84 years after he first visited the MGM Studio’s musical building as a 7 year old boy, John Williams attended a ceremony which saw this venerable space rechristened the John Williams Music Building. Joining him were Star Wars director J,J. Abrams, producers Frank Marshall and Kristie Macosko Krieger and of course the man who has been fortunate enough to have had 29 of his films scored by the Maestro, Steven Spielberg. Abrams had this to say of the greatest film composer of them all.
“Johnny, you’ve filled our lives with some of the greatest art ever produced by mankind. How lucky are we to be alive at the same time as John Williams?”
Spielberg had plenty to day about his old friend.
“What you did for me was something I had never been able to imagine any single creative collaborator would ever be able to do for me or the stories I was telling, and that is when I thought I’d gotten to know a film really well, by the time I turned my films over to you, I knew what my movies were, I knew what they meant to me. Then you would musically do the final draft of my films, the final rewrite, and you would bring every movie I’ve ever made to a level that I didn’t recognize it as me, I recognized it as us. The films suddenly became informed by wherever you get your inspiration… Without you, the films are running around with no clothes on; with you, they’re completely finished. I’ve often said that if my movies can bring a tear to your eye, your music makes that tear fall down the face. And it’s happened on film after film after film. This alley is where all my stress dissipates, when I finally get to this stage of a production and I know that I am in your capable hands.”
Legends shine at Sony Pictures! 🎶 Today, we dedicated the newly renamed John Williams Music Building in Culver City in honor of the esteemed composer. pic.twitter.com/FVK9yKoHiO
— Sony Pictures (@SonyPictures) January 18, 2024
Finally, Williams had his say.
“The first time I came to this studio was 1940 when my father brought me here to show me the stage. I was about 9 or 10 years old, and I thought, ‘Someday this will all be mine!’ It’s finally come to be — it’s only taken me 92 years to get here! This place, I have reverence for it. I love it. Is it perfect? No. Tom, we could use a couple more bathrooms for the orchestra.
“My hope and even prayer for this hall and for future people coming into it is a hope and it’s also a challenge: that they should do as well the next 100 years as the people who have been here for the last 100 years. They need to get to work and make some good music. And that is a challenge because they are standing on very big shoulders.”
The biggest shoulders. Ahead of his 92nd birthday on 8th February, what better way to mark his contribution to cinema than this.
- Audio CD – Audiobook
- English (Publication Language)
- 02/02/2018 (Publication Date) - Sony Classical (Publisher)
