Movie composer Williams honoured by his peers

LOS ANGELES: Kobe Bryant considers him a muse. Harrison Ford says he elevates entertainment to art. Seth MacFarlane calls him “the single greatest talent working in Hollywood”.

John Williams, creator of the iconic music from Superman, Star Wars, Jaws, E.T. and Jurassic Park, is also the first composer to receive the American Film Institute’s Life Achievement Award. Steven Spielberg presented his longtime friend and collaborator with the award.

“Without John Williams, bikes don’t really fly,” Spielberg said. “Nor do brooms in Quidditch matches; nor do men in red capes. There is no Force. Dinosaurs don’t walk the Earth... You take our movies, many of them about our most impossible dreams, and through your musical genius, you make them real and everlasting for billions of people.”

Williams has scored more than 100 films and received an astounding 50 Oscar nominations.George Lucas said it was Williams’s soaring score that “ensured that Star Wars would live forever”.

“And you did it again with Raiders of the Lost Ark,” he said.

Bryant said he asked to meet Williams in 2009 to learn how he approaches his work.

“I’m a passionate believer that everybody needs a muse and John Williams is one of mine,” said the recently retired Lakers star.

The 84- year- old Williams said that when he first learnt he would be receiving AFI’s highest honour, he thought, “I’m really much too young for a thing like this.”

His career began in the 1950s as a paid pianist for Hollywood studios and thrives to this day. “I am enormously grateful, as all composers are, to film, for giving us the broadest possible audience worldwide that any composer has ever enjoyed,” Williams said, thanking his mentors, musicians and director collaborators.

“Tomorrow morning when I’m back at work,” he said, “I’ll try to deserve all this.” – ANA-AP