Born: February 8, 1932
John Williams is without a doubt the greatest living film composer. His career spans all the way back to the 1950s with his first credits coming for writing music for television. Williams is often credited with bringing film scoring back to the traditional style associated with the Golden Age of Hollywood (1927-1959) starting with his landmark score for Star Wars in 1977. Williams has written scores for some of the most popular franchises of all time, including: Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman and Harry Potter. As John Williams has gotten older, his writing pace has begun to slow down, to the extent that his work output is generally confined to one or two films per year.
Biography of John Williams- Wikipedia
John Williams Fan Network
John Williams on IMDb
Notable Films
Schindler's List Schindler's List is the haunting (and true) story of Oskar Schindler, a
German business man who saved over a thousand Jews in the course of WWII by employing them (by whatever means necessary) in his factory. The principal theme was originally brought to life by the legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman (I urge you all to find a video of him playing this piece). That the film is shot in black and white only lends a further air of poignancy to the story.
Jurassic Park- WikipediaBased on the Michael Crichton novel of the same name (an interesting read in and of itself), Jurassic Park tells the story of what happens when a team of geneticists succeeds in cloning living dinosaurs from ancient DNA and an eccentric billionaire builds a theme park to house them (in short: nothing good). This movie is notable for many things, the use of large animatronic dinosaurs combined with realistic CGI, yet another score by the amazing John Williams (in fact, the main theme of this film is reprised in 2015's Jurassic World, though Williams did NOT score that film himself). I can still remember the first time I watched this film (mostly because I was really too young to see it without freaking out). The first scene with the living dinosaurs, and especially the kitchen scene (you know the one I'm talking about if you've seen the movie) are forever etched in my memory.
Star Wars: Episodes I-VII
The Star Wars films hardly need an introduction, since they've become huge cornerstones of American pop culture since the first film was released in 1977 (that was almost forty years ago by the way). Since then, six additional films have been released: The Empire Strikes Back (1980); Return of the Jedi (1983); The Phantom Menace (1999); Attack of the Clones (2002); Revenge of the Sith (2005); and most recently, The Force Awakens (2015). For every one of those films, John Williams has provided the musical score, it would be unthinkable for anyone else to do so. Many consider the entire Star Wars saga to be John Williams magnum opus, his ultimate work.
Superman: The Movie
Long before the superhero film craze of the early 21st century, director Richard Donner made the dive into the genre all the way back in 1978. Starring the late Christopher Reeve as Clark Kent/Kal-El/Superman and Marlon Brando as Jor-El, the movie set the tone for superhero movies for a very long time. In fact, if you watch the opening of Superman Returns (or possibly this was a deleted segment), when Superman is exploring the ruins of Krypton, everything you see as far the planet is concerned is a direct homage to the 1978 film. "Superman's theme" has become almost synonymous with the character itself.
Saving Private Ryan
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Home Alone
Hook
Jaws
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