Documentary filmmaker Laurent Bouzereau sat down with Awards Focus to discuss the new Disney+ film, Music by John Williams.
This film was a long time in the making. It was only a matter of time before the Oscar-winning composer would consent to having a documentary made about him. As Bouzereau tells Awards Focus, Williams was in, then he was out, and then he was a maybe. Only after the filmmaker told Williams that it was less so about him in as much as it is about his musicians that he was back in again.
With a wealth of music cues, there is only so much that can be packed into a run time of just over an hour and a half. There’s a good amount of time spent on Star Wars and the many Steven Spielberg collaborations. Some get more than a few minutes while others get included in brief montage. But again, we’re talking about 90-year-old-plus composer with a number of Oscar wins and over 50 nominations. His work is legendary. Because of licensing, some cues are not in the film. Bouzereau ran into an issue with clearance for two cues and because of how familiar he is with Williams’s work, he instantly knew which tracks would work. How about that?
Music by John Williams is now streaming on Disney+ and playing a very limited theatrical run.
It’s so nice to talk with you again. How are you doing?
Laurent Bouzereau: I’m so happy to see you. I’m just so grateful for your kind words and all that you do so thank you so much.
You’re welcome.
Laurent Bouzereau: So what’s happening?
Not a whole lot. How did the opportunity come about to direct a documentary on John Williams?
Laurent Bouzereau: Well, I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I’ve had the privilege of knowing John and Steven for 30 years. I would always ask, “John, can we do a documentary about you?” It was always met with great reverence, but always, “No, thank you.”
When he turned 90, I was involved with this tribute at the Kennedy Center. I literally went to Steven and I said, “Steven, this is crazy. Between your archive, George’s archive, my stuff, we have to make a film about John.” He agreed. He immediately said, “Absolutely. I’m going to ask him.”
John said, yes. A week later, he said, no, and then he said, maybe. I found myself with him, actually, by pure coincidence, and he said, “Laurent, I so appreciate, but I don’t want to do the film.” I said, “John, why?” [He said,] “Because no one is really interested in me.”
I said, “John, you’ve been to the Hollywood Bowl, right? You’re not just facing the musicians.” I said, “Listen, it’s not really about you.” He looked at me like, “What?” I said, “It’s about your music and it’s about your musicians.” That sort of sealed the deal, I think, to have me just say I’m coming at it from your art, from what you know, from music.
Also, the fact that not only was Steven part of this and then Ron Howard and his company, Kathy and Frank—I think we all rallied to create his family unit that’s been with him for so many years to really make this film, which by the way, was probably the hardest thing I’ve ever made because of the responsibility—the schedule was extremely hard.
But how do you make a feature film about someone who’s lived close to a hundred years old and has been making music since they were kids? It’s a big challenge and I didn’t have much time to make it. There’s not been a day that has gone in my life when I’ve not listened to a John Williams piece of music. I was ready for the challenge and frankly, it was about time.
Yeah. I wake up every day to John Williams or Alan Silvestri. If I don’t get up with Jurassic Park, it might be 15 minutes later with Indiana Jones.
Laurent Bouzereau: There you go. I do my workout to John Williams, so yeah. What’s your favorite John Williams score? Is it Jurassic?
That’s my go-to album to listen to on these long plane rides, more so these days than The Beatles.
Laurent Bouzereau: What about Silvestri? What’s your favorite?
Captain America and Back to the Future.
Laurent Bouzereau: Great. Yeah, Back to the Future is amazing. He’s such an amazing man. Also Alan, I adore him greatly.
Yeah. What was the most surprising thing that you’ve learned about John Williams throughout the process of making the film?
Laurent Bouzereau: Well, there are a lot of surprises. The one thing that I think I didn’t completely grasp until I made the film was the fact that he legitimized film music. When he had that incident with the Boston Pops and the orchestra refusing to play film music was very significant in saying that even the music community does not embrace film music as real music. The fact that John stepped down and then came back after discussing this with everyone—the whole dialogue about film music changed.
I think that’s something that cannot be underscored, to make a pun, on John’s influence. That was a big revelation to me, who grew up loving film music, not only John, but I knew of Bernard Herrmann, Miklós Rózsa, and Franz Waxman. All those great composers was part of my DNA somehow. I would always notice the music. But I realized that I was noticing the music because I had noticed John Williams’s music so It always came back to John.
That to me was a big surprise—that he had changed the dialogue about an art form and therefore also really salvaged the importance of the orchestra and symphonic music as opposed to computerized music at a time where every single art form is struggling to stay away from that AI type of identity. He is very modern in that he has really made a difference and continues to make one.
There are all the other little stories. His description of the significance of the Close Encounters five notes, I think, is priceless, frankly. I think even the commentaries from George about changing a cue in Star Wars—all of that is incredible.
The area of his music that I was a lot less familiar with was his concert work. To see him and to be able to capture him in San Francisco, rehearsing with Anne-Sophie Mutter at the Violin Concerto No. 2, I think that piece alone is worthy of studying and listening. It’s not the same as the film scores, but it just shows his wildest imagination and his experimentation, that he’s very much someone who is an eternal student, someone who never feels like he’s arrived that he’s done. He always wants to make it better. In fact, when I was with him in Tanglewood—we have a little bit of footage of it in the film. He’s making changes to Superman. I’m like, What?!? You’re making changes to Superman?” And he’s like, “Yeah, that little piece here, I think can be better.”
Truly a lover of nature and that’s what makes him a really great humanist, I think, through music. We were driving on a golf cart in Tanglewood in this beautiful, beautiful space and trees. He’s like, “Laurent, look at that tree over there. It was that tall when I first started here and now it’s a real tree.” It’s just, his love of nature is so endearing and so speaks to the sort of primal talent that he has to create musical beauty that just really speaks to all of us.
How long was the initial edit?
Laurent Bouzereau: Very close to what it is now. I really try in my films to stay within an hour and 30 to an hour and 40 minutes. It’s so important—I’m not trying to be definitive here in my films. I know that people will come out and say, well, how come you didn’t talk about this? We didn’t talk about that. I’m like, those are rabbit holes. We have cards and charts, act by act in the cutting room. I write a script. I want every single idea to lead to the next and if it doesn’t, it means there’s a problem and that it doesn’t necessarily belong here. The length never really changed. The thing that changed is that I kept getting new interviews and sometimes at the last minute. Suddenly, we had to fit people in and that was sometimes a challenge, as you know.
The other thing that was a huge challenge is licensing, because licensing for music is extremely challenging for various reasons that I won’t bore you with. But we were on the mixing stage, literally a half hour from finishing and going into overtime, which is a big no-no, right? We get a call from our lawyers saying, “Guys, I’m so sorry, there are two cues we absolutely are not able to clear at the moment. I know you’re mixing and if you don’t want to take a chance, you have to switch them.” I immediately went into my bank of cues and was able to conjure two separate cues—one was from Earthquake and one was from The Lost World. I said to Ramiro, who is actually John’s music editor, “I know those cues are going to fit in. Let’s just replace them.” In two minutes, we had fixed the problem. That made me feel good and happy that I had sort of reached that level of knowledge of John’s music, simply because I’d been listening to it since I was like, what, 12 years old.
Where do things currently stand on the Jaws documentary?
Laurent Bouzereau: Well, we’ll have to talk about it when it comes out, but I’m having a great time. Again, I’m like this little kid that’s getting to do all those fantastic films and I couldn’t be more grateful. But I think you will definitely want to talk about it. It’s an amazing new approach on the whole story, so I can’t wait to share it with you.
I have to ask: how come you weren’t the one who directed the Steven Spielberg documentary a few years ago for HBO?
Laurent Bouzereau: Yeah, really? I don’t know. I don’t know how that happened, but you’ll have to ask whomever did it. (Laughs)
What do you hope people take away from watching the film?
Laurent Bouzereau: Well, I made this film for three groups of people, one being people like yourself and myself, who are already in, regardless, who are fans; then people who may not know John, but live in darkness and maybe looking for inspiration. I think it’s so great that there are people like John Williams, that you can make films about to really inspire you. Most of all, I made the film for people who are not born yet. People who in 50 years, 100 years from now will see this film and say, wow, who is that man and what is that music? I really hope that the film can continue to inspire generations to come, just like John and his music has been able to transcend time.
When you think about my generation and falling in love with John during Star Wars and Jaws, and then your generation falling in love with Jurassic Park, and then the next generation falling in love with Harry Potter, and then the next generation falling in love with the new Star Wars films. I mean, that’s pretty insane when you think about it.
When you think about Hollywood and its very short memory, I was just talking to someone, I said, I would potentially argue that some young, young people who want to be filmmakers don’t even know who Jerry Goldsmith is, who was a composer who was thriving in the 70s alongside John. And so, for John to be part of our collective consciousness and to continue to score the stories of our lives really is a real testament to the fact that there’s nothing chronological about John. It’s all lived under the same timeline and we’re all part of it.
Thank you so much. They gave me the wrap sign so I’m sure I’ll see you on social media.
Laurent Bouzereau: Well, thank you so much and again for everything that you do. I adore you and I think the world of you and I just wish you all the best.
Thank you so much.
Laurent Bouzereau: Take care. Bye-bye.