When it comes to film music, there is no name more recognizable than John Williams, known for scores to movies like Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park in a career that has spanned seven decades. It’s shocking, then, to know that there has been no documentary about his life and career until now.
“I have felt — as a filmmaker who loves to document people who inspire me, and who inspire people — that it was missing,” Music by John Williams director Laurent Bouzereau tells THR. “I’ve known John 30 years, and there’s not been a year where I’ve not said to him or to his representative or to Steven Spielberg, ‘When are we going to do a doc on John?’ ”
Turns out, all it took was a gala at The Kennedy Center celebrating Williams’ 90th birthday to get the ball rolling. Bouzereau was tasked with interviewing directors who had worked with the legendary composer for a birthday greeting, but “when I sat across all those people, they had incredible stories about John, and so I told Steven, ‘We have to do this film. This is not a why. It’s a why not.’ ”
Spielberg, with whom Bouzereau has a 30-year professional relationship, was the one who convinced Williams to do the documentary, although he was “tentative” at first. “I got a chance to talk to John directly, and he said, ‘I don’t really want to do this. I don’t want to talk about myself.’ And I said, ‘John, it’s not about you, it’s about your music.’ That reassured him, and by the end, he just couldn’t get enough of us!”
Williams with frequent collaborator Steven Spielberg.
Courtesy of Disney+
Bouzereau, who has made retrospective documentaries on Spielberg’s Jaws and E.T., among others, knew that the anchor of the film would be Williams’ relationship with Spielberg. “Trying to find a point of entry in the film was very difficult, because when someone has lived close to a century and has been making music since he was 5 years old, where do you begin?” he says. “So I thought, ‘What is the one score that started him with us, the viewers and the audience?’ And it was really Jaws.”
The documentary takes audiences through Williams’ prolific career and showcases how score elevates a scene — imagine, for example, the shark attacking from beneath without the synonymous “bum-bum bum-bum.” To capture the composer’s artistic impact, the film also features interviews with Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, George Lucas, Ron Howard and Coldplay’s Chris Martin, among many more.
The pressure to profile someone known to so many generations was “gigantic,” says Bouzereau. “I didn’t want it to be a hit parade — I wanted to tell a story, and I wanted it to be inspiring to people, like how you fall in love with a craft and how you hold on to that dream. And even though John’s is an incredible success story, he also acknowledges that he was at the right place at the right time.”
This story first appeared in a May stand-alone issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
