John Wiliams Slams Film Music For Some Reason

So this is the article that basically the entire composer world is talking about right now. Curious to hear everyone's thoughts.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/aug/24/composer-john-williams-never-liked-film-music-very-much

My own take:

I think Williams should remember he resigned from I believe it was the Boston Orchestra in the '80s because they didn't take him seriously since he wrote film music. Then, the orchestra scrambled to convince him to stay. Is he now saying that they were right?

Whether we like it or not, music has rarely ever broken through on its own. It almost always requires attachment to some larger cultural vehicle to get noticed. That's why I think that most of what John is saying is simply sour grapes that people don't much care about his concert works. His great film works all stand on their own and orchestras around the world play them because that's what people want to hear. He says "what we think of as this precious great film music is … we’re remembering it in some kind of nostalgic way …"

That's true of literally all music ever, regardless of quality. Williams himself has a nostalgia for these classical composers who inspired him in the same way that a boomer will tell you that you should envy them for growing up in the '60s with "the best music", and then play some of the most unlistenable Bob Dylan garbage you've ever heard. There are a lot of bad film scores, sure — but I will argue there has been even more garbage written for the concert hall, especially in the early 20th century. And even romantic era composers considered greats didn't have nonstop bangers all the time. Plenty of times in the music of Holst, Tchaikovsky, etc. you have more atmospheric or mood-building sections and not even every piece Beethoven ever composed was greatly memorable. Further, for as long as music has been around, it has been used to tell stories. 

This idea that when it is then composed to help tell a visual story, that this somehow renders it innately inferior, is a nonsensical belief. Especially when no one seems to take this position regarding scores that were composed for Opera and Ballet.