This is a wonderful film. It isn't so much a documentary more a celebration of the music, life and humanity of John Williams. The celebration doesn't dwell on biography or deep musicological analysis but rather gives a guide to how this artist has for decades captured the essence of story, the heart of emotion in music.
The excerpts of him conducting in the scoring sessions are wonderful, and throughout what comes through is his joy and his love in making music and moreover enabling others to make music. There is something truly humbling about seeing the partnership between Williams and Spielberg, they speak with one united voice. Spielberg in his imagery and narrative and Williams in music and emotional core. They also clearly adore each other and to see two artists who have such a deep personal and professional bond is wonderful to watch documented.
I do wish this had been longer, a deeper dive I go his work and his process - but that is just greed! This is as good a celebration of the man as you will watch and makes you want to re-watch some movies just to hear those scores in their entirety.
The film made me think about joy so much. The joy the music brings as Chris Martin says 'nobody had a bad day because they listened to a piece by John Williams' and what a legacy that is to leave to the world.
We all have our favourite scores. Mine are the final Star Wars with the magnificent finale revelling in all those themes, and I have some that pop up fleetingly here like his work on Hook, which is always worth revisiting, a flawed film but an almost perfect score.
For me, Williams is up there with Mozart, as being a composer who understands instinctively our emotional response to a story, but more than that here his musical work goes beyond 'the brief' and has often lifted a movie above and beyond what it may have been without him.
He also genuinely comes across as a lovely man who cares deeply for his craft and for music, he has been and continues to be an inspiration not just for musicians and composers but for all of us who treasure creativity, craft and care.
A brilliant celebration.
