John Williams

eljr said:

I was rather surprised to learn the other night that Mr. Williams has won 5 Oscars as I have never been a fan. Also, there seems to be much love for him within the small community here that accepts original scores for movies as classical.

My question is, why is he so widely acclaimed within film score? What is his best work in your opinion?

I am trying to find how this love is born.

I have a hunch that simply being associated with Star Wars has lead to an acceptance based more on familiarity than production. Thoughts?

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In terms of film music, I would say he's the most successful of all-time. His success is far-ranging and encapsulates many different genres of film. The only rivals I can think would be perhaps Jerry Goldsmith, Ennio Morricone or John Barry, but even each of these composers come up short in overall career retrospectives compared to Williams. The older Hollywood composers like Korngold, Steiner and Herrmann don't quite measure up in terms of overall impact either, but, of course, they're from an older generation, so perhaps this isn't a fair comparison.

I like John Williams, but I don't listen to any of his work (even though I do own several soundtracks of his music on disc) or any film music for that matter. I'd rather devote my listening time to composers that I love and adore.

Interesting how this thread has turned into nothing more than a variation on "Is film music classical?" Come on, folks, we've got enough of these threads already.

I have already given my opinion on the subject of film music, so there's no need for me to state it again.