Music

Just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think

I actually completely agree with Williams completely here. I've never liked concerts that feature music outside of its intended context. I don't like when a single movement of a symphony is performed absent the whole symphony. I don't like a mish-mash of arias from different operas. And I don't care for film music concerts.

But that does not, in my opinion, make film music an inferior art form. It just makes it different. A single track from the soundtrack of a film score is not great art, but a film, in its totality, can be great art, and the contribution a soundtrack plays to that art cannot be overstated. It can uplift the film from the merely great to the sublime. And no living composer even comes close to the quality of John Williams.

I get what he's saying about the fragmentary nature of film compositions. And serving an industry will inevitably have a certain meat grinder aspect to it that constrains artistic freedom.

I think even run-of-the-mill film music serves an important purpose of adding gravity to a scene. But when you have a master at work, it can be a somewhat bittersweet experience that leaves you craving for something you cannot have.

To take Williams as an example, in The Force Awakens, I thought Rey's theme was hauntingly beautiful, but you're only left with a glimpse of it. Where a film takes its music from a symphony, you can go listen to the latter afterwards to get your fix. I suppose that's analogous to how a film adapted from a book leaves you the option to read the latter if you're looking for more of the narrative?

But history is full of run-of-the-mill music written in a meat grinder way. You take someone like Joseph Haydn working at what essentially amounted to a symphony mill, churning out one after another. Most of this type of music doesn't last the test of time, and there are plenty of forgotten composers. Will Williams be among them? I seriously doubt it, though only time will tell.

I don't think Williams is saying anything wrong but I disagree with him.

Let's look at this a different way. Copyright aside, what if I opened an art gallery which presented still frames from cinema. Would that not be a valid exploitation of the medium? I think people love cinematography and it holds up as its own art... And so does film score

i guess he never heard John Williams scores.

Buh. Buh Buh Buh Buh buuuuh bum bum bum bum

Didn’t mind cashing the checks.