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Steven Spielberg is Making a John Williams Documentary


Manakin Skywalker

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15 hours ago, Manakin Skywalker said:

Anyone know where this might be from? Definitely something from the 80's.

 

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Ewok Celebration choir session? :lol:

 

80s? So maybe the evil choir from Temple of Doom? Or Suo Gan from Empire of the Sun?

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मुझे पता है, लेकिन वे सब मर चुके हैं!

मुझे पता है, लेकिन वे सब मर चुके हैं!

मुझे पता है, लेकिन वे सब मर चुके हैं!

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1 hour ago, Tom Guernsey said:

They should have slipped in a clip of Richard Attenborough and pretended it was a JW interview clip. See if anyone noticed.

 

Interviewer: “what kinda budget did you have for this score?”

JW: “spared no expense”.

 

Interviewer: “…and what’s your favourite fish?”

JW: “Chilean sea bass I believe.”

 

Or this guy:

 

 

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2 hours ago, Edmilson said:

80s? So maybe the evil choir from Temple of Doom? Or Suo Gan from Empire of the Sun?

 

"Suo Gan" wasn't recorded by Williams. The performance was done ahead of principal photography, with the Ambrosian Junior Singers conducted by John McCarthy, who also arranged the old Welsh song.

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1 hour ago, Miguel Andrade said:

 

"Suo Gan" wasn't recorded by Williams. The performance was done ahead of principal photography, with the Ambrosian Junior Singers conducted by John McCarthy, who also arranged the old Welsh song.

 

But could it be "Exultate Justi", or was that also done ahead of principal photography? I don't know, the choir on that sounds bigger than what's in the picture.

 

I think maybe "Temple of Doom" is more likely. However, it appears to be an all-black choir...don't know if that makes a difference as to what it should be? Some non-film work, perhaps?

 

Anyways, we'll know in due time.

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Trailer says the doc will be streaming Nov 1 but makes no mention of a limited theatrical release. I hope they didn't decide to back out of that plan.

 

EDIT: Looks like the limited release is still happening, according to Disney, if you live in or near NYC, Los Angeles, or London. Tickets go on sale Oct. 24 via Fandango.

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2 hours ago, Thor said:

 

But could it be "Exultate Justi", or was that also done ahead of principal photography? I don't know, the choir on that sounds bigger than what's in the picture.

 

I think maybe "Temple of Doom" is more likely. However, it appears to be an all-black choir...don't know if that makes a difference as to what it should be? Some non-film work, perhaps?

 

Anyways, we'll know in due time.

Watch it actually be "America, the dream goes on" ;)

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Steven Spielberg: It’s gonna be great.

George Lucas: It’s gonna be great.

Ron Howard: It’s gonna be great.

Chris Columbus: It’s gonna be great.

Frank Marshall: It’s gonna be great.

J.J. Abrams: It’s gonna be great.

James Mangold: It’s gonna be great.

Lawrence Kasdan: It’s gonna be great.

 

 

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43 minutes ago, Davis said:

Steven Spielberg: It’s gonna be great.

George Lucas: It’s gonna be great.

Ron Howard: It’s gonna be great.

Chris Columbus: It’s gonna be great.

Frank Marshall: It’s gonna be great.

J.J. Abrams: It’s gonna be great.

James Mangold: It’s gonna be great.

Lawrence Kasdan: It’s gonna be great.

 

Hans Zimmer: Yeah, sure, it’s gonna be great... again.

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4 hours ago, Bespin said:

Hans Zimmer


He's in the doc, right?

 

I wonder if there'll be hissing and booing at the screenings when he appears.

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14 hours ago, Tom said:

I am not sure that those two sentences can be simultaneously true.  

 

(This is true) I watched it in small sections over the day and was browsing other sites and listening to music while doing so. :lol:

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  • 2 weeks later...

https://variety.com/2024/artisans/news/john-williams-documentary-debut-afi-fest-1236184090/

 

Can’t figure out how to embed the article but there’s a little read by Jon Burlingame before the AFI premiere of the documentary.

Quote

But for the most part the footage is new.

🙌🙌

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17 minutes ago, Brando said:

Can’t figure out how to embed the article

 

Embed the article?  What?

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On 25/08/2024 at 6:47 PM, pete said:
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I am disappointed that his family didn't give interviews

 

Has that been confirmed? The list of interviewees I saw above just said "include" which means it's not complete

 

I knew it!

 

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Bouzereau shot new interviews with Williams, Spielberg, Lucas and nearly 30 other directors, producers, composers, musicians, family members and more to round out his portrait...

 

And I was really excited to read Williams discusses Lost in Space!

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4 hours ago, Jay said:

 

Embed the article?  What?

As in it showing up with a thumbnail and not a link, like Tweets. If it can’t do that then I didn’t know, it would just look better than the whole link being posted.

Edit: nvm, the link was shortened when I just looked at it. Earlier when I posted it the link was much longer.

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2 hours ago, Jurassic Shark said:

The Broughton or Lennertz score? 🤔

The Broughton for sure. JW probably isn't aware that there was a new Lost in Space for Netflix (and in fact he may not even know what a "Netflix" is either...)

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The next year, when Williams was offered a choice between working on the prestigious, star-studded World War II epic A Bridge Too Far or a peculiar-seeming space adventure called Star Wars, it was Spielberg who talked him into taking a chance on Lucas.

Maybe it's just me, but this is the first time I've heard Williams was offered A Bridge Too Far. Attenborough would've been an interesting collaborator - his movies usually let their scores breath.

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1 hour ago, Once said:

Maybe it's just me, but this is the first time I've heard Williams was offered A Bridge Too Far

 

I'm certain this is being reported for the first time. 

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Hi, my name is Rafie. Happy to be here. I am a huge John Willams fan forever and he is still one of my absolute favorite composers to this day. For those going to the premiere of Music By John Williams at TCL Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, have a great time and hope you enjoy it. Can't wait to see this on Disney+ next Friday, November 1st. 

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First reviews confirm a lot of what I've expected, positive but not quite glowing. 

 

Hollywood Reporter: "Richly satisfying if not exactly revelatory"

 

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Music by John Williams‘ first hour, its most effective, is chronological. Making savvy use of Williams’ nostalgia-saturated score from The Fabelmans, Spielberg’s most autobiographical feature, Bouzereau traces a course through Williams’ music-driven childhood to his Hollywood introduction as a jazz pianist, session musician, orchestrator and then composer. None of it is exactly revelatory, but it’s always helpful to note that Williams has had a journey that started with Gilligan’s Island and somehow stretched all the way to Schindler’s List.

 

The memory-driven reflections on Williams’ first collaborations with Spielberg, which brought him to work with Lucas, and the magical year in which Williams composed scores for Star Wars, Close Encounters and Black Sunday are methodical. But owing to the warmth of the storytelling and, of course, countless musical snippets, they never feel dry.

 

Would Steven Spielberg be this utterly comfortable hanging out with a director who hadn’t made an uncountable number of behind-the-scenes features with him over the years? Impossible to know for sure, but the best parts here show Williams and Spielberg literally just standing around chatting about their collaborations.

 

Those sequences, as well as footage from an apparently exhaustive filmed retrospective panel with Spielberg and Williams, make a persuasive argument that this could have been an even simpler movie than Bouzereau’s already straightforward approach has made of it. Put Spielberg and Williams or Lucas and Williams in a room together, give them a snippet of music to discuss, take two steps back and let the magic flow. To Bouzereau’s credit, that’s a lot of what he does.

 

If the first hour is more point-by-point analysis, the last 45 minutes are more nebulous celebration, and I’ll state a preference for the former.

 

 

The Wrap: "There are worse ways to spend 104 minutes than people praising the legendary man behind the scores of Star Wars and Jaws"

 

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That doesn’t make “Music by John Williams” a bad movie, but it does render it a somewhat superficial one as its primary mode seems to be a lovefest for scores you already appreciate.

 

While I wish the film got more into the weeds of where Williams and his work exists in comparison to those who preceded and those who followed him, this is still the kind of inoffensive celebratory piece that will have you eager to revisit his most beloved scores while gaining a bit more insight into their creation.

 

They do mention getting some clips from Spielberg's home movies, but it seems like the more prominent archival exclusives actually might be the footage from that Spielberg/Williams retrospective Q&A....unless it's referring to the TCM special from 2011, I'm hoping it'd be the one from a couple years ago at American Cinematheque where Williams walked back his retirement statements to Spielberg's surprise. 

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Yeah about what I expected. Not as superficial as his bonus feature documentaries, but hardly a detailed exploration of Williams' life and process either.

 

Still, the description of the last hour matches what I was expecting for the whole doco, so at least the first hour is a meatier affair.

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Quote

That doesn’t make “Music by John Williams” a bad movie, but it does render it a somewhat superficial one as its primary mode seems to be a lovefest for scores you already appreciate.

 

Yup. Exactly as I expected.

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On 22/10/2024 at 3:59 AM, Edmilson said:

The Broughton for sure. JW probably isn't aware that there was a new Lost in Space for Netflix (and in fact he may not even know what a "Netflix" is either...)

JW: Yes, you can say I’m not a netflixian.

 

***
 

On my part, I’m expecting nothing special and hope to be pleasantly surprised.

 

So JW didn’t attend. But did Spielberg or Lucas? Because if either of them did, it could mean that they will all appear together at a later date.

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On 22/10/2024 at 4:50 AM, pete said:

I'm certain this is being reported for the first time. 

It might be being reported for the first time, but it's also complete bollocks.

Given Addison's World War II history (he fought at Arnhem, during Operation Market Garden, fer cryin' out loud), and his friendship with Attenborough, there was never any doubt that he would score A BRIDGE TOO FAR.

Likewise, it was Spielberg's friendship with Lucas that got JW the STAR WARS gig.

 

 

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A connection on Facebook (I'm not going to post the name here, for privacy, but if he's a member here, feel free to speak up!) posted a video of the introduction by Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg prior to the premiere. An interesting tidbit that Howard related is that both he and Williams apparently worked on the 1962 musical THE MUSIC MAN. It's the first I've ever heard of any Williams involvement there, presumably it must be uncredited piano duties or arrangements. The score & songs were by Ray Heindorf and Meredith Wilson.

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Based on the reviews above, it sounds like there might be more music from The Fabelmans in this than the actual movie.  Sort of a quasi-Amadeus moment where Williams was actually scoring his own life the whole time.  

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3 hours ago, Thor said:

A connection on Facebook (I'm not going to post the name here, for privacy, but if he's a member here, feel free to speak up!) posted a video of the introduction by Ron Howard and Steven Spielberg prior to the premiere. An interesting tidbit that Howard related is that both he and Williams apparently worked on the 1962 musical THE MUSIC MAN. It's the first I've ever heard of any Williams involvement there, presumably it must be uncredited piano duties or arrangements. The score & songs were by Ray Heindorf and Meredith Wilson.

 

Here is the clip!  https://x.com/AFIFEST/status/1849364607686582310

 

 

 

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