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John Williams Faces His Legacy: 54 Oscar Noms, ‘Star Wars’ Mistakes and Changing the Movies Forever

With 54 Oscar nods, John Williams is now the most-nominated living person in Academy history. Here he reflects on his immense legacy and work with Steven Spielberg.

There is a maximalism to that kind of scoring that wasn’t in vogue in the arty, hard-bitten ’70s when Williams set to work on George Lucas’ first “Star Wars” film, not knowing that he was hitting a reset button for the whole field. But realizing the error of his ways gave Williams an opportunity to write Carrie Fisher a new, non-incestuous theme for “The Empire Strikes Back,” along with first-time leitmotifs for Darth Vader and Yoda that would further become part of this universe. He’s scored movies for classic Hollywood directors like William Wyler, Gene Kelly and even Alfred Hitchcock (on his final film, “Family Plot”), along with newer-guard filmmakers like Brian De Palma, Robert Altman and Sydney Pollack.

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