Underrated elements of Williams' work?

[Seth 67]

Hopefully this won't get lost in all the back-and-forth of the impending release of The Last Jedi, but I was hoping to start a discussion of aspects of Williams' work and approach that might be underrated or not discussed as much as maybe they warrant. The topic was inspired while I was re-watching the Star Wars prequels and noticed his approach to the dialogue scenes. I don't have any other strong examples of his dialogue underscoring close at hand, but his approach to the more talky scenes of these films struck me as unusually strong. One of the ones that stood out most (and always has) is the scene in Attack of the Clones where Anakin is finding out from the Lars family what has happened to his mother. The score, based on arpeggios in the strings that don't fully resolve harmonically, adds so much tension and a sense of dread that the dialogue and acting just aren't creating. His string voicings there are impeccable too, pitched in just the right range to work with the voice ranges of the actors without causing conflict. Revenge of the Sith is rife with smart dialogue underscore too, especially in nearly any scene involving Anakin and Palpatine before Anakin's fall, and the same applies to scenes of Anakin and Obi-Wan before their split. I also think his handling of the scene where Obi-Wan confronts Padme about Anakin's turn was handled just right, not overbearing melodically and with harmonic resolution coming at just the right point. The writing and acting in these films don't really generate any sense of tragedy or tension or drama, but the music does what everything else fails to do, mostly without resorting to histrionics to do it.

 

I really don't mean for this thread to turn into fanboy-ish gushing, but hope it turns into a good discussion of things Williams does that we just don't talk about that much or that we think of as underappreciated.

[Loert 2,510]

His underscore. Williams is most known publicly for his big set pieces such as the Raiders March, the Star Wars theme, the E.T. Flying theme etc. But I think Williams is strongest when he's actually writing "minute-by-minute" film music, i.e. the stuff that you hear in the film.

[Serafino 8]

If I may be forgiven for an nontechnical usage of the term, Williams is a tremendous impressionist composer.  He can represent action in a way that adds to its emotional weight, but he can also create a sense of location, space, weather.  Examples that come to mind:  "Into the Estuary" from Jaws, and "Quidditch, Third Year" from Prisoner of Azkaban.

 

He is also rarely credited for the complexity and inventiveness he is capable of.  Track the variations on his motifs and the unique material in the first example, all crammed into a few minutes of music.

[aviazn 273]

His ability to read a scene is impeccable, including when to pull the music out. And I don't just mean in big set pieces with no score, like the opening of Saving Private Ryan, but on a more micro level, including his awareness of how the score will fit in the overall mix. There was this example in a recent Home Alone oral history:

Quote

Michael Wilhoit [supervising sound editor]: At that time, there were no computers. It was all 35 mm magnetic film. It was very old school, and yet it was a cutting-edge mix. Oftentimes, composers would play over action. John Williams and I decided he would lead the music up to the critical moment of the sound and then the sound effect would be the payoff. If the music had run all the way through, it would have been more cartoonish. 

 

 

[Thor 7,475]

His ability to tap into what I like to call "the religious sound" (which might be more pastoral, Vaughan Williams-style, than religious).