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Mark Kermode on… composer John Williams, master of unforgettable blockbuster soundtracks
From his killer two-note Jaws riff to the sheer uplift of Star Wars, Williams captures a movie’s essence with tunes that stick. Now the Hollywood great is celebrated in a Disney+ documentary
Williams’s recollections, from his earliest days as a hard-practising pianist (he has a background in jazz) to his blockbuster collaborations with film-makers such as Spielberg and George Lucas, are as clear and concise as his earworm theme tunes for Superman(1978), Raiders of the Lost Ark(1981) and Star Wars(1977) – the last of which spawned a double-LP soundtrack that became the biggest selling symphonic album of all time. Photograph: Bettmann ArchiveBorn in New York in 1932 and classically trained at the city’s Juilliard School, Williams played in Hollywood studio orchestras for many years – he’s there on hits as diverse as West Side Story and To Kill a Mockingbird – before turning to orchestration and composition. Photograph: Alistair Heap/Channel 4 / James Pardon Emilia Pérez Karla Sofia Gascón is pure dynamite in Jacques Audiard’s audacious trans-crime-drama-musical – a head-spinning mashup of Sicario, Mrs Doubtfire, Dog Day Afternoon and Hedwig and the Angry Inch.
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