Steven Spielberg & John Williams Talk – The Writers Guild Theater – Los Angeles CA – January 12th 2023

1/12/2023 Steven Spielberg & John Williams Talk @ the Writers Guild Theater (via American Cinematheque)

This talk was amazing! It really was a dream come true to see.  I was lucky enough to see John Williams three times in person. The first time was at the 2017 Star Wars Celebration in Orlando (the official Star Wars convention of celebs, autographs, panels and everything Star Wars.) At the convention, after being introduced by George Lucas and Kathleen Kennedy, they turned on the lights at the stage on the right side of the venue and John Williams was conducting the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra as a tribute to Carrie Fisher who had recently passed away. I am not afraid to say it, but i was crying tears of joy and shivers were running up and down my spine. The 2nd time I saw John Williams in concert was at the legendary Hollywood Bowl on September 5, 2021 (which I had no idea was an annual thing, but i do live in Minnesota so I didn’t know about it.) And the 3rd time i saw John Williams conducting was at the 2022 Star Wars Celebration conducting the Pacific Symphony Orchestra on the eve of his 90th birthday and introduced the “Obi-Wan Theme” played publicly for the first time ever. However, this time seeing John Williams was even more amazing since him and Spielberg talked about the process of adding Williams’ music to film. The interviewer was named Jon Burlingame and was a great interviewer. Mr Spielberg started by talking about just starting out in the film business and was listening to on Williams’ soundtracks to ‘inspire him’ and he played it over and over so much so that he ‘wore the record out.’ That soundtrack was for a film called “the Reivers” which was composed by John Williams. and that soundtrack was the first time Spielberg had “laid ears on John Williams.”

John Williams recalled the first time he met Steven Spielberg at a ‘fancy restaurant in Beverly Hills’ and when Williams arrived looking for “Mr. Spielberg” and the greeter said ‘he is already here’ and when Williams got to the table he saw a “kid sitting there” that looked to be only 17 or 18 and thought it might be “Mr. Spielberg’s son” and quickly found out that the ‘kid’ was Steven Spielberg. Williams also commented that Spielberg knew more about film music than he did. They continued showing clips from the movies that they had worked on together over the years and telling stories and anecdotes about it. After a very long clip from “Jaws” Spielberg jokingly said he “never got seasick on this movie, but I was getting seasick from the stills on the screen” which I thought was funny. They had also talked about when Williams and Spielberg were having conversations about the idea for the music for Jaws and how Spielberg thought Williams was ‘pulling his leg’ when Williams was playing the basic musical theme for “Jaws.” John Williams also announced that he was NOT retiring from music which was great, but not entirely surprising. Williams said  “You can’t retire from music….I said earlier…it is like breathing. It’s your life. It’s MY life. So a day without music is a mistake,” It was an amazing talk between the two legends and it was worth every single blood, sweat, and tears to get there. Steven Spielberg’s movies have inspired me my entire life and John Williams has been the soundtrack for my life. From the soaring violins when E.T. and Elliot are flying in front of the giant full moon and the almost mystical sounding music when Indiana Jones finds a key clue to the location of the Ark of the Covenant it inspires awe and wonder in adults and children alike (and also inspired an entire generation of filmmakers.

Thank you to Annie Wolf for the audio/video transcript. Also, thank you to Bryan and Shadi for your guidance and thank you William for the priceless photo.