Review: ‘Music by John Williams,’ starring John Williams, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Kathleen Kennedy and Chris Columbus

December 29, 2024

by Carla Hay

John Williams in “Music by John Williams” (Photo by Travers Jacobs/Lucasfilm/Disney+)

“Music by John Williams”

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau

Culture Representation: Filmed in 2023, mostly in the United States, the documentary film “Music by John Williams” features award-winning music composer John Willams and a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans, Latin people and Asians) who are his friends, colleagues or family members talking about Williams’ life and career.

Culture Clash: Williams started off as a jazz musician and classical music orchestra player but transitioned into become the most famous and most-awarded movie composer of all time.

Culture Audience: “Music by John Williams” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Williams and the movies he composed music for, including “Star Wars,” “E.T.,” the “Indiana Jones” films, and the first three “Harry Potter” movies.

John Williams in “Music by John Williams” (Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm/Disney+)

The tribute documentary “Music by John Williams” gives an admirable career retrospective of the world’s most famous movie composer. John Williams and his colleague friends provide most of the commentary in a formulaic but educational and delightful film. Even the most ardent fans of Williams will see or learn something new from seeing this well-researched documentary. “Music by John Williams” had its world premiere at the 2024 edition of AFI Fest.

Directed by Laurent Bouzereau, “Music by John Williams” is the type of documentary that would be hard get wrong, considering the subject matter and the participation of all the immensely talented people (including Williams) in this film. Born in New York City in 1932, Williams has an extraordinary body of work that includes composing the iconic scores for numerous high-profile films, including “Star Wars” movies, the “Indiana Jones” movies, 1977’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” 1982’s “E.T. the Extraterrestrial,” 1993’s “Schindler’s List,” 1998’s “Saving Private Ryan” and the first three “Harry Potter” movies.

Williams has won every major award for film music composing (including several Oscars and Grammys) and has earned the description of being a “legendary” composer. “Music by John Williams” has the expected descriptions of Williams’ most famous movie scores with clips from these films and some anecdotal stories. As such, “Music by John Williams” is very much a nostalgia documentary, but it’s also an inspirational story of someone who refuses to follow the conventions that most people follow when it comes to aging and retirement.

“Music by John Williams” tells Williams’ story in chronological order and includes personal photos of Williams in his youth. Williams is candid about his experiences but mostly talks about his career, his compositions and the fondness he has for his colleague friends. He came from a family of musicians and creative people: His father Johnny was a drummer/percussionist, his mother Esther was a dancer, and his younger brothers Jerry and Don and older sister Joan also had musical talent and became musicians. Williams’ three children—daughter Jenny, son Mark and son Joe—also became musicians. (For the purposes of this review, John Williams will be referred to as Williams.)

Williams describes having a happy childhood, which is when he taught himself a lot of what he knows about music through constant practicing. By the time he was in high school, he was writing music for the school’s orchestra. Williams describes this accomplishment in such a modest way, it’s almost easy to forget that most high schoolers wouldn’t be able and wouldn’t be asked to write music for their school orchestra.

In his late teens and 20s, Williams studied music while he attended the University of California at Los Angeles, Juilliard, and the University of Rochester. For a brief time, he was in the U.S. Air Force. When he relocated permanently to Los Angeles, Williams became a session musician for many movies and TV shows from the mid-1950s onward. He worked with mentors such as Harry Mancini and André Previn. Some of Williams’ film credits during this time included 1956’s Carousel, 1959’s “Peter Gunn” and 1961’s “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Williams also became known as a jazz musician. And it wasn’t long before he was composing and conducting his own film and TV scores. Some his TV credits in the 1960s included “Gilligan’s Island” and “Lost in Space.” His first movie score as a composer was the 1958 forgettable flop “Daddy-O.” It’s an example of how Williams didn’t let any early career failures deter him.

Because so much of Williams’ best-known music is in movies directed and/or produced by Steven Spielberg, it should come as no surprise that Spielberg is one of the producers of “Music by John Williams” and is one of the enthusiastic commentators in the documentary. As Williams says in the documentary, the “luckiest day” of his life was meeting Spielberg, who has worked with Williams for all of the feature films directed by Spielberg so far. In the documentary, Spielberg gushes about Williams’ music: “It’s the purest form of art I’ve experienced from any human being.”

Other filmmakers who are interviewed for the documentary are “Star Wars” creator George Lucas, J.J. Abrams, Ron Howard, Kathleen Kennedy, Chris Columbus, Lawrence Kasdan, James Mangold and Frank Marshall. Musicians who pay homage to Williams in this documentary include Chris Martin (lead singer of Coldplay), Branford Marsalis, David Newman, Thomas Newman, Alan Silvestri, Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gustavo Dudamel, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Thomas Hooten and Master Sergeant Karen Johnson of the U.S. Marines Chamber Orchestra. Other interviewees include actress Kate Capshaw, actor Ke Huy Quan and journalists Alex Ross, Elvis Mitchell and Javier Hernandez. Williams’ daughter Jenny and her singer/musician son Ethan Gruska are also interviewed.

The commentators for the documentary have nothing but praise for Williams as an artist and as a person. Spielberg says his first impression of Williams is who Williams remained for all of these years: “He was an elegant man—always has been—but very warm.” Williams gets absolutely no criticism in this movie, which makes him look almost too good to be true.

However, observant viewers will notice that if there’s one major flaw that Williams seems to have is that he’s a workaholic who has often put his career above his personal life. This not-very-surprising revelation comes directly from Williams. He describes how although he was a happily married father during his marriage to actress/singer Barbara Ruick (his first wife, whom he married in 1956), when their three kinds were young, he deliberately spent more time at the music studios of 20th Century Fox than he did at home because being around his kids at home was too much of a noisy distraction for him.

Williams’ daughter Jenny is the only one of his children who is interviewed in the documentary. She doesn’t mention how her father’s absences affected her childhood but she does say that she had to become a mother figure for her younger brothers after their mother tragically died at age 41 of an aneurysm in 1974. Williams says in the documentary that her sudden death is still hard for him to talk about, and he admits he had problems handling being a widowed father of teenagers. Williams and photographer Samantha Winslow (who is not interviewed in the documentary) got married in 1980, and he briefly mentions their happy marriage in the documentary.

One of the most poignant parts of the documentary is when Williams says that he believes that his music improved during this widower part of his life because he felt that Ruick (in spirit) was helping him be a better composer. The phenomenal success of the 1977 “Star Wars” score soundtrack catapulted Williams to a new level of fame. He has been performing at the Hollywood Bowl every year since 1978 and has been a Boston Symphony Orchestra conductor at Tanglewood Music Center every year since 1980, except for 2024, when he could not attend for an undisclosed health reason. As for his prolific career as a composer and conductor, Williams says that he has no intention of retiring.

“Music by John Williams” has scenes (exclusively filmed for this documentary) of Spielberg and Williams happily reminiscing about their collaborations. Spielberg repeats a well-known story about how he was skeptical at first when he heard the shark theme for “Jaws” because Williams had first played it on a piano, and Spielberg didn’t think it sounded menacing enough. However, Spielberg was convinced nce he hear the entire musical sequence in orchestra form.

Speaking of orchestras, Williams is one of the few major film composers who still records entirely with an orchestra and writes out his music by hand. He admits that this way of writing and recording film music is “dying,” as more film composers turn to digital technology. Williams doesn’t seem snobbish about it, but he does express some concern that some of the art form might be lost with new generations of film composers relying only on digital technology to make and record music.

At 105 minutes, “Music by John Williams” skillfully packs in Williams’ entire robust career so far in a well-edited compilation of archival footage and exclusive new interviews. There are very few surprises, except for Williams’ confession that he rarely watches movies and has never been that interested in being a moviegoer. What isn’t surprising is Williams saying that music will always be his biggest passion. Whether or not you’re the type of person to buy classical music scores, “Music by John Williams” makes his passion for music very infectious in the best ways possible.

Disney+ released “Music by John Williams” in select U.S. cinemas and on Disney+ on November 1, 2024.

Apple announces Apple TV+ with Steven Spielberg, Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Aniston and more

March 25, 2019

The following is a press release from Apple:

Apple today announced Apple TV+, the new home for the world’s most creative storytellers featuring exclusive original shows, movies and documentaries, coming this fall. Apple TV+, Apple’s original video subscription service, will feature a brand new slate of programming from the world’s most celebrated creative artists, including Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon, Octavia Spencer, J.J. Abrams, Jason Momoa, M. Night Shyamalan, Jon M. Chu and more. On the Apple TV app, subscribers will enjoy inspiring and authentic stories with emotional depth and compelling characters from all walks of life, ad-free and on demand.

“We’re honored that the absolute best lineup of storytellers in the world – both in front of and behind the camera – are coming to Apple TV+,” said Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services. “We’re thrilled to give viewers a sneak peek of Apple TV+ and cannot wait for them to tune in starting this fall. Apple TV+ will be home to some of the highest quality original storytelling that TV and movie lovers have seen yet.”

Additionally, Apple debuted the all-new Apple TV app and Apple TV channels coming in May 2019. The all-new Apple TV app brings together the different ways to discover and watch shows, movies, sports, news and more in one app across iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, Mac, smart TVs and streaming devices. Users can subscribe to and watch new Apple TV channels – paying for only services they want, like HBO, SHOWTIME and Starz – all on demand, available on and offline, with incredible picture quality and sound; enjoy sports, news and network TV from cable and satellite providers as well as purchase or rent iTunes movies and TV shows all within the new, personalized Apple TV app.

Beginning in May, customers can subscribe to Apple TV channels à la carte and watch them in the Apple TV app, with no additional apps, accounts or passwords required. Apple TV channels include popular services such as HBO, Starz, SHOWTIME, CBS All Access, Smithsonian Channel, EPIX, Tastemade, Noggin and new services like MTV Hits, with more to be added over time around the world.

The new Apple TV app personalizes what viewers love to watch across their existing apps and services while developing a secure and comprehensive understanding of users’ viewing interests. The app will offer suggestions for shows and movies from over 150 streaming apps, including Amazon Prime and Hulu, as well as pay-TV services such as Canal+, Charter Spectrum, DIRECTV NOW and PlayStation Vue. Optimum and Suddenlink from Altice will be added later this year.*

Additionally, the Apple TV app will become the new home to the hundreds of thousands of movies and TV shows currently available for purchase or rent in the iTunes Store.

Availability

Pricing and availability for the Apple TV+ video subscription service will be announced later this fall.

The all-new Apple TV app is coming to iPhone, iPad and Apple TV customers in over 100 countries with a free software update this May, and to Mac this fall.

Through Family Sharing, users can share Apple TV+ and subscriptions to Apple TV channels.

The Apple TV app will be available on Samsung smart TVs beginning this spring and on Amazon Fire TV, LG, Roku, Sony and VIZIO platforms in the future.

Later this year, customers with eligible VIZIO, Samsung, LG and Sony smart TVs will be able to effortlessly play videos and other content from their iPhone or iPad directly to their smart TVs with AirPlay 2 support.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms – iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS – provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

Editor’s note: The shows on Apple TV+ include:

  • Steven Spielberg’s reboot of the “Amazing Stories” anthology
  • Oprah Winfrey projects, including a documentary titled “Toxic Labor” about workplace harassment; a documentary (title to be announced) about mental health; and a book club-oriented program whose title is to be announced.
  • “The Morning Show,” a drama series about morning television, starring Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carell, with Aniston and Witherspoon among the executive producers
  • “See,” a post-apocalyptic drama series starring Jason Momoa and Alfre Woodard
  • “Little Voice,” a musical drama series, executive produced by J.J. Abrams, with original songs written by Sara Bareilles
  • “My Glory Was I Had Such Friends,” starring Jennifer Garner and executive produced by J.J. Abrams
  • “Peanuts” content, based on the beloved comic-strip characters
  • “Swagger,” a drama series based on the life of basketball star Kevin Durant, with Durant executive producing the show with Ron Howard and Brian Grazer
  • “Defending Jacob,” a drama series starring and executive produced by Chris Evans, about a father whose teenage son is suspected of killing a classmate
  • “Pachinko,” a drama series based on Min Jin Lee’s book, with Soo Hugh as the showrunner
  • A comedy series (title to be announced) about video-game company, executive produced by “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” co-stars Rob McElhenney and Charlie Day
  • “Are You Sleeping,” a drama series about how a podcast affects a cold murder case, starring Octavia Spencer, Lizzy Caplan and Aaron Paul
  • “Dickinson,” a drama series about Emily Dickinson, starring Hailee Steinfeld
  • “Bastards,” a drama series about war veterans, starring Richard Gere
  • A drama series (title to be announced) about CIA operative Amaryllis Fox, starring and executive produced by Oscar-winning actress Brie Larson
  • “Little America,” a comedy series about immigrants, executive produced by Oscar-nominated “The Big Sick” writers Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V. Gordon
  • “Helpsters,” a children’s show from Sesame Workshop
  • “Calls,” an American remake of a French drama series that does reenactments of 911 calls
  • “For All Mankind,” a space drama series starring Joel Kinnaman
  • “Central Park,” an animated series from “Bob’s Burgers” creator Loren Bouchard, with a voice cast that includes Kristen Bell, Tituss Burgess, Daveed Diggs, Josh Gad, Kathryn Hahn, Leslie Odom Jr. and Stanley Tucci.
  • “Homes,” a docuseries about unusual homes
  • “Losing Earth,” a possible drama or docuseries about climate change
  • “Shantaram,” a drama series about an escaped prisoner from Australia who’s hiding out in India, from executive producer/screenwriter Eric Warren Singer (“American Hustle”)
  • “Time Bandits,” a fantasy comedy series from executive producer/director Taika Waititi, based on Terry Gilliam’s 1981 film of the same title
  • A still-untitled drama/thriller series from executive producer M. Night Shyamalan, with a cast that includes Lauren Ambrose, Rupert Grint and Toby Kebbell [UPDATE: The series is titled “Servant.”]
  • A still-untitled drama series from Oscar-winning director Damien Chazelle, with the show’s plot and cast to be announced
  • A still-untitled sci-fi series from executive producer Simon Kinberg, who has written several “X-Men” movies
  • A still-untitled mystery drama series from executive producer/director Jon M. Chu (“Crazy Rich Asians”), based on real-life pre-teen reporter Hilde Lysiak (played by Brooklynn Prince), with Jim Sturgess co-starring as her father

SOURCE: Variety

*Network and streaming app availability may vary by country.

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