John Williams on his score for 'Dial'
https://variety.com/2024/film/news/john-williams-oscars-star-wars-steven-spielberg-collaborations-1235929403/share
James Mangold, director of the most recent “Indiana Jones” picture, says Williams’ good nature should not blind anyone to the fact that “these are extremely laborious scores. It is all handwritten by John, with pencil, on a piano. It is such a connection to Golden Age scoring methodologies. Writing on a computer and MIDI just doesn’t translate the same way, like oil versus tempera versus digital painting. John’s adherence to doing things his way is not merely obstinacy or age, but dedication to a kind of woodworking, as it were, that is largely not done anymore,”
At the final “Dial of Destiny” scoring session at Sony, Mangold says he became emotional. “I was in tears, not because I thought it was John’s last score … but because I’ve grown up in a cynical time, in a cynical business, and watching him do his job was a confirmation of pure idealism.”
Mangold almost didn’t get a chance to work so closely with the maestro. The original plan was for Williams to write some additional themes for Indy’s last stand, and then turn the rest of the scoring and orchestrations over to someone else. But the composer changed his mind after he fell in love with Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s mischievous character, the adventurer Helena Shaw, in the rough cut. He decided to write a recurring theme just for her — hence, the Grammy he recently won, his 26th, for best instrumental composition for “Helena’s Theme.” And he kept writing, completing the score and, with it, his connection to the “Indiana Jones” franchise.
“I wanted very much to do all the ‘Star Wars’ films if I could, to keep the whole thing in one piece in a way,” he says. “And I’ve been asked why I wanted to do five ‘Indiana Jones’ films: Same reason.” Not that he can keep playing parent to the more open-ended blockbuster franchises he’s kick-started. “Now they’re doing a lot more with ‘Star Wars,’ of course, at a volume that I can’t keep up with.”
There was a sense for a while that Williams was winding down his film career with Spielberg’s “The Fabelmans” and the final “Indiana Jones” installment. But last year, in a joint appearance with Spielberg at an American Cinematheque event, Williams retracted his retirement claims and declared that he would never be able to say no to the director.