John Williams is one of the greatest film composers of all time with one of the most staggeringly impressive number of themes so distinct that people can hum them on command. Starting with The Sugarland Express (1973), Jaws (1975), Close Encounters of Third Kind (1977), and Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981) – he has worked with Steven Spielberg 29 times in 50 years. Anyone growing up in the late 70s, or early 80s could rely on a new hummable theme every year with Star Wars (1977), Superman (1978), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and has continued through for decades.
Music By John Williams is the first comprehensive documentary about this one-of-a-kind musical genius.
Laurent Bouzereau has produced over 150 making of films and became the go-to person for Laserdisc bonus features then later DVD, during the huge explosion of the format. He was the guy who created most of the features on discs for Spielberg, Hitchcock, Lean, Scorsese, and De Palma. He is the author of many film books on topics like James Bond, Star Wars, Sam Peckinpah, and his recent book on Brian De Palma.
Bouzereau has recently directed many long-form documentaries, like this year’s Faye for HBO, Natalie Wood: What Remains Behind, and the acclaimed Netflix series, Five Came Back. The filmmaker is incredibly talented, prolific and was a natural choice to direct this documentary. He recently caught up with Immersive via Zoom.
[This interview was edited for clarity and length.]
Do you sleep?
I have sleep deprivation for sure, because as I was making those films, I was also writing a book on Brian De Palma that just came out a few weeks ago. I’m making another film on Hitchcock for Studio Canal. I had a period of nine months where I would have to get up at four and start my day super early so that I could accomplish everything that was at hand. It was amazing, and I’m glad that I committed to all this.
How did the John Williams documentary come about?
John was celebrating his 90th birthday, and I discussed my idea to do a documentary with Spielberg. I said, “Steven, combining all the archival from Lucasfilm, your archival material mine, we have to do something with John.” And he agreed and convinced John, and then John wasn’t a hundred percent sure and changed his mind. Eventually we convinced him.
So we combined forces actually with Imagine Documentaries and Lucasfilm and Amblin and my company, Nedland Media, and we formed a family around John to make what was arguably the hardest film I’ve ever made because I understood the responsibility.
John Williams is a Hollywood icon, and it seems the word was invented for him and has been overused for other people, but I also knew the importance of it to my relationship with Steven, who I’ve known for 30 years, and he’s given me so many incredible opportunities that, not that I ever going to think that I’m going to screw them up, but I just knew that this was going to be one of those situations where I had to hit it right away.
One of the interesting things about John Williams… I’m a movie fanatic, I have encyclopedic knowledge of movie history but I actually didn’t know that much about him. Can you elaborate on why that is?
I was the same way, and I think that the best place to be as a filmmaker is a sense of curiosity and there’s nothing worse but going into a subject and feeling like more than the person you’re talking to. I thought that I was having a journey of discovery with him each time we sat down, whether it was at the piano in an interview situation, or even with other people who knew him. All that was part of the discovery for me. If I was blown away by being the first member of the audience of that film, I knew that people who thought they knew him would discover something as well.
Tell me a little bit about the research process. You had excellent access and it seemed like there’s an amazing archive out there. Spielberg, anytime he lends his movies, they just look amazing.
The Super 8 footage is always amazing. The archival material came indeed from Steven and Lucasfilm. A lot of photos came from John himself and his family. Everybody rallied to enrich the documentary visually, but also the music. I mean, I immersed myself in his music.
I created a playlist. I created all kinds of subgenres within the playlist, and I was listening to his music constantly. I knew his music very well. But when you suddenly start thinking of it in terms of a story, it’s a different game. I was proud of myself because I just felt I had based my brain on John’s world and music.
Did you have a personal favorite score of his or maybe some, one of the lesser-known ones?
I’m a kid of the seventies. So from the seventies, The Towering Inferno, The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake to Jaws, of course, but even The Fury, Dracula, and Star Wars. I mean, those are my favorites because that’s my first love. You never forget that.
But as much as I wanted to discuss that, I removed myself. It’s hard when you’re a fan to not make this about yourself, because you’re constantly remembering those moments. I want it to be in the position of the audience and maybe an audience would know the music but don’t know the man or have not identified him yet as maybe the case of a young person.
There’s a lot of information packed in there. I want to check out his early records. I didn’t know he played on The Apartment (1960) score and some of those other films that popped up. He wasn’t the main composer, but he played on them, which I thought was very fascinating.
I didn’t know that he played on To Kill A Mockingbird. One of my editors, David Palmer, is like a savant and knew so much and brought so much to the film as far as all the historical aspects of John’s career. It was at one point I looked around the cutting room and everybody had a smile on their faces. It was like one of those rare occasions where we’re doing something that everybody is in, it wants to make a big contribution, and they’re doing it with a smile.
I thought his personal life was very delicately introduced in the film… especially about his wife. What was your process for bringing that up, or how did you handle that?
I didn’t bring it up. I brought up the first violin concerto and he went on from there. I only approached music with him by talking about music, even though the answer may feel like I had asked a question, I never asked that question.
He elevated the art form of a film composer, now this is not controversial but before John Williams, this was not seen as the art that it is today…
Film music was not perceived as legitimate music. Even though I as a collector struggle to find certain scores that I loved when I was growing up, I love Bernard Hermann and other composers… Hermann refused to be called a film music composer because he felt it had a stigma attached to it. I really feel that John Williams has single-handedly changed that narrative at a time, potentially in the ’70s with Star Wars and when he started doing concerts.
When he joined the Boston Pops, he met some resistance about doing film scores but he changed that dialogue completely to the point where today, that’s not even part of the dialogue. We all see music as film music as legitimate music. But that was a journey, and I really find that that’s a big aspect of my film is really that journey to legitimize an art form. And how inspiring is that?
How did you go about selecting which scores to include? He’s done so many movies.
The challenge was not to feel like we were doing a hit parade, even though that’s very tempting, and maybe there’s an aspect of the film that may have that aspect to it. I tried, if you stop and look, at every single score we talk about, there is a story attached to it. So those were choices that came in kind of naturally.
One of the best moments in the film for me is just watching Spielberg and Williams interact. There’s so much love, camaraderie, and respect. It’s so heartfelt watching the two of them together.
I love that Steven crashed our interview, because that brought in a whole new layer and became the opening of the film. Watching them work is a lesson in collaboration, humility, in incredible minds meeting together. There are so many layers to it and all acknowledge that, especially when it comes to film, even though there’s the solitary aspect of writing music on your own or writing a script or being in your process, it is also an incredible collaboration, collaborative art and maintaining those relationships through so many decades of filmmaking is rare.
A lot of people are probably going to watch this on Disney+. What do you hope audiences take away? A new understanding or appreciation or whatever that might be?
I think happiness and inspiration. There’s so much darkness right now. A lot of documentary films are incredible, but very dark that I think it’s great at times to stop and listen to someone talk about an art form that is in jeopardy just as much as acting with AI and screenwriting and directing, but has a message. And I hope also that young people who may not know who he is are going to be attracted to listening to his story, because they’re next in line to take over. I hope the film is successful in that way.
