More than anyone else in history, John Williams has had the pleasure of scoring the highest-grossing motion picture of the year. Those films remain among the most-successful of all time.
Now, with his 53rd Oscar nomination, announced today, Williams sets another record, as the oldest person ever to be nominated for an Academy Award. The oldest person ever to win an Oscar is James Ivory who, at 89, was recognized in 2018 for his screenplay to “Call Me by Your Name.”
Williams is already the second most-nominated person ever – a record he breaks every time he’s nominated – behind only Walt Disney (with 59). He has earned five statuettes, for his work on “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Jaws,” “Star Wars,” “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial,” and “Schindler’s List.” However, it has been 30 years since his last win.
What are the odds of this year bringing Williams more Oscar gold? Rather slim, I’m afraid. His work on “The Fabelmans,” while certainly effective and wholly appropriate for one of Steven Spielberg’s most intimate projects, is fairly understated and supplemented by a lot of classical music, including works by Kuhlau, Clementi, Bach, and Haydn. (Spielberg’s mom was a pianist.) The soundtrack album in only 31 minutes long, and at least one of the themes flirts with Satie’s “Gymnopédie No. 3.”
That said, somebody should campaign for an honorary Oscar for this guy already. For 60 years, the movies would have been so much poorer without him. Not that he’ll be crying himself to sleep for lack of recognition. What a charmed career he’s had!
At least since “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019, Williams has teased his retirement from film scoring several times. Most recently, he stated that “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” due this summer, would be his last score. Now, however, he intimates that that might not be entirely true.
“I’ll stick around for a while,” Williams told Entertainment Weekly. “I can’t retire from music.” Which should be fairly obvious, when seemingly not a week goes by that he’s not conducting one of the world’s great orchestras, in between work on his long-anticipated Piano Concerto and fulfilling smaller commissions for occasional works and television themes.
John Williams will be 91 on February 8.
This year’s nominees for Best Original Score: “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (Son Lux), “Babylon” (Justin Hurwitz), “Banshees of Inisherin” (Carter Burwell), “All Quiet on the Western Front” (Volker Bertelmann), and “The Fabelmans” (John Williams).
More details about William’s latest world record here:
A full list of this year’s nominations:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/oscar-nominations-2023-nominees-list-1235307974/
For your consideration: “The Fabelmans”
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