Williams grew up
surrounded by music, being born to a father who was a percussionist for the CBS
Radio and the Raymond Scott Quintet. He attended UCLA, the LA City College, and
Julliard studying orchestration, composition, and piano. He got his start
playing piano in the orchestras for Columbia and 20th Century Fox and working
as an orchestrator with the giants in the film industry including Alfred
Newman, Franz Waxman, and Dimitri Tiomkin.
Early on, he did
composing jobs for television including Checkmate
(1960), Gilligan’s Island (1964), and
Lost in Space (1965). Following this,
he wrote Emmy-winning scores for Heidi
(1968) and Jane Eyre (1970) as well
as his first Oscar for adapting Fiddler
on the Roof (1971). Due to this success, he caught Steven Spielberg’s
attention and worked with him on Jaws
(1975) giving him his first Academy Award for an original score.
Looking at his scores,
he typically uses music to sustain unity throughout the film. He also is known
to create a correspondence between the music and narrative. Let’s look at a few
musical excerpts from several of his films to see how he fits his themes into
the narrative structure:
Williams will
often use music to create a mood, emotion, or portray a character. One example
can be found in Schindler’s List (1993).
He also is known
to use expressive melodies or recognizable and recurring themes throughout a
film to represent something. Examples of this can be found with “Hedwig’s
Theme” in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’sStone (2001)
and the “Shark Theme” in Jaws (1975).
Williams also
uses careful placement of his music in relation to dialogue as can be observed
in this scene from E.T. (1982).
What is your
favorite film that uses a John Williams score? Does it have any of the above
features such as a recurring theme or a certain melody that is used to evoke a
certain emotion in the viewer?
