There have been a spate of articles recently complaining that movie scores are not very memorable anymore. Even the mighty John Williams has called his own Star Wars Score "not very memorable". One wonders if these guys just have seen too many movies or at least aren't looking at the ones that John Williams wrote the score for. Here's a sampling of John's movie tunes. Most of these you'd likely recognize right off the bat. Others you'll swear you've heard it somewhere before and will only need slight prompting to remember.
Here are some links to samples from John Williams' movies. See if these tunes are memorable.
The Rare Breed - James Stewart, Maureen O'Hara
Jaws - Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss
Star Wars - Mark Hamel, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford, Alec Guinness
Close Encounters of the Third Kind - Richard Dreyfuss, Terri Garr
Superman - Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder
Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen
E.T. The Extraterrestrial: Henry Thomas, Drew Barrymore
Hook: Robin Williams, Dustin Hoffman
Far and Away: Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman
Home Alone: Macauley Culkin, Joe Pesci
Harry Potter: Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson
Saving Private Ryan: Tom Hanks, Matt Damon
As you can see, John's tunes are, in fact, kind of memorable. And I left off several dozen other familiar movie themes and his Olympic Games Themes. When you hear the songs, you remember them. That's what I call memorable. So lighten up with the humility, John. You're good at what you do. I figure you're probably going to be right up there with Mozart and Bach given the depth of your work.
© 2017 by Tom King
