Misc: John Williams and the New York Philharmonic

Last night I thought I would humor my husband by going with him to Lincoln Center, to watch John Williams conduct the New York Philharmonic in a program of his own and Bernard Herrmann's film music, with guest speakers Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg. I was pretty tired and the place was packed to the rafters, which was where we were sitting, and I'm not so big a movie fan of late so I didn't know if I would have a very good time. I was quite wrong and how glad I am.

The first half of the program was Williams conducting Herrmann's music and Martin Scorsese talking about it, which was just sufficient degrees of separation that it was more informative than entertaining. Scorsese was reading pretty evidently from a prepared script, which was perfectly fine and very educational, but once or twice I wondered if he'd glanced at it at all before he came out or if that was his first gander. The music was great, of course -- there was a wonderful Psycho montage with accompanying film -- and Williams is obviously an enthusiast. It's just that it was a little academic: an homage, but not a particularly emotional one. Scorsese loosened up a little talking about his own Taxi Driver, which was Herrmann's last score, but all in all the most interesting thing I learned before the intermission was that Martin Scorsese is not a tall man. At all.

But the second half, with Steven Spielberg, was magic, my God. John Williams conducting his own film music that he wrote for that guy right there in what is surely one of the most prolific collaborations in the history of the medium, was something almost otherworldly. Spielberg came out, acknowledged the earthshattering applause that must follow him wherever he goes, and when we all shut up, began "Movies are made from flashes of light," and I immediately got chills that I haven't lost yet. He loves movies, and hearing him talk about them is like a master class. He talked a lot about process and creative decision-making, which seems very active, but the thing that struck me most was a sense not of creating a story but of finding the story and giving it the space to tell itself.

The best part of the program was the last fifteen minutes of E.T., with accompanying film. The movie's so good that I managed to forget for long stretches that the orchestra was there, until I glanced away from the screen and realized "Oh! You guys!" What's funny is that everyone in the audience was there because they'd seen the movie over and over again, but we still all totally lost our shit when E.T. made the bikes fly. What must it be like to be Steven Spielberg and experience that from an audience? Twenty years later.

Star Wars wasn't on the program, but Williams gave it as one of the encores. It was the last one -- people were just about throwing their underwear at him before he finally put out -- but it paid off, is what I'm saying. Nothing like it.