John Williams Believes Film Music Doesn’t Compare to Great Works

John Williams, one of the greatest composers in film history, has created some of cinemaS most memorable music for masterpieces like Jaws, Jurassic Park, and Star Wars.

Despite winning five Oscars, the 93-year-old composer believes that film music, as an art form, doesn’t measure up to history’s greatest compositions.

“I never liked film music very much,” he confessed in a rare interview for an upcoming biography.

He continued: “Film music, however good it can be – and it usually isn’t, other than maybe an eight-minute stretch here and there … I just think the music isn’t there. What we remember as precious, great film music is… we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way…”

“just the idea that film music has the same place in the concert hall as the best music in the canon is a mistaken notion, I think.”

He added: “A lot of [film music] is ephemeral. It’s certainly fragmentary and, until somebody reconstructs it, it isn’t anything that we can even consider as a concert piece.”

Williams has scored over 100 films, including the Indiana Jones series, E.T.,Schindler’s List,and the first three Harry Potter films.

He is the most nominated living Oscar recipient, with a record 54 nominations, acknowledging his music’s crucial role in enhancing a film’s emotion and atmosphere.

With two haunting notes, he captured the chilling threat of the great White Shark in Jaws, while his mournful Jewish lament in Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List conveyed the heartbreak of the Holocaust.