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New article in The New York Times on John Williams - says he will soon step away from film projects


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4 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

A thought I hadn't admitted to until now: when the article mentioned that he was recording Fabelmans next month I couldn't but think "oh thank goodness that means he's probably finished or just about finished writing the score so if the worst happens, they can still record the music he wrote"

 

I know, and it's stupid because obviously the score wouldn't be the important thing at that point, but the reality is my relationship with John Williams is very one-sided and so that would be my experience of loss. 

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I guess my reaction to this article is one of melancholy.  I certainly understand his desire to now focus on music that is either his alone or for a treasured collaborator, but I will miss the excitement of seeing his name on a movie poster or listening to a new soundtrack of his for the first time.

 

However, IMHO, I wish he'd set aside a chunk of time to write an autobiography, or a least an "As Told To" John Burlingame for instance.  A proper historical remembrance of, as others have said, one of the last of the golden age titans who's experiences and recollections span decades of Hollywood history.

 

Williams has been asked about this, of course, and has humbly expressed, at least publicly, no desire to do so.  But one can wish that someone can convince him that his thoughts and anecdotes would be treasured by generations of fans.  Of late, it does seem like he's taking care to preserve his legacy in the way he desires, so I remain hopeful his personal journey in his own words, (at least posthumously) will be shared with an adoring world.

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12 minutes ago, jedijim said:

I guess my reaction to this article is one of melancholy.  I certainly understand his desire to now focus on music that is either his alone or for a treasured collaborator, but I will miss the excitement of seeing his name on movie poster or listening to a new soundtrack of his for the first time.

 

However, IMHO, I wish he'd set aside a chunk of time to write an autobiography, or a least an "As Told To" John Burlingame for instance.  A proper historical reverberance of, as others have said, one of the last of the golden age titans who's experiences and recollections span decades of Hollywood history.

 

Williams has been asked about this, of course, and has humbly expressed, at least publicly, no desire to do so.  But one can wish that someone can convince him that his thoughts and anecdotes would be treasured by generations of fans.  Of late, it does seem like he's taking care to preserve his legacy in the way he desires, so I remain hopeful his personal journey in his own words, (at least posthumously) will be shared with an adoring world.

 

100% agree that somebody just needs to get ahold of JW for like a week of 3 hour interviews and put them in a book for posterity. He'd probably do it for Burlingame, Alex Ross. 

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I will say the one quote in there that we've all ignored is that Spielberg said he "feels pretty secure" and that Williams promised him he'd keep doing it. So JW may also just be hedging his bets here like usual. For all intents and purposes I'm still taking it as a retirement announcement. Two final scores is awesome news. More would be great. 

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23 minutes ago, jedijim said:

However, IMHO, I wish he'd set aside a chunk of time to write an autobiography, or a least an "As Told To" John Burlingame for instance.  A proper historical reverberance of, as others have said, one of the last of the golden age titans who's experiences and recollections span decades of Hollywood history.

 

Williams has been asked about this, of course, and has humbly expressed, at least publicly, no desire to do so.  But one can wish that someone can convince him that his thoughts and anecdotes would be treasured by generations of fans.  Of late, it does seem like he's taking care to preserve his legacy in the way he desires, so I remain hopeful his personal journey in his own words, (at least posthumously) will be shared with an adoring world.

 

I've dreamed about this for years!  Think of the stories.  It blows my mind, for example, that at some point in the mid-Sixties, John Williams and Frank Sinatra had to sit down and have multiple conversations about film score spotting for None But the Brave.  That might be my number-one fly-on-the-wall scenario of all time.

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There are too few bio pics about director composer relationships. 

Movies about musicians usually follw almost the same pattern all the time: Youngster falling in love with music, evolving, being discovered, getting famous, the downfall/crisis, rise again, then either musical event of their life or downfall again and death by accident, drugs, suicide or all of it. Probably, this does not match with film music composers that usually spent most time just working, getting wealthy and old, no scandals etc.

 

But this whole development of film composers, especially Williams, getting rejected by classical music community and getting accepted after long years, at last conducting big philharmonic orchestras would be a story worth telling or not? I want to see that movie.

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15 hours ago, Jay said:

If Spielberg makes another movie after the Fabelmans and Williams is still happy and healthy there's no way he won't score it.

I agree. Also, since 2005 we've had many periods where we never knew if Williams would score another film ever again. Now we know he has two films in the pipeline - that's more than we usual can be sure of. Let's see what happens after Indiana Jones 5 (film score-wise - luckily we know he's gonna keep writing music as long as he's able).

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16 hours ago, Jay said:

If Spielberg makes another movie after the Fabelmans and Williams is still happy and healthy there's no way he won't score it.

 

I think it might depend on the type of film. For example, if Spielberg made Ready Player One next year, I don't see Williams being interested.

 

On the other hand, if he circles back to a film like Edgardo Mortara, I could see JW scoring it.

 

For some reason I think Spielberg is finished with making big budget genre films now anyway.

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1 hour ago, GerateWohl said:

There are too few bio pics about director composer relationships. 

Movies about musicians usually follw almost the same pattern all the time: Youngster falling in love with music, evolving, being discovered, getting famous, the downfall/crisis, rise again, then either musical event of their life or downfall again and death by accident, drugs, suicide or all of it. Probably, this does not match with film music composers that usually spent most time just working, getting wealthy and old, no scandals etc.

 

But this whole development of film composers, especially Williams, getting rejected by classical music community and getting accepted after long years, at last conducting big philharmonic orchestras would be a story worth telling or not? I want to see that movie.

 

Btw, I didn't mean Spielberg doing a JW biopic, but an actual documentary.

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2 minutes ago, TownerFan said:

Btw, I didn't mean Spielberg doing a JW biopic, but an actual documentary.

That would probably be the best. All that footage that Spielberg created by filming his scoring sessions over the years must be good for something.

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1 minute ago, Tom said:

When do you think interview with Williams was done?  Sometimes these are a full month or so in advance.  

 

I reckon we'll see hints of the recording sessions on the JKMS social media page when the sessions start.

 

But yeah, in all likelihood the interview took place in January, so they might be recording this month.

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On 14/02/2022 at 12:24 PM, GerateWohl said:

If this is sad news for you, I conclude you are planning to stay in your day job until you are 100? ;)

 

Sorry for kidding. But for me this is great news in every possible way. This 90 year old fellow plans to continue making music! Writing. Conducting. I mean, how good could it get?

After all the rumours and stories how this worked in ithe production of Rise of Skywalker and how much he had to work for the trash can, I think, it is also much more valuable for us fans to get more of his concert works rather than another score.

 

hahaha I plan for that, indeed :P That's why I said I understand him, is a sad news for me and for cinema.

 

I usually enjoy more his movie scores than concerts but is his choice not mine!

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Being the last Spielberg score- I suppose there will be plenty of media coverage. And hoping that once Spielberg wraps this one up he actually compile and make a formal documentary on Williams alomng with the footages he has collected so far from their entire collaborations. 

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2 hours ago, Jay said:

 

WilliamsNYTimes.jpg


Wow; that is awesome! Unfortunately, now I have to decide between keeping the photo of the Maestro taken for the Christmas 2020 issue of BBC Music or use this photo instead for my Apple playlist

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10 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

 

This big enough? Williams-NYTimes.jpg (3840×4802) (ibb.co)

 

If not I have an even bigger one: Williams-NYTimes2.jpg (6477×8100) (ibb.co)


Yes! Thanks. 
 

10 hours ago, Not Mr. Big said:

What for?

 

To possibly use for my Apple playlist.

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I don't think Spielberg is interested in making that kind of movie again.  Ready Player One was the last "light adventure" film he makes would be my bet.  Just see him pulling out of directing Indy 5.  They can blame it on "scheduling conflicts" all they want, but if Spielberg really wanted to make it, they would have made it work for him.  I firmly believe that.

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17 minutes ago, Edmilson said:

Unless Marvel actually convinces Spielberg to do a superhero movie.

 

They already got Sam Raimi, it's all a matter of time before hiring every major director in Hollywood... :devil:

I hope this never happens

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Sam Raimi is working within the confines of the Disney-Marvel system because his career was on the outs.   Now Spielberg definitely has less industry power than he used to, he hasn't directed a bonafide hit since Lincoln after all, but he's coming down from a position of much greater power than Raimi ever dreamed of.  I think Spielberg will coast on enough power that he won't have to swallow his pride before the end of his career.  He will continue to make only what he wants, just for smaller budgets than he'd probably like.

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3 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

I don't think Spielberg is interested in making that kind of movie again.  Ready Player One was the last "light adventure" film he makes would be my bet.  Just see him pulling out of directing Indy 5.  They can blame it on "scheduling conflicts" all they want, but if Spielberg really wanted to make it, they would have made it work for him.  I firmly believe that.

 

I don't think they ever said anything about scheduling conflicts? The announcement seemed pretty clear in saying his reason was that he just decided not to do it and he wanted to hand it to a younger filmmaker. Not that Mangold is even that young lol. 

 

2 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Now Spielberg definitely has less industry power than he used to, he hasn't directed a bonafide hit since Lincoln after all

 

How are Bridge of Spies and Ready Player One not bonafide hits? They both grossed more than 3x their reported budgets and had positive reviews (granted RPO was no major critical hit relative to his others but it was "certified fresh" anyway) 

 

I guess Lincoln had a bigger impact, the best reviews of the three, and a more impressive box office relative to expectations, it's kind of the most in Spielberg's "canon" but I think those other two would only add to his security within the industry. RPO was expensive as hell and did very well considering it had no stars and the book was not really a major IP. I think any studio would be very happy to have an equivalent Ready Player One performer every year. 

 

I do think if he was eager to make another action-adventure, then it's curious he didn't do Indy 5, but he's weird sometimes with his choices. He was never quite as passionate about Indy, anyway, and it could have had as much to do with him not really feeling it without Lucas. He's so driven by his love of scripts as a director and the Indy sequels are the only movies that he really did for George #1, even Last Crusade was a favor when he really wanted to do Rain Man at the time.

 

StilI I wouldn't be that surprised if he ended up directing some other original genre script he liked. 

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I will eat nails if Ready Player One made any profit.  Nearly half of its gross came from Chinese box office, and while that market is obviously very important to these tentpole kinda movies, never forget that the Hollywood studios get a significantly smaller percentage of ticket sales from China than they do in America.  As important as China is as a film market, RP1 bombed in America and that matters.

 

I'm sure Bridge of Spies broke even, but they were definitely hoping for a Lincoln size hit and it just wasn't.

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31 minutes ago, mrbellamy said:

StilI I wouldn't be that surprised if he ended up directing some other original genre script he liked. 

 

It'd be cool if he returned to serious sci-fi, but I guess he got that out of his system by WOTW.  Serious sci-fi Spielberg is related enough to my favorite, Civics teacher Spielberg, that it would get me excited.   And actually now that I think of it, there's definitely a through-line about freedom and authoritarianism connecting his historical films with his hard sci-fi films.

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