With his final Indiana Jones score Dial of Destiny delighting fans everywhere (Best Score Soundtrack and Best Instrumental Composition nominations at the 2024 Grammy Awards with the Oscar nominations soon to follow) and his place in movie and music history long cemented, you could forgive 91 year-old John Williams for wanting to take his foot off the gas and step away from cinematic compositions, but speaking with The Times (via Deadline) the maestro has thankfully walked that back, saying that should an intriguing project come about, he’d be interested.
“If a film came along that I was greatly interested in, with a schedule that I could cope with, then I wouldn’t want to rule anything out. Everything is possible. All is before us. Only our limitations are holding us back. Or, to put it more simply: I like to keep an open mind.”
“Thirty or 40 years ago, when I would take a programme of film music to one of our big orchestras, there might be condescension. I understood it; I understand the value of things made in the commercial world and their place in the art world. But now things are different. I’d love to come back in 50 years’ time and see what cinema is contributing to the development of new music, because I think young composers will want to work across both.”
“Film requires you to adapt your style to every project that comes along: Home Alone can’t be in the same idiom as Saving Private Ryan or Jurassic Park, but perhaps we all have many parts to our characters. Somewhere in all of my film scores there must be some kind of ‘me’. But I leave that to others to identify.”
So the scores continue – how’s that for the perfect way to welcome 2024?
