in serious decline (with 4 or 5 notable selections).

I certainly wouldn't be a JW fan because of scores like terminal, and munich.

[Romão 1,931]

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

[Sandor 459]

In this case, I'm definately on Joe's side.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

yes, but you know, that's just, like how it would be with most of JW's fans. scores like Munich, Terminal and Memoirs don't call fans in like Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, even Catch Me If You Can. Thats not to say he shouldn't do those scores, he should always score SS as long as they colaborate, but they are not classic scores that call the fans in.

[scissorhands 16]

sorry but quality and creativity were unmatched from 74 to 84, the 00's has seen JW in serious decline (with 4 or 5 notable selections).

I certainly wouldn't be a JW fan because of scores like terminal, and munich.

The fact that you're a fan or stop being one doesn't make JW a better or worse composer, neither in decline or ascension.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

sorry but quality and creativity were unmatched from 74 to 84, the 00's has seen JW in serious decline (with 4 or 5 notable selections).

I certainly wouldn't be a JW fan because of scores like terminal, and munich.

The fact that you're a fan or stop being one doesn't make JW a better or worse composer, neither in decline or ascension.

oh I'll always be a fan despite his declining abilities.

I didn't stop liking Larry Bird, or Dr. J because they got old, but I'm not naive like too many here that think John's abilities are the same as they were 20 years ago.

[King Mark 2,924]

Start:Jaws

End:Spacecamp

Because his golden period must include a bit of stuff after ToD,like Amazing Stories and NBC news and Spacecamp

[pixie_twinkle 44]

I'm with KM on this, though I may be tempted to start a little earlier to include his disaster scores too. Especially Towering Inferno, Eiger Sanction, and Poseidon Adventure (which for all its faults still has one of the most exciting opening title themes of all time!)

[Charlie Brigden 5]

I think JAWS through to TEMPLE OF DOOM.

[Richard Penna 2,083]

For once I kind of agree with Joe. I wouldn't be on this forum today if my only experiences with Williams were his post 2000 output. There are only maybe 3 or 4 scores from this period that I enjoy in their entirety.

I think his optimum period began with Star Wars, end ended sometime around Jurassic Park.

I don't think declining ability is a decisive factor though - I believe directors' and film requirements have changed sufficiently that he's being asked for different things. A random example is Minority Report - I don't really like that score, but it fit with the film.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

I think that the last two scores that really brought in huge fans to the JW family are Jurassic Park and Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.

Im not saying there are not fans of Munich that became JW fans, but thats not the norm

[Erik Woods 384]

I'm going to say starting with Star Wars and ending with Temple of Doom. I don't think there is a terrible score to be heard... even Heartbeeps. I would have continued to Empire of the Sun but there is a little blip on the radar... The River. Now you crazy Williams experts might know more than me and love every single score the man has ever written but I think The River, while having a delightful theme, isn't one of Williams' best. And if it's not one of Williams best, which all the scores from Star Wars to Temple are, then that's where the Golden period ends. But like someone mentioned above the great scores continued after The River with Amazing Stories, Spacecamp, The Witches of Eastwick and Empire of the Sun.

-Erik-

[John Crichton 4]

Jaws to Temple of Doom. I thought everyone knew this?

And I would call TPM to Geisha the Silver Age, jury's still out on Indy 4.

[Genius_Gone_Insane 5]

Maestro was either on serious drugs or had some crystal skulls on his person during this period. There is no other possible explanation for his greatness those years.

[Red 73]

Not to sound redundant, but probably from Jaws to Temple of Doom. With a few exceptions I personally believe it extends to Schindler's List (ushering in Williams' "new sound"), but nothing is as perfect as those nine years previously mentioned.

[Henry B 49]

Jaws to Temple of Doom. I thought everyone knew this?

And I would call TPM to Geisha the Silver Age, jury's still out on Indy 4.

I would call TPM to Philosopher's Stone the Silver Age. Minus The Patriot.

So... it was quite an Age.

[John Crichton 4]

Do four scores count as an age?

[Ray Barnsbury 8]

It's a little difficult if the Golden Age can't have anything but top tier scores. I'd probably say it begins with Star Wars (it's painful to exclude Jaws, but I'm not familiar with all the scores in between that and 1977) and ends around Witches. Figuring out where it ends is tougher.

[Hlao-roo 388]

I didn't stop liking Larry Bird, or Dr. J because they got old, but I'm not naive like too many here that think John's abilities are the same as they were 20 years ago.

That's interesting that you bring up the athletics comparison. For all the talk about the "intangibles" an athlete can bring to his team (and as a fan of Shane Battier's current team, I've heard this talk all too often), his stats are still a fairly reliable barometer of his value as a player. At some point, age or injuries will rob him of the talent he once had. It's simply reality. And his stat sheet can chart an undeniable, objective decline in his production. Even with pre-Washington Wizards Jordan, you can see his field goal percentage creep downward as he began relying increasingly on fadeaway jump shots.

Music, on the other hand, is arguably far more of an artistic endeavor than is athletics. As such, gauging its value or quality is open to greater interpretation. In most competitive sports, as athletes age, the bulk of their abilities heads almost exclusively in one direction: southward. For the creative artist, as he ages, he might be headed every which way -- north, south, east west -- with no direction necessarily signifying greater or lesser quality.

If a career 80% free show shooter spends his next season or two making only six out every ten shots from the line, it's difficult to defend this difference as merely part of the player's "maturation." His knees may be giving out on him, or maybe he needs to stop taking shooting tips from Shaq. Either way, something's gone quite wrong, and no one can legitimately say otherwise.

But say a popular composer -- let's call him Jean Guillaume -- stops writing music in the manner he once did. Maybe Guillaume's melodies don't sound as hummable as they used to; maybe his pieces aren't as crisp; maybe you wish he'd stop doing that damned piccolo/xylophone thing. Well, you know what? There's no official hummability index -- others may find the melodies very hummable indeed. Others may say that hummability is besides the point. Others may say that the lack of hummability is precisely the point. Others may argue that melody isn't necessarily all that important, after all. All of these perspectives are valid ones. And everyone brings a slightly different overall perspective to bear when listening to music.

[Maglorfin 195]

What score started this Golden Period of John Williams in your opinion, and what score ended it?

Start - Star Wars, 1977

End - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1984

[Sandor 459]

Although I love the scores for ROTJ and TOD, I feel that E.T. was really the last true masterpiece of his Golden Period.

From Jaws to E.T., Williams infused his scores with profound, sublime themes and ideas, which are still incredibly familiar today. Also; Jaws, Star Wars, CEOTTK, Superman, ESB, Raiders and E.T. received multiple awards and were nominated at basically every important ceremony.

This is all ended with ROTJ.

[Bryant Burnette 451]

Like several other folks, I'd say it starts with Jaws in '75, but I'd put the end of it sometime in '85 -- I think that several of his immediate post-Temple of Doom stuff is just as good as anything else from that period, including the awesome '84 Olympic theme and the '85 themes for NBC Nightly News ("The Mission" in particular is probably as well-known as many of his major movie themes). And the Tuba Concerto is awfully damn good, too.

That's not to say that there wasn't great stuff before '75 and after '85, but I think that the period from Jaws to "The Mission" was the time during which he did two things: (1) wrote genuinely great music AND (2) really and truly captivated people with that music on a mass level. I don't think there's any other period during which he did both of those things simultaneously on a consistent basis.

From 1975-1985, he did.

[AC1 3,565]

His golden period is:

1992 - Far and Away

1991 - JFK

1991 - Hook

1990 - Home Alone

1990 - Presumed Innocent

1990 - Stanley & Iris

1989 - Always

1989 - Born o­n the Fourth of July

1989 - Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

1988 - The Accidental Tourist

1987 - Superman IV - The Quest for Peace (Three themes)

1987 - Empire of the Sun

1987 - The Witches of Eastwick

1986 - SpaceCamp

1984 - The River

1984 - Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

1983 - Return of the Jedi

1982 - Monsignor

1982 - E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial

1982 - Yes, Giorgio (Theme)

1981 - Heartbeeps

1981 - Raiders of the Lost Ark

1980 - The Empire Strikes Back

1979 - 1941

1979 - Dracula

1978 - Superman - The Movie

1978 - Jaws 2

1978 - The Fury

1977 - Close Encounters of the Third Kind

1977 - Star Wars

1977 - Black Sunday

1976 - Midway

1976 - The Missouri Breaks

1976 - Family Plot

1975 - The Eiger Sanction

1975 - Jaws

[Josh500 1,602]

I don't think it has anything to do with JW specifically.

Film music has experienced a decline generally over the past decade or two, and that's the reason why many people think 70's and 80's scores were better. JW has remained at the top of his profession for at least 3 decades. He is still in his Golden Period, as far as I am concerned, with Star Wars prequels, Harry Potter, and now Indiana Jones 4 as well as more "serious" works like Memoirs, A.I., and Schindler's List.

[Adam S. 0]

I agree with what Alan said. I also find it hard to ignore the fact that the period people generally call his Golden Period just happens to coincide with the period in which he was writing music to one blockbuster after another, where music had to play a big role. If he had scored movies like Sleepers, Fitzwilly and Munich it would be interesting to see if anybody called this a golden period. In other words, the Golden Period has at least as much to do with the films he was doing as it does the music, IMO.

An example would be the sixties. Mostly light, forgettable comedy music and then he scores The Reivers which I doubt anybody would interpret as a bolt of inspiration and creativity. Much more likely that it was a product of the material and the opportunity that he happened to have at that moment.

- Adam

[BurgaFlippinMan 7]

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

yes, but you know, that's just, like how it would be with most of JW's fans. scores like Munich, Terminal and Memoirs don't call fans in like Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, even Catch Me If You Can. Thats not to say he shouldn't do those scores, he should always score SS as long as they colaborate, but they are not classic scores that call the fans in.

Popularity doesn't necessarily equate to quality.

[Sandor 459]

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man.

yes, but you know, that's just, like how it would be with most of JW's fans. scores like Munich, Terminal and Memoirs don't call fans in like Jurassic Park, Harry Potter, even Catch Me If You Can. Thats not to say he shouldn't do those scores, he should always score SS as long as they colaborate, but they are not classic scores that call the fans in.

Popularity doesn't necessarily equate to quality.

No, but there is something amazing about the fact that John Williams, a film composer scoring in pure orchestral tradition, became a house-hold name after his scores for Jaws, Star Wars, Superman, E.T., etc. at a time when disco and pop music were ruling the music scene. His popularity still thrives on the output during the 1975-1982 period. In this case it was the quality of the scores, and the brilliance of the themes that determined this popularity.

The Jaws Theme, Star Wars Main Title, the Force Theme, the Close Encounters motif, the Superman March, the Imperial March, The Raiders' March, Flying, ... Those themes - and the scores in which they were used - were simply SO GOOD (and without disco beats or keyboard arrangments) that it made a lot of people aware of the power of film music, and the importance it has in modern symphonic writing.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

I didn't stop liking Larry Bird, or Dr. J because they got old, but I'm not naive like too many here that think John's abilities are the same as they were 20 years ago.

That's interesting that you bring up the athletics comparison. For all the talk about the "intangibles" an athlete can bring to his team (and as a fan of Shane Battier's current team, I've heard this talk all too often), his stats are still a fairly reliable barometer of his value as a player. At some point, age or injuries will rob him of the talent he once had. It's simply reality. And his stat sheet can chart an undeniable, objective decline in his production. Even with pre-Washington Wizards Jordan, you can see his field goal percentage creep downward as he began relying increasingly on fadeaway jump shots.

Music, on the other hand, is arguably far more of an artistic endeavor than is athletics. As such, gauging its value or quality is open to greater interpretation. In most competitive sports, as athletes age, the bulk of their abilities heads almost exclusively in one direction: southward. For the creative artist, as he ages, he might be headed every which way -- north, south, east west -- with no direction necessarily signifying greater or lesser quality.

If a career 80% free show shooter spends his next season or two making only six out every ten shots from the line, it's difficult to defend this difference as merely part of the player's "maturation." His knees may be giving out on him, or maybe he needs to stop taking shooting tips from Shaq. Either way, something's gone quite wrong, and no one can legitimately say otherwise.

But say a popular composer -- let's call him Jean Guillaume -- stops writing music in the manner he once did. Maybe Guillaume's melodies don't sound as hummable as they used to; maybe his pieces aren't as crisp; maybe you wish he'd stop doing that damned piccolo/xylophone thing. Well, you know what? There's no official hummability index -- others may find the melodies very hummable indeed. Others may say that hummability is besides the point. Others may say that the lack of hummability is precisely the point. Others may argue that melody isn't necessarily all that important, after all. All of these perspectives are valid ones. And everyone brings a slightly different overall perspective to bear when listening to music.

I never meant to compare athletic abilities to artistic abilities, although I did a poor job it seems.

I simply meant, going on my own belief that John's abilities are in decline, that I didn't stop liking Bird, or Dr. J because they got old, (and while they were athletes, their abilities were artistic) and I wont stop liking JW because he got old either. You either get old or die. I think John has redeemed himself musically in my eyes with KOTCS over what I saw as his last effort.

[MrScratch 292]

I agree with what Alan said. I also find it hard to ignore the fact that the period people generally call his Golden Period just happens to coincide with the period in which he was writing music to one blockbuster after another, where music had to play a big role. If he had scored movies like Sleepers, Fitzwilly and Munich it would be interesting to see if anybody called this a golden period. In other words, the Golden Period has at least as much to do with the films he was doing as it does the music, IMO.

An example would be the sixties. Mostly light, forgettable comedy music and then he scores The Reivers which I doubt anybody would interpret as a bolt of inspiration and creativity. Much more likely that it was a product of the material and the opportunity that he happened to have at that moment.

It's a case of all the planets being aligned, Williams at his peak AND working with these creative young directors. I don't think you can say that one caused the other. It's belittling the work of a film composer to say that the music is good because the movies were good. We all know there are good movies with bad scores and bad movies with good scores. Star Wars would have been a mammoth hit with or without Williams, but thats not to say that Williams didn't contribute to its success by putting his signature themes all over it. By the late 70s he was up to the challenge of scoring such a landmark film. I think if Williams had scored Star Wars a decade earlier it would have sounded much different, adequate perhaps but not such an achievement on its own. Don't forget that Williams did score some box office duds and mediocre films in this period: 1941, Monsignor, Fury and even those scores are just fantastic. Some of the pieces of The Fury and Monsignor are as good as those in the fantasy action films. Those movies just didn't connect with the general public, but they are still terrific scores.

Athletics and art is a poor comparison, an athlete only has a 15-20 period in his life in which he can compete or perform at his top level. Composers have written masterpieces at very young ages and very old ages and you simply don't need to be in good health to write great music.

[JoeinAR 1,759]

I don't know your last line and the realities of Jerry Goldsmith say otherwise.

[Ollie 859]

While Williams is clearly still sharp at his age I still believe as one gets older maybe the creative juices don't flow as freely as they once did. Especially when one considers the amount of music he's composed.

[Hitch 55]

The reason KotCS is such crap is that fact that Williams was using ordinary zinc based batteries at the time of writing the score. Now if Spielberg had any grey matter left in that balding head of his, he should have thought of replacing those dud batteries with longer life Duracell batteries....then maybe the score might have improved....slightly.

[MSM 85]

I regard Williams' Golden Period his late eighties and first half of the nineties. More specifically: starting with Empire of the Sun and ending with Schindler's List (or Sabrina if you like).

[Red 73]

Then what do you regard the mid 70's to mid 80's as? Super Golden Age?