Oscars 2023: A Love Letter to John Williams

I was catching up on the nominees for Original Score and they’re all great. Justin Hurwitz is some kind of genius and his score for Babylon is just insanely good. I don’t know where he came from or how he is this talented, but his (egregiously not-Oscar nominated) score for First Man I listen to, even still, constantly. And how did he come up with the score for Babylon?

Volker Bertelmann’s score for All Quiet on the Western Front is largely responsible for one of the masterpieces of this year. This film is pure art on every level. Every piece of it works in perfect harmony to evoke and express the irrational trauma of world war.

Carter Burwell’s magnificent score for The Banshees of Inisherin is a score that doesn’t feature as prominently as the scores for Babylon or All Quiet on the Western Front, but that’s mainly because it competes with the film’s other score: its lyrical, brilliant writing from Martin McDonagh. The words spoken by the actors comprise much of how this film sounds but the music is excellent too.

And Son Lux’s score for Everything Everywhere All at Once is propulsive, thrilling, unpredictable, and alive. The music pulls us along from scene to scene, keeping pace with the fast-moving action and dialogue. The film looks, sounds, and feels like a hurricane of chaos with calm in its eye, its Everything bagel center.

But it’s John Williams’ score for The Fabelmans that ends up being the most mind-blowing of all. I often listen to Williams’ scores for Spielberg’s films throughout their long careers together, and it’s really hard to wrap my mind around the idea that he could be this consistently good for this long. With 53 nominations, Williams is behind only Walt Disney for the most nominations in Oscar history. But he hasn’t won since 1994 with Schindler’s List.

Williams also won for E.T., Star Wars, and Jaws. I ask you this: has there ever been a better film composer?

Six years ago, Steven Spielberg paid tribute to Williams at the AFI for one of the many tributes in his honor:

At 91, his musical gifts are as alive as ever with his score for The Fabelmans. Williams knows Spielberg so well he was able to customize this particular score to match Spielberg the man as well as to capture the film’s ruminative, bittersweet tone. The score for The Fablemans is a bit more stripped back from Williams’ grand orchestral works of yesteryear and reliant more on piano solos. But it’s still incredibly impactful and emotive work.

I think you have to have a cold, black heart to not award Williams for this deeply moving, affecting score that is easily one of his best. I mean — just listen to it. No one can do what he does. He is the best there is and the best there ever was.

So how do we thank John Williams for what he has given us? How can we possibly? We can’t. Every time I listen to any piece of music by him it stops me. He has gotten better as he got older and has not lost a step.

His score for The Fabelmans is, I think, a love letter to Spielberg, a tribute in their 50th year of collaborations.

Steven Spielberg should be winning Best Director and John Williams should be winning Best Score. The Oscars have long been a game of myopic impatience and immediacy, and not necessarily a race that is ever well-considered. I personally think awards should go to those who have spent years becoming great, not necessarily to those who are just starting out. But it doesn’t really matter what I think.

What I do know is that with very few exceptions, no other composer’s music has been right there, helping to shape my life for my entire life. All of the scores from this year are very very good, but when you listen to the score from The Fabelmans it’s easy to hear the unsurpassed talent and skill of John Williams.

Without John Williams, there is no shark theme in Jaws. There is no way to communicate with aliens with five notes in Close Encounters. There’s no Raiders’ March for Indiana Jones, no Jurassic Park, no E.T., no Schindler’s List — and certainly no Star Wars. His music has provided generations of moviegoers with unforgettable suspense, awe, wonder, and heartbreak for over half a century. The sustained, titanic impact his work has had on cinema is simply incomparable.

So here’s to you, John, the greatest there ever was and the greatest there ever will be. It should be the pleasure of every Academy member to vote for you.