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Spielberg Week: 10 Best Scores from a Lifetime of Collaborations with John Williams

by Charlie Brigden, Staff Writer

John Williams is our greatest living film composer and potentially our greatest of all time. What the man has done with film music has permeated every genre in various styles, yet still with a firm sense of identity. Furthermore, nowhere is his talent more evident than his legendary work with director Steven Spielberg.

The upcoming The Fabelmans, which opens on November 11th, will be Williams and Spielberg's twenty-ninth collaboration; amazingly, out of all of the director's films, there have only been four that Williams has not scored. Many themes have become pop culture icons, from the thrill of Indiana Jones to the menace of Jaws to the wonder of E.T. So how do you whittle down ten of the best from that canon? Let us find out.

10. The Terminal (2004)

Based on an actual event, The Terminal starred Tom Hanks as Victor Navorski, a foreign national who has to live at an airport due to a coup d'état in his home country and is swept up in romance while greatly suffering isolation. Williams' score is a delightful ballet that, like many of his scores, relies on his training as a jazz pianist. It uses Navorski's Eastern-European origins as a jumping point with the clarinet as a featured instrument, effortlessly moving from grand statements to a sense of microscopic intimacy. Gershwin-esque at times.

9. Empire of the Sun (1987)

A somewhat solemn affair, Empire of the Sun followed the young boy Jim (Christian Bale in his breakout role) while separated from his parents in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation. Spielberg's film balances the tone between the harrowing backdrop of war and the thrills of a young boy well, much due to Williams' score. One of the big setpieces of the film and score is “Cadillac of the Skies,” where Jim witnesses P-51 Mustangs bombing the internment camp he is trapped in, shouting the title's phrase. Williams uses beautiful choral phrasing as Jim is ecstatic watching the planes, and it is a wonderfully insular moment for the child, one of the few in the film where he does not feel truly lost.

8. War Horse (2011)

War Horse is Spielberg's most old-fashioned film, deliberately. A homage to John Ford, the picture follows the adventures of a horse from his purchase to help a farmer through to his eventual service in the first World War, with Williams delivering a sumptuous score that's also unabashedly sentimental. People constantly attack Spielberg for his sentimentality, and here it is almost a stylistic choice, and the film and score are all the better for it. Williams has multiple themes here, and he masterfully coalesces them in a stunning emotionally-charged finale. 

7. A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)

On the other hand, A.I. is perhaps Spielberg's coldest film, with the tale of David a harrowing ordeal that ends in happiness or despair, depending on how you look at it. Don't expect John Williams to mollycoddle you, as much of his score is bathed in dissonance - mechanical and often unfeeling. So much of it is searching and reaching out, with the final cues haunting and emotionally- devastating. It's also fascinating and memorable, with the relentlessly driving motif in what the OST calls “Abandoned in the Woods,” leading to one of the most upsetting scenes of Spielberg's career.

6. Schindler's List (1993)

Sobering. Beautiful. John Williams' score to the tale of Oskar Schindler sounds remarkably unshowy. At least compared to what other composers might have done, though Jerry Goldsmith, who was Jewish, professed love for the score and wished that he had worked on it. Itzhak Perlman's violin is powerful; it reaches into your heart and pulls it out. When asked to score, Williams reportedly said, "You need a better composer." Spielberg's response? "I know. But they're all dead!"

5. Jurassic Park (1993)

Remarkably, Schindler's List and Jurassic Park came in the same year. Furthermore, while a Holocaust tale and a dinosaur thriller could not be more different, both scores are absolute masterpieces inside and outside their respective films. Where Williams excels here is emphasizing the wonder of dinosaurs while not forgetting the inherent danger, as they say, in bringing them back to an ecosystem that has long forgotten them. The tremendous main theme perfectly conveys the majesty of the animals, while the exhilarating island theme helps with the anticipation of it all. However, there is that four-note raptor motif that acts as a warning, and it is the theme the film ends on. Williams' score for the follow-up, 1997's The Lost World, is equally brilliant.

4. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982)

It is not easy to think of a film whose score is so intrinsically woven into its fabric than E.T. Everyone knows the tale of Spielberg re-editing the final reel to Williams' score, and that's just an example of how perfect the music is. It begins so quietly, with a shimmering reed sound over the opening titles, and ends with the orchestra as catharsis. Thematically, it is note-perfect and is constantly in total emotional sync with the film—a joy.

3. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)

1977 had Williams on triple duty, with terrorist thriller Black Sunday and a little film called Star Wars, as well as Spielberg's earlier and decidedly scarier alien flick. Indeed, it sometimes sounds like a horror film, with the eerie chanting and the thundering discordance of the UFO chase sequence. And, of course, the most famous five notes in cinema history, leading up to that spectacular ending. In preview screenings, Spielberg apparently used the actual audio of 'When You Wish Upon A Star,’ from 1940's Pinocchio for the end titles in preview screenings; in the end, Williams quoted it with his beautiful climactic theme. Essential.

2. Jaws (1975)

Is Jaws the scariest film score of all time? The answer is yes. That theme has a primordial gut reaction, to the point where you hear it whenever you are in water, whether at the beach or in the swimming pool. Nevertheless, it's not just those two notes; there's also the jaunty shanty-esque theme that accompanies the voyage of the Orca and the intense fugue for the building of the cage. Much of it is so evocative that you imagine the shark where it probably is not, surprising you so much when it shows up somewhere else. And then it ends so gently, with everything being okay. At least until the sequel.

1. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg probably knew they had a hit on their hands when they started planning the first movie that introduced us to Indiana Jones. However, it was John Williams that sent the potential skyrocketing. There is the tense music for the opening temple scene, Marion's beautiful love theme, and the furious religious theme for the Ark of the Covenant and its incredible power - the Map Room sequence is maybe the most perfectly scored scene in Williams' career. And then there's The Raiders March, pure heroism and much derring-do, with the accompanying B-theme that helps build the anticipation; it's about determination and luck, two things Indy seems to have a bucketful. It's a fair probability that James Mangold's Indiana Jones and the Title Yet To Be Announced will be John Williams' final score and will end with that theme. What a way to go out.