John Williams: Influence by Tim Shawcross https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6 How has John Williams changed the course of film music history? en-us 2021-08-31 20:28:01 UTC 2026-01-11 05:31:32 UTC hello@padlet.com s_matthews2 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708244991 Walt Disney is, to many people, the most influential person who has been in film. And after all, he garnered the most accolades, receiving as many as 59 Oscar nominations. But there’s another film titan that deserves a similar recognition: John Williams. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has been one of Western cinema’s most distinctive and indispensable musical voices.]]> 2021-08-31 23:47:20 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708244991 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708256556 Juilliard-trained, he'd worked with such legends as Bernard Herrmann and won two Academy Awards—including one for his still-iconic score for Steven Spielberg's Jaws, the movie that's credited for establishing the still-booming genre of the summer blockbuster.

]]> 2021-08-31 23:54:03 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708256556 s_matthews2 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708258711 Williams is the widely acclaimed composer of the scores for films such as Jaws, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T. and, of course, Star Wars. In 2014 he received an Oscar nomination for his latest score to the World War II drama The Book Thief. This brought his track record to a whopping 49 nominations (and five Oscars won). But it isn’t just quantity: John Williams’s film work has been incomparably influential in terms of quality.]]> 2021-08-31 23:55:16 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708258711 s_matthews2 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708259703 By the early 1970s, Williams was among the top practitioners in Hollywood, having won an Oscar for his musical arrangements of Fiddler on the Roof. But the breakthrough film was Jaws, the second output of his collaboration with Steven Spielberg, arguably the most symbiotic and enduringly successful relationship between a director and a composer.]]> 2021-08-31 23:55:53 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708259703 s_matthews2 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708260906 For Jaws, Williams penned a fully symphonic score with echoes of Bernard Herrmann, Erich Wolfgang Korngold and other masters of Hollywood’s Golden Age. More importantly, the film featured no songs at all, something decidedly against the tide at the time. The daring choice was awarded an Oscar.

Finally, in 1977, Williams conducted the 86-man strong London Symphony Orchestra in his 800-page old-fashioned score for Star Wars. The symphonic sound of Hollywood’s Golden Age was back. Williams proved that a full symphonic score could still have much to say in contemporary cinema, not only as an immensely powerful narrative tool in the film, but also as a very successful commodity in the record market – the Star Wars LP sold more than 4m copies.

]]> 2021-08-31 23:56:34 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708260906 s_matthews2 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708262857 Any mention of "Star Wars," "Indiana Jones" or "Jurassic Park" is almost sure to incite a mental overture of triumphant, well-known theme music.]]> 2021-08-31 23:57:40 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708262857 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708262914 He was known especially for his lush symphonic style, which helped bring symphonic film scores back into vogue after synthesizers had started to become the norm. In addition to his film work, Williams was well known as a concert composer and conductor.

]]> 2021-08-31 23:57:42 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708262914 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708263423 Williams brought an added dimension to the film industry using orchestration, various harmonic motifs and progression that complements the movie through his music. Certainly, John Willams' scores have influenced the film industry. He created some of the most iconic film scores of all time.

]]> 2021-08-31 23:58:02 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708263423 s_matthews2 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708264895 "You hear the opening of 'Jaws,' of 'Star Wars,' of 'Raiders of the Lost Ark,' and you instantly know what it is," Tyzik said. "(And) as a film composer, he is really adept at creating a sound that depicts a character. If you look at 'Jaws,' for instance, he captured the absolute terror of that shark."]]> 2021-08-31 23:58:47 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708264895 j_hunter1 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708268549 John Williams will be forever known for his courageous anthems of popular pop culture and his magnificent Kentucky fried chicken]]> 2021-09-01 00:00:54 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708268549 j_hunter1 https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708272413 John Williams didn't just only write the music for Jurassic park but was also John Hammond stunt double]]> 2021-09-01 00:03:08 UTC https://padlet.com/timshawcross/4o0vh2tur69u2ib6/wish/1708272413