John Williams Salutes Steven Spielberg
Film Night at Tanglewood
By: Charles Giuliano - Aug 15, 2010
On a perfect summer evening Tanglewood was packed to the rafters in the vast shed for the immensely popular annual John Williams Film Night.
The special lure this year was a tribute to his many collaborations with Steven Spielberg. This was presented in the second half of the program.
The narrator of the evening was Turner Classic Movies host Robert Osborne. The silver haired Osborne delivered insightful and warm introductions in his silken voice. It was a special treat to hear his capsules and nuggets of information.
In a salute to Williams he stated that he is certainly the foremost film composer of his generation. The maestro has earned 45 Oscar nominations and taken home the award on five occasions.
The Tanglewood audience hardly needed to be reminded as he has been a consistent presence in the music festival for decades.
One Berkshire truism is never miss Film Night as there are always bound to be special treats and insights.
It is disappointing to report that Spielberg did not show up for the tribute to his many films. Although he did a couple of years back.
That is not to take anything away from Osborne as host of the tribute. He was just wonderful in an easy mix with Williams.
One of the thrills of the evening for film fans is the opportunity to view exciting clips of historic classics paired with the live performance of all of those great scores. Having them brought to life with a full orchestra is truly magnificent.
As Osborne told us the great Hollywood film composers have not always been respected. He offered interesting observations on the work of Waxman’s suite from Sunset Boulevard, Hermann’s Vertigo, North’s Spartacus, Goldsmith’s Chinatown and Jarre’s Lawrence of Arabia.
Often there were struggles between composers and directors. Alfred Hitchcock, for example, did not want music during the famous shower scene in Psycho. And Bette Davis objected to a score to accompany a final scene in Dark Victory.
It was intriguing to hear the music while watching clips assembled from Sunset Boulevard and Lawrence of Arabia. In this context it was possible fully to appreciate the manner in which the music dramatically enhanced the action on screen.
After an intermission to Spielberg tribute started with two selections from Jaws. Decades later it scared the willies out of me all over again. Osborne was accurate in recalling how most Americans were reluctant to swim in the ocean that summer. How timely as there have been Great White sightings that have closed beaches recently.
There was also the other worldly magic of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Osborn explained that the First Kind is a sighting of a UFO. The Second is an interaction with debris while the Third is an actual meeting with aliens. As conveyed in the film. He added that the Fourth Kind is all the money the film earned at the box office.
The Boston University Tanglewood Institute Young Artists Chorus accompanied excerpts from Empire of the Sun and Amistad.
While Spielberg is known primarily for thrillers and serious films he did make one over the top madcap comedy. John Belushi famously flopped as the lead in the box office bomb 1941. During a press conference in New York for The Blues Brothers critics asked how much he made for the film. I asked if he had to give back any of the money he was paid for 1941. He glared at me and went into his Saturday Night Live Samurai mode drawing an ersatz sword and threatening to cut off my head.
Yet again the trailer for 1941 with the score of Williams almost made you want to see the film or borrow it through Netflix. Don’t bother. It’s a real turkey. But a great score.
On a more serious note Tamara Smirnova brought out all of the tragic melancholy in the theme from Schindler’s List. We are familiar with this from prior Film Nights.
The program ended with a pastiche of clips and scores.
The audience applauded and brought them back. For an encore, what else, we were treated to a mélange from Indiana Jones. It was the icing on the cake for yet another fabulous John Williams Film Night.