John Williams (composer) - quotes
Quotations relating to John Williams (composer)...
Film Post-Production
Hitchcock had used Bernard Herrmann in many of his films to write great music. And I think if you look back on Hitchcock films, music is certainly a very key ingredient. It is really almost his signature pattern. I do know before John Williams was selected, he had had a falling out with Bernard Herrmann. I remember in the scoring session how exciting it was to watch Williams conduct. And, of course, Hitchcock was there a little bit of the time.
— Howard G. Kazanjian (2001)
source: Plotting Family Plot
keywords: Alfred Hitchcock, Bernard Herrmann, Family Plot (1976), John Williams (composer), music-scores, and post-production
Mr. Hitchcock had his office here at Universal Studios. And so he apparently needed a composer for this ''Family Plot'', and the executive those years in charge of music was a gentleman called Harry Garfield. So, it was Harry Garfield who recommended me as a newcomer, just having done Jaws, a very successful film, to Mr. Hitchcock. And I went to see him at his office, and we had lunch and had a chat and I left not knowing if he would engage me to do this or not. Then I got a call from Mr. Garfield the next day. It said, Hitchcock, yes, he would like you to do the score.The business of working with Alfred Hitchcock was really very professional and very strong. We had a few meetings as I was writing the music. He didn't ask to hear any of it. I would tell him what I was doing — this or that scene — and we would talk about that, and then the conversation might change to Edward Elgar, or some other musical interest of his, you know? We chatted about that. So, on the one hand, it was very professional and very specific. On the other hand, very easy and congenial and so on.He told me a story having nothing to do with Bernard Herrmann. Some other composer, I don't know, on a film that he made about a murder. And he instructed the composer to make the music light. So, he said he went to London to record the music, and this composer had every double bass and bassoon and timpani, and every instrument in the city of London capable of making an ominous, lugubrious sound. Just the opposite of what he wanted, so I said to him, "Mr. Hitchcock, seems like for a murder that's very appropriate." I always quote him. I remember his words exactly. He said, "Mr. Williams, murder can be fun." So, he had this idea... of irony and many sides to the prism of what one sees.The specific details of the music in that movie was with the use of the voices having to do with this psychic. And he did have an idea of having voices. He said, "It should be like impressionistic with the women's voices." And also his ideas about music were very closely linked to a very methodical editorial process. The precision of the editing reflected the precision of the shooting.I could tell you one little anecdote, also, about a scene in the film where we didn't have a disagreement about where the music should play but a discussion. There was a room where the criminal had been, and the camera pans to the window, which is open. And the curtains blow in the breeze, and this reveal of the camera tells us the criminal has escaped.But the orchestra was playing to drive the energy to people to go to discover where the criminal is. Driving, driving, driving... through the point where the camera goes through the door. And I continued the music when the camera panned to the window, playing it more. And he said, "You know, if you stop the music when the camera pans to the window, "the silence will tell us that it's empty — he's gone — more emphatically, more powerfully than any musical phrase." And, of course, just the absence of music at that point... It was a wonderful lesson, really, in where to arrange the parts of the music in any film, which we call "spotting," incidentally. That is to say, the spots are where the music is.So, he was a wily professional who knew his business and could be of great assistance to a youngster such as I was at that time.I do think it's true that Hitchcock, his own sensibility and his own belief in music and trust in it, made a great impact on audiences. Some of my earliest influences and earliest strong impressions were from the Hitchcock-Herrmann collaboration. Obviously, Bernard Herrmann's music was very striking and very strong, but Hitchcock was a director who placed his faith in that. Many directors would be afraid to have that music that loud or that emphatic. They might think it's too operatic.It has to be said that directors before Hitchcock did wonderful things with music, and he was not alone. But there is something at the core of his faith and trust and belief in music as a character in the film metier was uniquely strong and high. And I think that every composer that worked for him benefited from that. I should say, in the contemporary scene, Steven Spielberg is similar in that his films need a lot of music. And Mr. Spielberg is very happy about relying on music, and is not disturbed by the disruption of the sense of reality that the presence of music might cause.I remember one day very distinctly Hitchcock said to me at one of our several lunches, he said, "You know, what I'm serious about is the film industry. And film industry means to me," he said, "I come in at 6:00 in the morning, and I see the workers coming in with their lunch pails and their this and their that and their umbrellas, lining up, going into the studios." And he said, "That's my responsibility. To keep that going. My responsibility that I feel," said he, was to these people who work in the studios." And he was obviously quite serious about that aspect of his position. That he, as a creative artist, created opportunities which gave people their means of livelihood. So, yes, he was funny, but he was also serious in surprising ways.
— John Williams (composer) (2001)
source: Plotting Family Plot
