John Williams receives the 44th AFI Life Achievement Award

[aj_vader 533]

50 minutes ago, azahid said:

Any one know if AFI show will be also streamed online? Anyways hoping to find a good recording of this afterwards? Does AFI make these celebrations available on DVD also?

I don't think I can be streamed outside of the US? I'd love a physical version but I doubt they do this.

[Muad'Dib 1,800]

Has this particular article been posted? It's a nice resume of the night

 

John Williams’ AFI Gala Had The Ultimate Hollywood Soundtrack

 

Some highlights

Quote

“When [AFI board chair] Sir Howard Stringer rang me about this event my first thought was, ‘I’m really much too young for a thing like this’,” 84-year-old maestro John Williams told a heavyweight industry crowd packed into the Dolby Theatre on Thursday night for the presentation of the 44th AFI Life Achievement Award ( airing on TNT June 15 and later on TCM). He accepted it anyway at the end of a very special — and uncharacteristically musical — evening for these prestigious AFI honors that began in 1973 with first recipient John Ford.

 

 

And of course, the classic Schindler's List anecdote

Quote

In his acceptance of the award, presented by Spielberg, he indicated it was about time a composer was recognized but mentioned others who preceded him in the profession such as Alfred Newman and Bernard Herrmann who might have been more worthy. Not. The somewhat shy and self-deprecating Williams told a hilarious story about one of those Oscar-winning collaborations with Spielberg in 1993,Schindler’s List,  and his reticence to do it after seeing the first cut of the landmark film in the projection room. “The lights came up and it was time for Steven and I to start our meeting about the role of music in the film. But I was so overwhelmed by the film I really could not speak and I went out and walked around the building for a few minutes to gather myself, and I said, ‘Steven, this is truly a great film and you need a better composer than I am for this film.’ And he said very sweetly, ‘I know but they’re all dead’,” Williams recalled to huge laughs from the audience. Earlier, one of the evening’s highlights came when Tom Hanks introduced Gustavo Dudamel conducting the American Youth Symphony on the beautiful and haunting theme from Schindler’s List.

 

Give the whole thing a read, it's quite nice

 

[mrbellamy 6,270]

That is a nice article. Love how proud Spielberg looks in this photo:

 

 

 

Won't be able to see this for the next day or two, but did anybody watch?

 

Also JJ Abrams talks Rey's Theme, March of the Resistance, Jedi Steps....just a fluff piece from Entertainment Tonight but fun to see him talking about the score anyway.

[Datameister 2,034]

It was a very sweet and funny show. Nothing particularly new or eye-opening in the various interviews and whatnot, but it was obviously wonderful to see so many industry giants paying homage to this man.

 

Williams did have a funny comment about how he wrote a "torrid" love theme (!) for Star Wars in '77, only to discover "two years" later that Luke and Leia were in fact not lovers. Presumably he was referring to Leia's theme. I laughed.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

This is on? I'm watching Titanic. Well, hopefully someone recorded it!

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

It's on now dude!  Put on TNT. 

 

Started off dopey (unnecessary antics) but seems to be picking up.

[Datameister 2,034]

Yeah, that whole thing near the beginning was rather silly. The rest is much classier.

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Sorry, they just collided with the iceberg. There's just no way in hell I'm switching channels.

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

We've likely thrown a propeller blade, that's the shudder you felt.  May I bring you anything?

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Okay, I tuned in as George Lucas was giving his speech. I guess I'm watching this now!

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

I thought Seth MacFarlane's "film music is dying" remarks were pretty inappropriate for this event.  

[karelm 2,901]

It was very sweet.  I was very surprised how much inspiration Kobe Bryant took from JW and also liked the Spielberg home movies from E.T. Sessions.

 

I wouldn't have minded a little bit more edge to the program. For example, they should've had Ricky Gervais be the emcee.   He could have said something about the time Williams said a few unsavory things during one of his drunken arrests or something as Gervais gets booed off stage while cursing the audience in an unscripted rant. 

 

For those who didn't see it, I expect AFI will post it on YouTube soon.

[Martyprod 86]

9 minutes ago, karelm said:

For those who didn't see it, I expect AFI will post it on YouTube soon.

 

I unfortunatly doubt about it, usually AFI post excerpts on youtube, not the whole show

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

3 hours ago, Not Mr. Big said:

I thought Seth MacFarlane's "film music is dying" remarks were pretty inappropriate for this event.  

 

He is right though!

[Not Mr. Big 4,639]

He is but that doesn't justify the use of that kind of antagonistic negatively at such an otherwise positive event.

[#SnowyVernalSpringsEternal 10,265]

The truth is never inappropriate!

 

[aj_vader 533]

Is this available anywhere now? Like BBC iPlayer in the UK?

[crumbs 14,287]

How are you meant to view this overseas? There's no TNT channel on subscription TV in Australia.

[Thor 7,452]

There was no way to see this outside the US. So us foreigners are basically tapping our fingers right now, waiting for someone who have recorded it to be a helpful samaritan.

[Martyprod 86]

I asked a friend of mine from North Carolina to record it for me as a security (the same who recorded for me some boston pops show that some of you maybe have seen on my youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/martyprod2 (the harry potter / A.I one, the one with the herrmann / mancini tribute as well) , but don't know if he did it, i will write to him immediatly because as for now i searched everywhere on the web on let's tell "not really official place" and it seems nobody recorded it  

 

unfortunatly it will be impossible to post it online on youtube, anybody who will do it will get for sure un "ID content" warning.

somebody here who watched the show noticed the presence of joseph williams by the way or not ? (son of John)

 

 

Just to tell, my friend recorded it on DVR, he need to transfer it on a DVD now.

 

so, well voila. can't tell more for now.

59 minutes ago, Thor said:

There was no way to see this outside the US. So us foreigners are basically tapping our fingers right now, waiting for someone who have recorded it to be a helpful samaritan.

i'll have it (as said in my previous post)

[Ricard 2,242]

 

Quote

Will Ferrell opened the show dressed in a tuxedo and white gloves, and holding a baton proceeded to "conduct" the theme to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Looking for audience participation in the form of singers, he found Harrison Ford and Drew Barrymore, neither of whom were helpful. A delightful Cloris Leachman pled with him to let her sing, and when he finally ceded, she gave it her best. But her best was nothing in comparison to who was waiting next: Elsa herself, Broadway and "Frozen" star, Idina Menzel.

Cuts to John Williams throughout showed the award recipient to be delighted by the whole affair.

https://www.yahoo.com/tv/ferrell-pays-special-tribute-john-074855567.html

 

[Jay 37,250]

10 hours ago, Datameister said:

It was a very sweet and funny show. Nothing particularly new or eye-opening in the various interviews and whatnot, but it was obviously wonderful to see so many industry giants paying homage to this man.

 

Williams did have a funny comment about how he wrote a "torrid" love theme (!) for Star Wars in '77, only to discover "two years" later that Luke and Leia were in fact not lovers. Presumably he was referring to Leia's theme. I laughed.

 

JW told a better version of that story in Boston last month, check out my transcription of what he said here:

 

http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/26022-john-williams-film-night-boston-may-12-13-2016/&do=findComment&comment=1246143

[hollyw00d 1]

1 hour ago, Martyprod said:

 

 

Just to tell, my friend recorded it on DVR, he need to transfer it on a DVD now.

 

so, well voila. can't tell more for now.

i'll have it (as said in my previous post)

 

 

Will you be posting a link here or do I need to PM you?  I totally forgot it was on yesterday

 

 

[Wojo 2,453]

I watched the last hour of it but have no way to record video. 

[Jay 37,250]

10 minutes ago, hollyw00d said:

 

 

Will you be posting a link here or do I need to PM you?  I totally forgot it was on yesterday

 

 

 

Links to copyrighted material are not allowed on the forums and will be immediately deleted by the staff.

[Wojo 2,453]

So taping something off the TV is copyright protected? 

[Disco Stu 15,495]

Just now, WojinPA said:

So taping something off the TV is copyright protected? 

 

No, disseminating is what's illegal, not the act of taping it. 

[Wojo 2,453]

Ah. 

[Dixon Hill 4,232]

8 hours ago, Not Mr. Big said:

I thought Seth MacFarlane's "film music is dying" remarks were pretty inappropriate for this event.  

 

Yeah it seemed like wasted air, he could have said anything else about John instead of the usual, largely exaggerated, lament for Good Film Music. 

[Martyprod 86]

1 hour ago, hollyw00d said:

 

 

Will you be posting a link here or do I need to PM you?  I totally forgot it was on yesterday

 

 

 

As said by Jay unfortunatly posting a link or leaking it anywhere is "illegal". this is a risk that i'll not take, my life is already a so big mess that i don't want to add one more to it. Unfortunatly except if someone else do it, i don't see other way. i was just telling that someone recorded it for me. after that, i'm afraid that between the copyright issue, the forum policy who is completly normal and my own security make all this a bit hard to find an aswer to a question that i don't have.

[Datameister 2,034]

2 hours ago, Jay said:

 

JW told a better version of that story in Boston last month, check out my transcription of what he said here:

 

http://www.jwfan.com/forums/index.php?/topic/26022-john-williams-film-night-boston-may-12-13-2016/&do=findComment&comment=1246143

 

Haha that's great, I hadn't seen that. Too funny!

 

Star Wars and Empire sure do set up a great love triangle...boy, did Jedi take it in a whole other direction...

[Amer 2,078]

4 hours ago, Datameister said:

 

Haha that's great, I hadn't seen that. Too funny!

 

Star Wars and Empire sure do set up a great love triangle...boy, did Jedi take it in a whole other direction...

 

 

They should have made The Prequels with a Love triangle between Anakin. Padme and Obiwan and it should have been the McGuffin that would have triggered Anakin to the Darkside...

[Datameister 2,034]

Just now, azahid said:

 

 

They should have made The Prequels with a Love triangle between Anakin. Padme and Obiwan and it should have been the McGuffin that would have triggered Anakin to the Darkside...

 

Haha...for all the prequels' failures, I thought the central conceit of Anakin's fall was solid: boy loses his mother, crystallizing his fear of losing the people he loves, and ultimately sells his soul to the devil in order to prevent it from happening again to the love of his life. I was watching TPM the other day, and the pieces really are there from the beginning...Yoda explicitly points out how he's missing his mother, how he's afraid of losing her. The story is there - it's just not told that well.

[Wojo 2,453]

The moral of the prequels is almost the antithesis of the original trilogy. 

 

Luke feels love for his father and won't kill him when he has a clear opportunity, which gives Anakin the chance to be redeemed. Leia and Luke go to great lengths - giving up Jedi training, then infiltrating Jabba's crew - to save their friend Han, who they love romantically and as a brother, respectively.

 

Love drives people to do good things. 

 

But young Anakin loves his mother and though he wants to be a Jedi, he isn't able to see her again until right before she dies (and he kills some savages). He loves his girlfriend but isn't allowed to form a romantic attachment, so he marries in secret and sires progeny. After losing his mother, he doesn't want to lose his family so he does what he thinks he needs to.

 

Love drives people to do terrible things. 

 

Nah. 

[rpvee 805]

3 hours ago, azahid said:

 

 

They should have made The Prequels with a Love triangle between Anakin. Padme and Obiwan and it should have been the McGuffin that would have triggered Anakin to the Darkside...

 

There was actually a deleted scene from "Revenge of the Sith" (it's in the novelization), where Palpatine tells Anakin there are rumors of Obi-Wan being seen leaving Padme's apartment early in the morning.  Obi-Wan had really been there, and his visit is briefly referenced in the film.  After Anakin's second vision while sitting on the couch in the apartment, he can sense Obi-Wan's presence.  Then Padme comes in, Anakin says "Obi-Wan was here", and Padme replies it was out of concern for Anakin.  So Palpatine tried to plant those seeds of distrust, but it didn't do much and didn't completely make the cut of the film.

 

Just some trivia for ya!

[Gruesome Son of a Bitch 6,488]

Okay, I saw some of it. Thoughts:

 

- The opening with Will Ferrell was awful. I thought I had traveled back in time to the year 2005.

 

- Maybe I'm just a terrible person, but Spielberg getting emotional during the Schindler's List theme just made me fucking cringe.

 

- I don't like anything Seth MacFarlane has done, but I absolutely agreed with him. It was a weirdly JWFan moment. That being said, it was completely inappropriate.

 

- I believe Tom Cruise when he gushes about Williams and the Born on the Fourth of July score. I know he's done it before. His comments were the most sincere and honestly beautiful (sorry, couldn't think of a better word!) of anyone I saw, with the exception of George Lucas. It was rather sad seeing him up there for some reason.

[Red 75]

2 minutes ago, Nick Tatopoulos's Beret said:

- I believe Tom Cruise when he gushes about Williams and the Born on the Fourth of July score. I know he's done it before. His comments were the most sincere and honestly beautiful (sorry, couldn't think of a better word!) of anyone I saw, with the exception of George Lucas. It was rather sad seeing him up there for some reason.

 

I'm really glad that score got some attention. Obviously all the classics are great but after a while all the gushing becomes redundant and ebbing a little too far on the side of sycophantic (the whole show can be described that way). So seeing a less known work like that get its due was refreshing. 

[Ricard 2,242]

In other words... the gala sucked. 

[Bespin 8,472]

Write me in PM, I want to see the hommage please.

[Quintus 5,399]

Is this not available yet then? How about a footwarmer? 

[Thor 7,452]

OK, so I just saw the TV broadcast. To be honest, I was rather disappointed. I have a feeling that the 1 hour, 5 minutes version I saw was a seriously edited version -- with just the "big" names and such. I would certainly love to have seen the live feed instead. I have feeling they edited out a lot of good stuff.

 

Feels a bit like a missed opportunity; I had hoped for comments and appearances by other associated acts that weren't just Spielberg or Lucas-related.

[Martyprod 86]

1 minute ago, Thor said:

OK, so I just saw the TV broadcast. To be honest, I was rather disappointed. I have a feeling that the 1 hour, 5 minutes version I saw was a seriously edited version -- with just the "big" stuff. I would certainly love to have seen the live feed instead. I have feeling they edited out a lot of good stuff.

 

Which one did you see ? the one aired saturday ? i thought it was 2h ? or you saw a rerun who has been edited ? or the original broadcast was already edited ?

[Thor 7,452]

I have no idea which version. I thought it was only one that was broadcast, and that that was the one I got to see.

[karelm 2,901]

7 hours ago, Nick Tatopoulos's Beret said:

 

- The opening with Will Ferrell was awful. I thought I had traveled back in time to the year 2005.

 

Oh, it could have been much, much worse. Remember this career ending disaster of historic proportions?

 

 

[crumbs 14,287]

3 hours ago, karelm said:

Oh, it could have been much, much worse. Remember this career ending disaster of historic proportions?

 

 

 

Nowhere near as bad as Pia Zadora's effort.

 

 

[mrbellamy 6,270]

6 hours ago, Martyprod said:

 

Which one did you see ? the one aired saturday ? i thought it was 2h ? or you saw a rerun who has been edited ? or the original broadcast was already edited ?

 

It was a 90 minute broadcast, probably had plenty of commercial breaks so I guess 65 minutes of the actual gala would be about right. I think it's around 8 minutes of commercials for every half hour in the US.

[Martyprod 86]

20 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

 

It was a 90 minute broadcast, probably had plenty of commercial breaks so I guess 65 minutes of the actual gala would be about right. I think it's around 8 minutes of commercials for every half hour.

 

wow ok, not nice. i just checked my AFI recording of the george lucas one and it's (my version has no ads) one hour and 17mn, but there are LOT of videos not live about interview of people in between. so i'll tell that the pure show was broadcasted less than 60mn. don't know why they edit it :(...

[crumbs 14,287]

It sounds as if his acceptance speech was "severely" truncated in the broadcast, according to a poster on FSM. Disappointing if true.

[jocores 96]

For non USA residents is there any way go watch it? 

[Quintus 5,399]

If the producers have seen fit to edit down the Maestro's own acceptance speech then I don't think it's worth the bother to watch at all, frankly.