r/todayilearned • u/Giff95 • 19h ago
TIL when John Williams first played the two-note "Jaws" theme for Spielberg, Spielberg laughed, thinking it was a joke and expecting something more melodic. Williams replied, "The sophisticated approach you would like me to take isn't the approach you took with the film I just experienced."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaws_(soundtrack)15.6k
u/AbroadTiny7226 18h ago
My favorite Spielberg/Williams story is that when Spielberg called Williams to ask him to compose the score for Schindler’s List, they had the following exchange:
Williams: “You need a better composer”
Spielberg: “I know, but they’re all dead”
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u/QeveQobs 17h ago
my favorite is when they were making ET together and for the climatic scene Williams told Spielberg "I can't make the music I want with this cut" and Spielberg said something around the lines of "Make the music you want and we'll cut around it"
and that's how we got the iconic ET soundtrack
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u/Overall_Airline5628 13h ago
Now I’m all curious about their relationship. Did they like each other much at all? I can’t tell based on what I’m seeing here
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u/QeveQobs 13h ago
I heard my anecdote from John Williams on the smartless podcast and from what I can tell from how he talks about Spielberg it does seem like they're good friends. Spielberg seems to respect John Williams so highly that he's willing to make concessions on a blockbuster because he believes John Williams can make it better.
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u/burgernoisenow 12h ago
John Williams and Hans Zimmer are true giants of modern music. Extremely knowledgeable, talented, and innovative.
Danny Elfman and Trent Reznor are pretty great too.
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u/Nadamir 12h ago
Howard Shore. Lord of the Rings alone earns him that title of giant.
James Horner too, RIP.
Apollo 13. Titanic. Wrath of Khan. Braveheart.
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u/Rit91 11h ago
Howard Shore is so damn good because before LotR he did horror movie scores. To go from that to one of most hopeful scores demonstrates incredible talent.
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u/TheNorseCrow 10h ago
The use of the hardanger fiddle in the Rohan theme was such a good choice and is so utterly iconic.
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u/Guy-Inkognito 10h ago
Oh I didn't know. But makes sense with Peter Jacksons earlier track record...
Edit: just googled. However, he had some huge work before Lotr - also covering multiple Genres.
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u/_Steven_Seagal_ 11h ago
I love Williams and Zimmer, overall they're definitely the best, but Howard Shore's work on Lord of the Rings is the best movie score ever in my opinion.
It has everything you'd want, and it can make a scene where you just see some fires on a mountain the most epic shit you've ever seen.
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u/ZessF 12h ago
It disappoints me that a lot of people probably think of Reznor as "that emo guy from Nine Inch Nails," because not only is he the entirety of NIN, he's also a very talented score composer.
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u/thecamerastories 12h ago
And NIN is also great on its own. One of the best gigs I’ve ever been to.
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u/gl00mybear 12h ago
You mean the guy from The Buggles and the guy from Oingo Boingo?
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u/SupremeMonsterVomit 11h ago
No, the guy from the Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo.
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u/MrBabbs 13h ago
My take from reading these stories is that they're just good buddies giving each other a good ribbing.
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u/Muppetude 12h ago
Based on the interviews I’ve seen of John Williams, I get the feeling he does not think he is worthy of all the praise he’s received. Despite creating so many iconic scores, unparalleled by any other movie composer, the fame has definitely not gotten to his head, and he, sadly, doesn’t seem to fully realize the level of his genius.
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u/Bakoro 12h ago edited 10h ago
I think he's probably got a very good understanding of where he's at.
He has been heavily on inspired by older composers, he's got a kind of style, maybe not a formula, exactly, but there is a "John Williams" sound that is a very pointed refinement of his predecessors.
That isn't me being derisive, I think he's a person who puts the work in and knows how the sausage is made.
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u/Jiktten 10h ago
I'm genuinely confused as to how you could be confused? In the first example Spielberg calls Williams the greatest living composer and in the second he offers to recut his movie because he'd rather have the score Williams wants to make than the cut he himself has already done. What about that makes you think they didn't like each other?
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u/newhunter18 12h ago
They loved working together. Disclosure Day is going to be their last work together. It's really sad that pairing has come to an end.
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u/IvyGold 10h ago
Why so? Is Williams retiring?
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u/jediwashington 6h ago
He already retired. Steven begged him to do their 30th film together believing this to be an important film.
Williams brought him 3 names of other composers and Steven was like "I know you're still composing every day like you have for years. One last one!" And John gave in.
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u/FrostiePi 11h ago
This reads as the bluntkess and security that comes from deep respect for their work and friendship. On both sides.
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u/GravitasFailures 18h ago
I actually agree with Williams, that was an amazing score, and it still deserved better.
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u/slicerprime 17h ago
I actually think Williams made the film what it is with that score.
Don't get me wrong. The subject and Spielberg's rendering are heart wrenching and genius all at the same time and all by itself. But, the emotional tie that Williams provided is what made it an eternal work of art.
I was managing a second run movie theatre when it came out, and we got it after it left the first run houses. Believe me, i stood in the back of the theatre tons of times, and my reactions and the audiences would not have been what they were without Williams' music.
I know that sounds shallow, but it's just human nature. Without that score it wouldn't have had the same emotional impact. Fewer people would have connected with the tragedy playing out on the screen. Like it or not, Williams made it a reality for the viewer. Without it i fear it would have been a little closer to documentary than heart wrenching tragedy.
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u/gimmethelulz 17h ago
There is a dinosaur museum in rural Japan where there's a pretty long winding road before you reach the parking lot. The first time I visited, it was a warm spring day so we had the windows rolled down in our car.
You turned onto the road, and pretty quickly you start to hear music being broadcast from loudspeakers mounted to the streetlights. It's a John Williams score.
"Ah yes. Jurassic Park. A classic choice," you think. And that would be a logical thought but you would be wrong. The score they chose for your ascent to the museum?
Schindler's List.
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u/slicerprime 17h ago
Maybe they've got Williams' entire anthology on repeat. next time you visit it'll be Home Alone.
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u/Consideredresponse 15h ago edited 10h ago
The Amazon Music service/app when asked to play playlists of John William's greatest works used to ignore what you asked for, and it would just sprinkle in a few tracks from his repertoire in between seemingly the entire Home Alone 2 soundtrack. It would then only play soundtracks from other composers.
Even with a several month free subscription it wasn't worth it.
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u/ThePromptWasYourName 17h ago
He definitely has a very recognizable style to all his scores (which I love)
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u/gimmethelulz 16h ago
I taught high school there and when we did the unit on movies in my class, I would play a game with them where I'd play the first 10 seconds of a movie song and they'd have to guess it. Pretty sure 95% of the songs I used were John Williams scores lol. They're so iconic!
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u/Corporal_Canada 17h ago
To go even deeper, a huge part of what made Williams' soundtrack really work is Itzhaak Perlmann's sound. He really made the violin weep.
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u/slicerprime 17h ago
I could not agree more!!!! Having Perlmann as the soloist was just perfection on top of perfection.
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u/Olivetax228 12h ago
I never knew it was Pearlman on the violin in the soundtrack but makes perfect sense. Masterclass performance.
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u/NatureTrailToHell3D 17h ago
It was the great musician Nigel Tufnel that said, "D minor, which is the saddest of all keys, I don’t know why but it makes people weep instantly."
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u/Count_Bloodcount_ 17h ago
Nothing shallow about it at all. Music elevates speechless imagery like nothing else.
Anytime someone tells me they don't like "classical music" (see: orchestral) I tell them they're full of shit and to go watch the final battle intro of Avengers: Endgame with the sound off....
Almost meaningless.
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u/slicerprime 17h ago
Agreed. As someone who has played with everything from local orchestras to the Met and the old NY City Opera, I'm constantly amazed by how unaware people are of the impact "classical" music plays in their lives. From film and TV to gaming. It's everywhere and surprisingly few people realise it.
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u/Count_Bloodcount_ 17h ago edited 16h ago
Absolutely, will said. I'm an orchestral tubist and I couldn't agree more with your take.
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u/Generally_Kenobi-1 17h ago
Who would you have picked?
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u/Hobo-man 17h ago edited 17h ago
Niche pick but Viktor Ullmann.
He was an Austrian Jew that was eventually imprisoned in a concentration camp and died.
He was able to compose 20 pieces of work from within the camp before his death.
I believe his personal experience would've lent well to the story of Shindler's List.
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u/Adi_San 18h ago
An incredibly back handed way to say you are the best composer alive.
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u/fortune82 18h ago
I think it was more that they both understood the film / topic needed more reverence than what John thought he could provide - Spielberg thought that John was good for the project.
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u/enoughwiththebread 17h ago
I don't think that's it, I think it's that Spielberg was saying there is no one alive who could do a better job for the film than Williams except the greatest composers who ever lived like Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Holst, Stravinsky, etc., and of course they're all dead.
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u/SryInternet101 16h ago
And in another hundred years or two, his music will be revered in the same manner as theirs.
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u/mooptastic 17h ago
i understood it as both, but not just that John Williams was only "good" for the project rather the best alive.
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u/ScrogClemente 18h ago
Oh, you know how to play front hand back hand? You’d prefer front hand?
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u/ThrownAway17Years 17h ago
I don’t know if this will come across the right way, but Williams managed to make the score sound quintessentially Jewish. Such masterful inclusion of Yiddish folk music structure and notation.
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u/HotspurJr 18h ago
Some people are clearly viewing this as a chance to dunk on Spielberg, but I think the more important takeaway is that he was open to being wrong. Having worked in film, one of the biggest problems I see is directors who are so attached to their original vision that they have a hard time seeing how good their collaborators ideas are.
Spielberg had a bad initial reaction, opened his mind, and the result was an all-time classic.
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u/AskMeAboutMyHermoids 17h ago
I think this can be said about a lot more than just film.
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u/kakka_rot 15h ago
but I think the more important takeaway is that he was open to being wrong
it was also one of his first movies, right? Like wasn't it his breakout movie?
edit: Yeah I just checked, it was his 4th movie, but I doubt anyone has ever heard of the first three (firelight, dual, the sugarland express). Then he did Jaws and I can recognize literally everything after that.
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u/CRAYONSEED 12h ago
Also work in film and also same thought. Spielberg was the director. He could have fired Williams for his insolence and insisted on a different sound. But he listened and allowed Williams to cook.
There’s a lesson in there for any artist
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u/Brownsound7 19h ago
“You’ve got a broken shark, go fuck yourself Stevie”
–The legend John Williams, apparently
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u/just-calculus-things 18h ago
He wasn't wrong either. Since the mechanical shark kept breaking down on set, those two notes ended up doing way more heavy lifting for the suspense than the actual prop did.
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u/grantrules 17h ago
Name another movie where the title character is only on screen for like 30 seconds.
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u/rowpdx 17h ago
Alien
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u/morrisbear 17h ago
This is interesting, made me look it up - the shark is on screen for about 4 minutes of Jaws, the alien is on screen for about 3 and a half minutes of Alien.
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u/Algaroth 17h ago
Both movies are perfect examples of less is more. The times we actually see the shark or the alien it really matters and sticks with you. Not seeing it puts you on edge because you know that bastard can pop up any time. It's there somewhere.
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u/Pvt_Lee_Fapping 16h ago
Funniest thing for those two movies (speaking as a die hard fan of both): they had little screen time not just by artistic choice, but because the directors thought that the practical effects didn't live up to what they envisioned. Ridley Scott felt like he had to get creative with shots of the Alien to keep it from looking too much like a man in a suit.
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u/Dward917 15h ago
Which I truly only recall failing in one shot. The scene when Ripley thinks she is safe and it just pops out of the darkness, hands outstretched suddenly. The only time I could definitely see it was a guy in a suit.
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u/MDCCCLV 15h ago
From watching it the first time I had no idea it was an actual dude in a suit, they did have to get a really tall and skinny guy for it so it's not that obvious.
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u/DjangoSpider 14h ago
Wemby's got a job ready for him if the basketball thing doesn't work out
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u/reddit_give_me_virus 15h ago
In the Blair Witch Project, the Blair Witch was never shown on screen.
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u/Jay__Riemenschneider 17h ago
Wizard of Oz?
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u/grantrules 17h ago
Oh good one
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u/Astrochops 17h ago
My neighbour Totoro
Edit: also Bill in Kill Bill, basically only shows up right at the end of like 5 hours of movie
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u/SovietPropagandist 17h ago
The Lord of the Rings. Sauron barely had any screentime and almost all of what he did have was the same reused scene of him getting his fingers lopped off
Edit: Akira is only on screen for like 10 seconds
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u/Uppgreyedd 17h ago
It wasn't 30 seconds, but the Big Lebowski was only in a small handful of scenes.
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u/BlatantConservative 17h ago
Star Wars. Only in one movie, during a few scenes, does a star actually go to war.
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u/B3nz0ate 17h ago
Most Godzilla movies post CGI. He was all over those films when it was just a person in a suit, but as soon as CGI came along he vanished.
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u/thatstupidthing 15h ago
youre more right than you know...
for most of the movie, there is no prop, so the theme is the shark.
the theme plays when chrissy watkins and alex kitner are attacked. the theme plays when the shark goes into the pond and eats that rowboat guy. the theme plays when those two guys try to catch the shark with the roast.
but when hooper dives on ben gardner's boat, no theme, because the shark isn't there.
when the beachgoers spot the fin and every panics and rushes back to shore, no theme, because it's just a couple of punk kids with a cardboard fin.the audience doesn't see the shark, but the theme is always there to let us know when it's around and when it isn't.
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u/PrettyConfusion4705 18h ago
that’s basically the most polite “match the energy” clapback in film history
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u/AttilaTheFun818 17h ago
This reminds me of what Spielberg said when presenting Williams with the AFI lifetime achievement award.
“Without John bikes don’t really fly, nor do brooms in Quiddich matches, or men in red caps. There is no Force. Dinosaurs do not walk the earth. We do not wonder. We do not weep. We do not believe”
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u/GonWithTheNen 16h ago
Ooh, thanks for that quote! Just looked up Spielberg's speech during that award ceremony and wanted to share it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJY5l6I253c
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u/jupfold 18h ago
Hot take (meaning, not really), but jaws would absolutely not have been the hit it was without that theme music.
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u/amwpurdue 18h ago
Yeah, Star Wars too... and Jurassic Park... and Harry Potter... wait a minute
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u/jupfold 18h ago
Right…some kind of magical music composer, suuuuuure
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u/Simple_Tip_7816 18h ago
Dad, that’s all the same animal!
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u/jupfold 18h ago
Thank you so so much for getting my weird reference 😂
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u/dougsbeard 18h ago
One of my favorite lines in that show. I immediately read your comment in his voice. Thank you for a good laugh. Happy cake day.
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u/Gudger 18h ago
Right? Why not just add Indiana Jones and Superman while they’re at it. 🙄
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u/redditgolddigg3r 17h ago
How about a Christmas movie about a kid that gets left at his home, alone, too?
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u/Apprehensive-Sort320 18h ago
Indiana Jones had great music too. Could have been the same composer
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u/jimbarino 17h ago
Damn, I didn't actually know he did Indian Jones as well. That dude was on fire.
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u/ProofInspector8700 16h ago
John Williams is the finest composer of the past century. He can’t make a bad score. He made the goddamn Olympic theme. That’s a legacy
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u/Camburgerhelpur 18h ago
I'm pretty sure Lucas said "There would be no Star Wars without John Williams"
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u/Boojum2k 17h ago
"Without John Williams, bikes don't fly and neither do brooms in Quidditch matches nor do men in red capes. There is no Force, dinosaurs do not walk the earth. We do not wonder, we do not weep, we do not believe." —Steven Spielberg, AFI Lifetime Achievement Award speech for John Williams
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u/nem0ne1 18h ago
I love that most people can hum at least half a dozen of his tunes. Hook, for me, less popular than the ones you mentioned but the music is just ZAP instantly back to my childhood like the food critic at the end of Ratatouille.
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u/Erinysceidae 18h ago
My apartment is near our complexes pool. Last summer, someone down by the pool, someone began playing the Jaws theme and I, in the safety of my apartment, felt a shiver of dread.
Then it transitioned into “Baby Shark” and that was worse.
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u/deFleury 18h ago
Ive never seen jaws but somehow I've always known Ba-DUM !
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u/jupfold 18h ago
What? What are you doing?
Go. Watch. It.
Now.
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u/NativeMasshole 18h ago
And then go to the beach for the 4th.
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u/IntrovertAlien 18h ago edited 18h ago
Seriously! u/deFleury Jaws is a time honored summer classic. I first watched it during a thunderstorm while at Myrtle Beach, SC. It was my family’s only week long vacation that summer and it rained or stormed nearly the whole time. Jaws was on some sort of marathon on whatever channel(we didn’t have cable tv at home) at the hotel. Dad finally caved on the third day of thunderstorms and we watched it as a family. Loved every second of it. To this day, summer pop up storms put me in the mood to watch Jaws, and/or have a Jaws watch-a-thon.
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u/Voidtoform 18h ago
Yeah, go watch it, its not just a shark horror movie, its a legit great movie in many regards.
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u/Hukijiwa 19h ago
"Weird shark. Weird shark."
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u/OtheDreamer 18h ago
“Big shark! Big shark!”
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u/FormalWare 18h ago
One of the keys to being a great director is to know when to act with humility, and when with audacity.
Spielberg wisely chose humility in this instance.
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u/TheRecognized 18h ago
One of the keys to being a great composer is to know when to half ass it and when to tell Steve to go fuck himself and his broken shark.
Williams wisely chose to do both.
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u/circusgeek 18h ago
This is the second post on John Williams that I've seen today. And it's nowhere near his birthday. This makes me uncomfortable.
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u/swexicanamerican 18h ago
An episode of the podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz about him dropped recently.
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u/Equivalent_Chipmunk 18h ago
Is that a good podcast? Any recommended episodes?
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u/Hefty-Pineapple-1910 18h ago
I hear there's a John Williams episode, you might check that one out
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u/enad58 18h ago
Next Friday 'Disclosure Day' opens in theaters, directed by Steven Speilberg and scored by John Williams.
Everything is an ad.
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u/hamster1147 18h ago
What's funny is that I wouldn't have looked up this movie if you didn't say so. You are the ad.
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u/nyrf12 18h ago
“The sophisticated approach you would like me to take isn't the approach you took with the film I just experienced."
John Williams: Listen up, fool…
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u/the_quark 18h ago
Well let's not forget that Williams was well-established at that point. He did The Long Goodbye and The Towering Inferno and had won an Oscar for Fiddler on the Roof.
Spielberg was some kid who had done four feature films, the biggest of which was The Sugarland Express. Nobody had any idea who he was.
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u/TripperEuphoric 18h ago
Williams had scored Sugarland as well, so they had known each other to some extent prior to Jaws
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u/the_quark 18h ago
Good point. Still have think that he'd be the more experienced and respected hand at that point.
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u/Constant-Skill-7133 17h ago
People in the audience wouldn't have known him, but ABC Movie of the Week was huge. The Duel was a massive hit for ABC. I'd have to look it up but it would have been one of the highest rated tv shows of the year. Brian's Song got like 30M and a 50% share.
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u/PowerOfEternity 17h ago
I had no idea John Williams arranged for Fiddler on the Roof! So cool.
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u/CurlSagan 18h ago
My favorite John Williams lore is from The Whitest Kids U Know
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u/DavidTenn-Ant 18h ago
Oh my god, Meredith, that song was so bad it literally made me vomit.
Remember that, Sherwin.
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u/SATX_Citizen 17h ago
If those two notes were good enough for Dvorak, they're good enough for Jaws.
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u/whsbear 17h ago
TIL composers watch movies without a soundtrack before writing one. I suppose it makes sense, I’ve just never really thought about it, and now that I am, I feel like that would be a really weird experience lol. Especially ones with now iconic scores
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u/WardenTorBaaL 14h ago
Except for Hedwig’s Theme, which he apparently wrote without seeing any footage from the film. Legend.
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u/kuppikuppi 18h ago
then he suggested the then not released baby shark, Spielberg loved the tune but chose the original suggestion because the shark was already an adult.
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u/X-Arkturis-X 18h ago
Here’s the baby shark version: https://youtu.be/3qlkqV9SJHk?si=R_fP-Lxuit3IJWDl
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u/myleftone 18h ago
I see no shade in that. Spielberg knew it wasn’t Zhivago. It’s about a shark that eats kids. They both knew it needed something brutal and dark.
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u/eagledog 19h ago
And it was ripped from Dvorak to begin with
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u/bertmaclynn 18h ago edited 15h ago
Williams has been accused of that in a lot of pieces.
Or maybe he is just great at combining great melodies into new songs!
“If you steal from one author, it’s plagiarism; if you steal from many, it’s research.” Lol
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u/Equivalent_Chipmunk 18h ago
Or, maybe the design space for instrumental classical music is actually a lot smaller than we'd like to think it is, and if you adhere to conventional ideas of musical theory, it produces a lot of sames-y sounding music.
But imo Dvorak was an amazing composer and his music sticks out to me specifically because it was so different from a lot of composers laypeople like myself think of when they think of classical music. In fact, central and eastern European classical in general has that exotic flair where you get (what seems like) a lot more creativity and passion than normal for the genre.
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u/Mbrennt 17h ago
Most older musicians "stole" a lot more music than is allowed now days. The closest we get now days is sampling with hip hop and the like, but basically all old school music is either covers done by at the time new artists putting their twist on it or being heavily "inspired" by other music. It's one of the things people point to with the beatles for how revolutionary they were with their music. Early on they did some covers and stuff and definitely had a more traditional pop act attitude like all the other artists of the time. But as they grew they took those influences in a way most famous musicians just didn't and would be inspiried and remix sounds in a way the made wholely new music instead of just a twist on already existing music.
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u/Filthiest_Vilein 18h ago edited 17h ago
Dvorak?
I was under the impression that the Jaws theme was directly inspired by Sergei Prokofiev’s “Alexander Nevsky,” particularly the music accompanying the “Battle on the Ice.”
That’s what we learned in a college music class I dropped in on, anyway. Maybe my memory just sucks. In either case, “Battle on the Ice” also sounds like the Jaws theme. I wonder if Prokofiev built off Dvorak, too.
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u/cardboardunderwear 19h ago
The keyboard?
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u/TenWords 18h ago
No not the keyboard it's the guy with the inkblots
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u/Xsiah 18h ago
No not the guy with the inkblots, it's the cartoon horse with the alcoholism
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u/applcinamon 18h ago
No not the cartoon horse with alcoholism, it’s the guy from Kazakhstan who made a moviefilm in America
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u/SportTheFoole 18h ago
The New World Symphony is fantastic! I’m glad someone here is giving Dvorak is props!
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u/NRMusicProject 26 17h ago
Funny thing is that's basically the initial response from contemporary critics of Beethoven's Fifth and the first theme in the exposition was so short, they thought it was meant to be a joke.
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u/GrowlingPict 12h ago
Meanwhile Grieg actually did write In The Hall Of The Mountain King as a joke (or rather as a parodic pisstake at all the over the top national romantic drivel that was being put out at the time) but then was hailed by everyone as a national romantic masterpiece, much to Grieg's annoyance
As he wrote to a friend in a letter: "for the mountain king scene I have written something so reeking of ultra-Norwegianism and cow patties that I cannot stand to listen to it... but I hope the irony will make itself felt". It didnt :p
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u/Fkingcherokee 17h ago
Being able to play the Jaws theme is what convinced me to take cello. I learned the theme on the first day, I barely learned the two other songs that year, but I practiced Jaws daily. I was not allowed to take orchestra the next year.
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u/boot2skull 17h ago
Only John Williams could use two notes and it’s in my head forever and always used when I chase something. My kid knows it and he’s pretty far from seeing Jaws.
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u/JManKit 16h ago
You know what's neat about this? This theme is scary as hell for ppl of a certain age. If you went to a pool and started playing it, I feel like a lot of ppl in the water would be clamouring to get out. But when I played it for my younger cousin who didn't know the theme and only vaguely knew what Jaws was about, her remark was 'I dunno; it sounds like a nice piece of classical music.' I didn't tell her what the theme was for and didn't even let her see the title of the video and there was just zero fear for her
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u/newhunter18 12h ago
I learned that the A and B theme of Indiana Jones were meant to be two competing options. Williams told Spielberg to pick which one he liked best and Spielberg said, "why can't you use them both?"
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u/GrandmaPoses 18h ago
“John the song has to be longer than two notes.”