In a wonderfully illuminating and informative interview, John Williams discusses his latest works – Indiana Jones 5 could well be his final big-screen commitment – his 50 year working relationship with great friend Steven Spielberg and much more.
“At the moment I’m working on ‘Indiana Jones 5,’ which Harrison Ford — who’s quite a bit younger than I am — I think has announced will be his last film,” Williams says. “So, I thought: If Harrison can do it, then perhaps I can, also.”
Ford, for the record, hasn’t said that publicly. And Williams, who turned 90 in February, isn’t absolutely certain he’s ready to, either.
“I don’t want to be seen as categorically eliminating any activity,” Williams says with a chuckle, speaking by phone from his home in Los Angeles. “I can’t play tennis, but I like to be able to believe that maybe one day I will.”
Right now, though, there are other ways Williams wants to be spending his time. A “Star Wars” film demands six months of work, which he notes, “at this point in life is a long commitment to me.”
Williams contributions to cinema and music are truly incalculable, but the modesty of the man won’t allow his mammoth gifts to film be overstated.
“My own personality is such that I look at what I’ve done — I’m quite pleased and proud of a lot of it — but like most of us, we always wish we might have done better,” he says. “We live with examples like Beethoven and Bach before us, monumental achievements people have made in music, and can feel very humbled. But I also feel very fortunate. I’ve had wonderful opportunities, particularly in film where a composer can have an audience of not millions of people, but billions of people.”
“I’d love to be around in 100 years to see what people are doing with film and sound and spatial, aural and visual effects. It has a tremendous future, I think,” says Williams. “I can sense great possibility and great future in the atmospherics of the whole experience. I’d love to come back and see and hear it all.”
