Amblin Television, Imagine Documentaries and Nedland Media are in the very early stages of production on the documentary that is being directed by Laurent Bouzereau. Bouzereau is a long-time director of “making of” and behind-the-scenes featurettes, producing a several hundred of them since the 1990s, including dozens for Spielberg movies.
Spielberg is executive producing along with Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Darryl Frank, Justin Falvey, Justin Wilkes, Sara Bernstein and Meredith Kaulfers.
I'm surprised there's never been one before. Has there even been a short one?
Thor?
The old EMPIRE STRIKES BACK documentary from the early 80s works as a general Williams documentary too, as they go into other films and scores (like IMAGES). And then there many TV programs (there's an extensive Japanese one from years and years ago), featurettes and the like. But nothing quite like a feature length documentary. Here's hoping it will go beyond surface level. The involvement of Bouzereau worries me a bit.
Yeah this is rather deflating. I was hoping Spielberg would direct. Bouzereau's work tends to feel like too much of a summary. His work on the JAWS documentary is a good example--very bland and surface level. I'm cautiously optimistic but, as they say in a disproportionate number of Williams' scored films, "I have a bad feeling about this."
Yeah this is rather deflating. I was hoping Spielberg would direct. Bouzereau's work tends to feel like too much of a summary. His work on the JAWS documentary is a good example--very bland and surface level. I'm cautiously optimistic but, as they say in a disproportionate number of Williams' scored films, "I have a bad feeling about this."
Well, as the subject of the doc, Williams himself might not want to share anything beyond "surface level". You're probably not going to get much about personal struggles or tragedies in his life.
Yeah this is rather deflating. I was hoping Spielberg would direct. Bouzereau's work tends to feel like too much of a summary. His work on the JAWS documentary is a good example--very bland and surface level. I'm cautiously optimistic but, as they say in a disproportionate number of Williams' scored films, "I have a bad feeling about this."
Well, as the subject of the doc, Williams himself might not want to share anything beyond "surface level". You're probably not going to get much about personal struggles or tragedies in his life.
True. Although I would hope there is some discussion of how he got into music and what some of his musical inspirations are at least instead of just doing a summary of his career. I know he comes from a musical family so I also think there could be some interesting insight there.
But to be honest, I was actually talking more about the technical aspect of composing--compare Bouzereau's notes for JAWS or the INDY set to the notes to pretty much any LLL or Intrada releases. It's all stuff you could read on Wikipedia or IMDB. Admittedly there probably isn't much of an audience for that in the general public but I know enough "casual" musicians are fans of Williams that there would be an audience for something that does more than just cover all the "greatest hits." Most of us have that album already.
EDIT: despite all this, I am gonna watch it and probably get some chills in the process.
Yeah. Williams shuts down any questions that stray beyond the tried and true. Even recently he ignored the best question in the Classic FM interview. Bouzereau is surface level pap. It will be a puff piece.
The problem with liner notes and Bouzereau and others (like the BOND 2003 remastered) - they all give us information we mostly already know and fails to give us new knowledge
Even newer interviews just rehash things that have been discusses before - I actually do like THE ALIEN Blu-ray composer interviews - the one for Aliens is very honest with Horner uttering words like "please do, becaurse i like to see who can do it better than me"-ish
we need more of that - life is not a dance always and i rather see more to peoples struggle than to hear it all went good
Yeah. Williams shuts down any questions that stray beyond the tried and true. Even recently he ignored the best question in the Classic FM interview. Bouzereau is surface level pap. It will be a puff piece.
Agreed (with you and everyone else) this will probably be a documentary about Williams' "blockbuster / "prestige" assignments -- i.e. Jaws and after. I don't expect much (if any) acknowledgement of Lost in Space or the disaster movies. There will probably be a little coverage of his concert work and tenure with the Boston Pops.
However I think we can forget any in-depth coverage of his early work as an orchestrator and session player, or any more than cursory mentions of his work for Altman, Wyler, Rydell, Sinatra -- or even Hitchcock.
Well, as the subject of the doc, Williams himself might not want to share anything beyond "surface level". You're probably not going to get much about personal struggles or tragedies in his life.
Maybe he didn't have any. Perhaps he lead a boring life. Damn him for not having an affair!
