Thememeister John Williams talks music

Posted: Tuesday, May 18, 1999

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. - From a modest bungalow in a movie-studio compound have emerged some of the most stirring sounds in motion pictures: the shark attack of "Jaws," the victory march of "Star Wars," the chase music of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," the bicycling-over-the-moon melody of "E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial."

And now - "Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace."

This is the workshop of Hollywood thememeister John Williams, tucked away in the Universal Studios compound of the Amblin Entertainment and DreamWorks headquarters of Steven Spielberg, for whom Williams has scored 16 movies.

Williams has amassed an astonishing record: 37 Academy Award nominations and five Oscars; 12 Grammys; scores for seven of the 10 top moneymaking movies; album sales in the millions.

Some conductors have reputations for being brusque, if not bombastic. Not Williams. With round face, friendly eyes and neat goatee, he is a courtly man who welcomed a reporter and photographer into his office, three times thanking them for coming.

The room is about the size of a tract-house living room, the major elements being a grand piano and, next to it, an architect's drawing board on which Williams writes his scores.

He was asked about "The Phantom Menace," which takes place years before the earlier "Star Wars" trilogy.

"I didn't know the word 'prequel,' " Williams admitted. "It may be a word George (Lucas) invented.

"It was interesting to me because it triggered a few unique things of construction, in the following way: There is in this film 120 minutes of music - two hours of music! I would say conservatively that 90 percent of it is new. The remaining 10 percent are 'quotes' from earlier themes.

"The first minute and a half has the 'Star Wars' theme. In the middle, there are quotes, very brief, of Darth Vader's theme, Yoda's theme, Princess Leia or whatever when there are hints of what they will become as the prequel advances.

"But the 90 percent that is new comes to something like this: I was able to take some of the old themes and 'de-compose' them - take them apart and write them, in a sense, backward."

He cited the theme of Anakin, the little boy who becomes Darth Vader.

"It's the kind of theme you would have for a young boy, very innocent, lyrical and idealistic. But it's made up of intervals from Darth Vader's Imperial March. Which we know - be-bom-bom-BOM-bom-bom - an archetypical evil expression.

"I made Anakin's theme out of those intervals by inverting them or rearranging them rhythmically or accompanying them harmonically in a different way. It sounds familiar, very sweet. But if you listen to it carefully, there's a hint (of evil)."

When he recorded the theme with the London Symphony Orchestra, younger musicians who were familiar with "Star Wars" told him: "I know what that is; you can't fool me."

Williams, 66, found that interweaving snippets of previous themes with a new score was a unique experience and "fun to do."

His approach followed its usual pattern: He looks at the film in a nearly completed state, except for the special effects. Having spent his early Hollywood years writing scores for TV shows and B movies, he is accustomed to stringent deadlines.

"The first I saw 'The Phantom Menace' was Oct. 1, 1998," he recalled. "I began to write the score in the middle of October, and we recorded it in the middle of February. The film opens May 19. So it gave me three months plus to write two hours of music for orchestra. Very difficult, just in logistic terms."

During the creative process, Williams looked at the rough cut every day, chose a scene to score, sat down at the piano and began composing. The drawing board is to his left, and he still uses "old-fashioned tools: pencil and paper, no synthesizers or anything like that."

The swiftness required of screen composers has a bad and good side, he observed.

Regrets? A few. But he added:

"A lot of the things we labor over often have less value than the things we do quickly, when we're unguarded, not hurried but unburdened by repeated and constant self-doubt when you have more time to work and rework. Much of the time the heat and the pressure bring out the best in us."


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