“This afternoon, following the nationwide sneaks of Steven Spielberg’s War Horse (which joined in Cameron Crowe’s We Bought a Zoo in that regard, two films that share more than just that distinction), the esteemed director took the stage in front of a Lincoln Center theater audience to participate in a Q&A with journalist and author Mark Harris. The event was streamed live at MSN Entertainment and rebroadcast afterward.” – Full article at HitFix
ON WORKING WITH JOHN WILLIAMS FOR 40 YEARS – Full Transcript (starts at 4:41 into the video)
* [Not included in the video]
How much do you and John Williams talk about the way music is used as a narrative tool?
“Next year it will be our 40th anniversary of working together exclusively. He’s been my composer on every movie, since The Sugarland Express, in 1972. We have a shorthand. He always sees the movie early and then he just goes away. And I don’t see him. And then I get a phone call and he says, ‘You want to come over to my office? I want to play you some themes.’ I go over to the office, and he sits down behind his Steinway, and he starts playing me themes. It’s been that way for almost 40 years.
I love everything he’s ever written, but some scores he sketches on the piano have a very profound effect on me. * [The themes he played from Schindler’s List, my wife and I were just devastated. I was devastated by what he did on E.T. ] And he played me three themes from this movie, and I was a goner. I was three handkerchiefs, right there.”