Study On The Film Music Of John Williams

John Williams is the most important composer in the transition period of Hollywood music history. On the basis of Max Steiner and Erich Wolfgang Korngold's symphony experience, Williams absorbed and made great use of pop music scores that came into being in the 1950s and also innovation and techniques in modern scores, which brought out the new era of film symphony composing in Hollywood. His unique creative thoughts, characteristic musical languages, excellent composing skills, and further more persistent exploration and innovation on two ways all contributed to Williams'achievements in art. One way is that Williams scored science fiction, adventure and comedy films etc., which were popular in Hollywood in pursuit of compositions'luxury and popularity and their influence on films'atmosphere; but on the other hand, he indulged in composing artistic movies seeking after the poetic extension of films'topics and paying attention to inspiring audience's active thinking of films'philosophical nature. The idea of Williams'scoring can be seen from the following two aspects: firstly, there are one or more vivid musical theme in Williams'compositions which are related to films'topics, leading roles'characters, destiny and feelings or can have some symbolizing meanings with accurate description and highly identification property; secondly, each of his scores is the masterpiece of theme variations which makes his musical theme rich and colorful and cannot be parted from films'characters and plots. There are two meanings contained in Williams'film musical languages: one is that scores and directors'intention are developed simultaneously. After understanding the common ground of music and movie, the composer used the music creatively to further the meaning of the topic. The other one is that film music interacts with other film elements and techniques so that music can play an effective role in the relation between sounds and pictures in films. John Williams is a composer with diversity of creativity styles whose scores not only have the classic features like symphony, but also have American and exotic appeals. This paper will discuss Williams'creative thoughts on film music, musical languages and features, and the scores'aesthetic values.