John Williams's Film Music: Jaws, Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and the Return of the Classical Hollywood Music Style

Introduction

3 Intro­ duc­ tion John ­ Williams is prob­ ably the most suc­ cess­ ful com­ poser in film his­ tory. His name is as­ so­ ciated with many of the major Hol­ ly­ wood ­ box-office block­ bust­ ers of the last forty years. In a ca­ reer span­ ning more than fifty years, John­ Williams has won four ­ Golden ­ Globes, five Emmys, ­ twenty-one Gram­ mys, seven BAFTA ­ Awards, a num­ ber of Gold and Plat­ i­ num ­ Records, hon­ orary de­ grees from ­ twenty-one ­ American uni­ ver­ sities, and five Acad­ emy ­ Awards. Even more stag­ ger­ ing, with ­ forty-nine Oscar nom­ i­ na­ tions, he cur­ rently holds the ­ record for being the most ­ Oscar-nominated liv­ ing per­ son, the sec­ ond most nom­ i­ nated per­ son in his­ tory, rank­ ing just be­ hind Walt Dis­ ney. His film ­ scores have sold mil­ lions of cop­ ies, with Star Wars still being the ­ best-selling sym­ phonic album of all time.­ Williams’s suc­ cess and fame is not con­ fined to the film in­ dus­ try. For four­ teen years he ­ served as ­ conductor-in-residence and ar­ tis­ tic di­ rec­ tor of one of the most fa­ mous ­ American sym­ phony or­ ches­ tras, the Bos­ ton Pops. As Bos­ ton Pops con­ duc­ tor, he per­ formed not only in the ­ United ­ States but also in three tours to Japan. As a “Bos­ ton Pops Lau­ reate Con­ duc­ tor” since 1994, he still main­ tains a busy con­ cert sched­ ule, both with his an­ nual ap­ pear­ ances in Bos­ ton and as a guest con­ duc­ tor with other famed or­ ches­ tras. John ­ Williams also pur­ sued a ca­ reer as a con­ cert com­ poser, re­ ceiv­ ing com­ mis­ sions from such im­ por­ tant in­ sti­ tu­ tions as the New York Phil­ har­ monic, the Chi­ cago Sym­ phony, and the Bos­ ton Sym­ phony. ­ Plácido Do­ mingo even tried to lure him into com­ pos­ ing an opera for the Los An­ geles Opera House.1 Over the years, John ­ Williams has be­ come Amer­ ica’s “Com­ poser Lau­ reate.” In par­ tic­ u­ lar, the num­ ber of cel­ e­ bra­ tory ­ pieces com­ mis­ sioned for many 4 • Introduction im­ por­ tant ­ events of ­ American his­ tory and life have made him a ­ modernday ­ American ver­ sion of ­ George Frideric Han­ del. His fan­ fares, ­ marches, mini­ ature ­ pieces, and over­ tures have been per­ formed on world­ wide TV broad­ casts; they ac­ com­ pa­ nied the Los An­ geles Olym­ pics in 1984, the cen­ ten­ nial cel­ e­ bra­ tions of the ­ Statue of Lib­ erty in 1986, the At­ lanta Cen­ ten­ nial Olym­ pics in 1996, the Salt Lake City Win­ ter Olym­ pics in 2002, and Pres­ i­ dent Ba­ rack­ Obama’s first in­ au­ gu­ ra­ tion in 2009. In 2012 he wrote the “Fan­ fare for Fen­ way” to cel­ e­ brate the first cen­ ten­ nial of the Red Sox and his be­ loved ­ Boston’s Fen­ way Park. As the Lon­ don Times re­ ported, “Williams’ work is often de­ scribed as quin­ tes­ sen­ tially ­ American. He ­ writes big music for big stu­ dio mo­ vies. He has been ­ called ‘the king of gran­ di­ os­ ity.’”2 In ­ contrast to this huge suc­ cess, ­ Williams has re­ ceived lit­ tle at­ ten­ tion from es­ say­ ists and crit­ ics, and some­ times a kind of ­ ill-concealed an­ i­ mos­ ity from schol­ ars. As of De­ cem­ ber 2013 there are only four books on him world­ wide: two in Span­ ish, one in Ger­ man, and one in ­ French.3 There are no books in En­ glish so far. Such a lack may de­ rive from sus­ pi­ cion about the ­ composer’s enor­ mous suc­ cess and from some ideo­ log­ i­ cal prej­ u­ dices, both of which I dis­ cuss later in the book. Sim­ i­ larly, Eu­ ro­ pean ac­ a­ demic stud­ ies prob­ ably ne­ glect­ Williams be­ cause he is ­ judged to be too com­ mer­ cial and a sym­ bol of the “im­ pe­ ri­ a­ lis­ tic” Hol­ ly­ wood film in­ dus­ try: “If, as some argue, ­ American cin­ ema has con­ quered the world, then ­ Williams can lay...