John Williams: Ten Best Scores

Some of the best music in the world is film music. It manages to take a life outside the film, whether we hum James Bond to conjure a suave take on gun-in-the-air infiltration, or whistle Indiana Jones while we flamboyantly throw spatulas like swords whilst cooking our meals (just me…); it often exists as music independent of it’s visuals. We quietly ‘ba-dum’ as if we were a manifestation of mobile double bass-shark hybrid when we strafe towards our friends, as if to evoke the same sense of fear that the audience feels in Jaws. I think we all take this music for granted, so I want you think about how many movies you can actually hum to yourself right now. The incredible thing is that at least 90% of what you come up with, when you put aside Pirates Of The Caribbean/Gladiator, Up, perhaps Toy Story and of course James Bond, will have been written by one man: John Williams.

If John Williams isn’t a household name then it’s our responsibility to make him one. Superman, Indiana Jones, Jaws, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Jurassic Park, Home Alone, Schindler’s List, Harry Potter, Star Wars (all six), E.T., and Saving Private Ryan – All by the same pen: The second most nominated man in history, recipient of the Olympic Order – the highest individual honour of the International Olympic Committee – Recipient of the National Medal Of Arts, the highest U.S individual honour for arts, presented by the President. When you Google him, the second entry as you type his name is ‘John Williams is the man’.

Yes, he is the man. He is my greatest inspiration as a composer and an international treasure to anybody who’s ever watched a film. So I’ve decided to make a ‘top ten’ list of John Williams’ best film scores. Here’s the thing though, the Internet is full of them – so I figured I’d try something a bit different with this…

I want to make a list that embodies the soundtracks that do the most for the picture; the ones that have the greatest music underneath the brilliant melodies, but above all, the music that has the greatest effect on the film and how we perceive it when we walk away: when we close our eyes and fill our heads with image and sound to remember what the film was like. You’ll see a lot of lists on the internet that look remarkably similar to each other, here’s one I came up with below.

1. Star Wars IV: A New Hope
2. Jaws
3. Indiana Jones
4. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial
5. Jurassic Park
6. Superman
7. Saving Private Ryan
8. Schindler’s List
9. Close Encounters Of The Third Kind
10. Harry Potter and The Philosophers Stone (Sorcerer’s to the U.S market that presumably couldn’t understand what a philosopher was…) 

A good list – it’s the one I’d make if I were judging the score on how successful the film was. That’s why it’s so prevalent among all the John Williams’ top-tens out there. Some more inventive editions may include Hook or Star Wars Episode VI, but they really do look very similar nonetheless. My list might seem surprising at first, but just press play on the music I put beneath each number and I’m sure you’ll come round to my way of thinking – here are my favourite soundtracks by my favourite composer. In descending order, of course.

10. Minority Report

This soundtrack is in the minority (sorry) of Williams’ scores that I’ve seen that has received a bit of bad press – not that I can think of any reason why. It’s a great example of how John Williams can move into a more modern style of film-scoring quite effortlessly. The theme is unlike any that he’s written before, not melodic, but motivic. It’s short, snappy and repetitive, and it’s really what minority report is all about; it’s judders and stutters and keeps on you the edge the whole way through. To accomplish something so successfully with such a simple fragment is a testament to Williams’ prolific understanding of film music that can be easily overlooked in the sea of incredible melodies that cause people to cast him in a singular, albeit distinguished, light.

9. Stepmom

I don’t think I’ve ever seen this in a list, I would bet that many people haven’t seen the film either, or just flicked channels when they came across it on TV as if it were something wishy-washy and dull. Watch it if you haven’t, you’ll be surprised. It’s heartbreaking and solemn, romantic and gripping, and without the music it would be nothing. The music portrays grief and love simultaneously almost throughout and is benevolent and emotional all by itself – but with the picture it’ll have you in tears. That’s why it’s up here for me, it’s so seamless that even watching at chance on a rainy day can catch you off guard an hour and a half in and make you well up. Not much film music can so easily impact upon the audience.

8. E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

This is my childhood right here. And it’s one of the first films to really do it all: it’s childish, scary, mysterious, sad, joyous, serious and playful all in one sitting, and the same is true of the music. It still retains a cohesive identity from the scary and otherworldly opening up until the moment that E.T lifts the bike into the sky and we finally hear the melody that has been hinted at for the entire score before it. It’s the ultimate release of music, and my word, is the orchestration good! This is the auditory guide on how to do it if anybody is interested, and it’s almost continuous music. There’s also that little hint at Yoda that I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs… Genius.

7. Catch Me If You Can

People scorn Williams for all those enormous action-epics that he’s so famous for, so he comes up with something reminiscent of 40s jazz for Catch Me If You Can. It’s here because I don’t think there is anybody else out there who would have seen this music in this film – but it’s great. It’s exciting, full of suspense and humour, and in a strange way has that kind of office-fraud smirk to it all. The orchestration is always mocking and carefree, and when you think of the film you can’t help but feel the same way. When people ask what music does to a film you should ask them to watch this without the score: then they’ll know.

6. Jurassic Park

Knock Knock, it’s childhood here again. I was obsessed with dinosaurs because of this film: Until I was 16, I was unswayed on my ambition to become a palaeontologist, and would have been had it not been for the Music Technology A-level at my college and Michael Kamen’s score to Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves. When Lord Richard Attenborough speaks ‘Welcome to Jurassic Park’ we literally cannot continue imagining the picture without Williams’ iconic theme rushing in like another line of dialogue. This is yet another one that we take for granted, that lives an equally rich life outside of the film and carries with it the unmistakable imagery of roaring Tyranosaurs and gargantuan Brachiosaurs. We all know the theme but I’d recommend getting the soundtrack and listening to ‘Hatching Baby Raptor’ as well; see if you’re not transported back to that incredible moment.

5. Hook

This is one of the most magical and manic scores ever written. I think it’s even easier to see with this type of film how much the music adds, without ever going over the top. The orchestration is again, incredible, but I really think in this case that it may just be one of the best examples of orchestration among all music. You may think a claim of that gravity doesn’t seem fitting for a kid’s film – but it’s this high on the list for more than that: it’s the melody that’s really transcendental. One of my all time favourites, it really is just magic to listen to and it serves the action perfectly whilst maintaining a boyish perspective and not becoming too epic or too serious.

4. Harry Potter

Anybody who’s grown up in the last 20 years grew up with J.K Rowling’s books, their films and John Williams’ themes. There are quite a few memorable melodies to pick from the three films that William’s scored, but it’s Hedwig’s theme that we all hum when we think of Harry Potter. I don’t specify a film here for a good reason, although William’s only penned three of the eight chapters, his music endured throughout them all. It is inescapably the image of Harry Potter and his world of witchcraft and wizardry, so much so that it was engrained in the scores of the 3 composers that took up the mantle afterwards. Even when they wanted to steer away and alter the theme to make something unique, it remained. Music that is that definitive to the identity of a film is what every composer dreams of writing and is the embodiment of what I spoke of earlier: music that has it’s own identity in popular culture. It could easily be on a par with the following entries.

3. Star Wars IV: A New Hope

It had to be here really, didn’t it? There’s no denying how great it is and how much it deserves to sit so highly on this list and everybody else’s. I’m sure there still a few of you out there yelling as to why it’s not right at the top – all I can say to you is that it was a very hard decision. The opening fanfare to Star Wars is one of the most famous and most appreciated pieces of film music of all time. Where Harry Potter may be the music of my generation, this is the music of another, and it has stood the test of time, engulfing everybody else’s hearts as the years go by. Wall-to-wall music again, and worth mentioning because it came at a time when film music was moving away from the giant and constant, melody lead orchestral tour de force that we’re quite happy with now. Film music had started in a similar, yet slightly more stratified way and had probably become quite boring until Williams’ slammed this into the faces of the audience, knocking something so prolific into them we haven’t been able to forget it for 35 years. He couldn’t really write a bad note after could he?

2. Jaws

This is the reason why Star Wars is third. It’s here for the same reasons but on a bigger scale. Where Star Wars is engrained into our society, Jaws is engrained into our psyche. ‘Da-num, da-num’ is an everyday thought to people that haven’t even seen the film, and where it makes an audience shudder in anticipatory fear in the cinema, it becomes a comedic cliché on how to define a scary moment in our lives outside of the darkened theatre. I don’t hear people saying ‘are you humming Dvořák’s 9^th?’ when I sneak up behind them, and if I did I might do to them what the shark in the films is famous for. The entire score to Jaws is another brilliant example of Williams’ understanding of how to make the most simple and convincing musical idea have the strongest possible impact upon a film; turning spectators into participators and leaving a remarkable mental and emotional image of a film that can be conjured with just two notes.

1. Memoirs Of A Geisha

I bet you’ve never seen that at number 1 before. Before you manifest any physical rage, I’d best tell you why it’s there for me. If you’ve read the book you may have an idea of just how beautiful this film and story is: well, Williams’ music is perfect. I don’t know how it could have been any better suited, any more emotional or better crafted. Again, a simple idea blossoms into something infinitely more compounding: Sayuri is the ‘Cello. She’s also being played by Yo-Yo Ma, who has to be, undisputed, the best cellist alive today. The soundtrack creates something that holds within it the purest form of innocence, with a deep and rapturous love that takes the audience far into third-person memoirs and pushes them around like a geisha learning to dance. It has taken me well over an hour to write this paragraph because I couldn’t play the soundtrack without being completely absorbed for what must be the 100^th time of listening. It’s worldly, another example of why we should never think of John Williams as ‘the action guy’ when it comes to scoring films. It’s worldly but it’s not cliché, it’s so well written for a delicate blend of western and eastern timbres that it surpasses all of our preconceptions about what a foreign culture sounds like; something Hollywood is all to well-known for accommodating. It takes us to a place where we become immersed in the culture; we desire what Sayuri desires and we feel what she feels. There’s a reason why, even against the pathetic etiquette Hollywood seems to have developed for not awarding John Williams awards for his nominations, that it won the Golden Globe, BAFTA and Grammy awards for best score in 2007. I don’t think I’ve heard a melody that works as well in 7/8 as it does in 4/4 before, let alone a melody as beautiful as the one that flows through this score. I would recommend that you listen to my last offering from this soundtrack, one of my favourite pieces of music, full stop. I hope it makes a convert out of you.

Now I’d like to quickly mention a couple of scores that didn’t make it into this top ten. John Williams has written so much great music that he’d make a top twenty hard to write, and we’re obviously missing Indiana Jones and Saving Private Ryan from this list, both incredible scores, particularly the latter. The Witches Of Eastwick and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind deserve special mentions as well for being scores that had huge impacts on the way people listen to, write and perceive film music, not to mention the effort on Star Wars Episode I, for bringing something new to an old horse and capturing another generation with it. Munich for it’s opening, The Terminal for it’s ingenuity and Born On The Fourth Of July for it’s sheer captivating and emotional movement.

Anything missing? ah, Schindler’s List. There’s a reason for that though…

Now, Williams’ score for Schindler’s List is amazing as a soundtrack CD, the themes, the performances and the care taken with orchestral balance are all breath-taking, but I have a bit of an issue with it when it comes to the film, which is why it doesn’t make the cut for me when it usually does quite well for others. Watching the film, I often feel that the music is extremely independent to the picture. I even struggle to imagine how it was conceived based on the image, on the action and on what seem like the evident on-screen emotions. If this were not somehow glued together with whatever it is that makes John Williams’ music incredible, I really don’t think it would work at all for the film; I certainly don’t think anybody else could have accomplished a score like it. That might be the only bad thing I ever say about John Williams’ music, and it’s not exactly like it’s a chink in the armour, it’s still great music. It just means that I don’t watch that film very often. He did win one of his few academy awards for it though, so maybe I’m just wrong about everything!

What do you think about Schindler’s List? And what’s the one score that really has to make it into your top ten?

There are so many more films I could and should list below just because they all have great music by Williams’ on them, instead, however, I’d like to leave you with a way to find them yourselves. If you don’t already own the CD, go and buy the 2-disc ‘John Williams – Greatest Hits 1969-1999’ album. It’s not expensive and there’s a lot of music for the money, a lot of great music that you’ll wonder how you ever did without. To finish off, I offer up this little trivial gem…

Another reason Stepmom gets into my top ten is because of the circumstances in which it was written; Patrick Doyle was originally selected to score the film, and did, but as is in Hollywood, the score (being the last thing that could be changed) was rejected. Williams was brought in at very short notice to write an entirely new score and bear the burden of fixing the film – he did more than fix it, he made it. To this day, he has only won 5 of his 47 Oscar nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences: a travesty, don’t you agree?

Alex