John Williams surprises Steven Spielberg by telling him he's not retiring after all

John Williams is retiring after completing the music for the next Indiana Jones film, is not? Well, Steven Spielberg certainly thinks so. Or thought. He was corrected on that notion at the very end of a 90-minute chat between the two movie giants on Thursday night.

At the event, sponsored by the American Cinematheque and held at the Writers Guild Theater, moderator (and < Jon Burlingame addressed the elephant lingering cautiously around the edges of the room: "One last question for each of you. John, are you really retiring from filmmaking? Is this what is it” – “The Fabelmans”, the latest film to be discussed – “and the upcoming Indiana Jones film your latest work for the medium?”

"Well, Steven is a lot of things," the composer replied. "He's a director, he's a producer, he's a studio head, he's a writer, he's a philanthropist, he's an educator. One thing he's not, c is a man to whom you can say no."

"You never told me that before today," Spielberg said, lightly, happily shaken.

Williams pointed out that Arnold Spielberg, the director's World War II veteran father, who died in 102 years old, still working at the Shoah Foundation when he was 99 and 100 years old. "That's what he expects of me," the composer said, though it was clear that Spielberg had no such expectation.

Continued Williams, "I turned 90 and met a woman my age at Boston. She was a very nice lady, exactly the same age as me, and I said to her, the best decade in a man's life is 80 to 90, if you have the health, because if you reach 90 there is a huge compensation. You see everything with such magnetic vision that you recognize that the most beautiful thing in the world are the Peruvian butterflies. There is nothing more beautiful than that And so that's the greatest decade. And she said, 'No, the greatest decade in a person's life is 90 to 100. So I'm going to stay for a while… But also, you can't not take you away from music. I said earlier, it's like breathing. It's your life. It's my life. And so a day without music is a mistake."

Spielberg replied jokingly, "I have to work, to know what I'm doing next."< /p>

When Spielberg answered the last question - how would you sum up the 50 years the two have spent to work together – the director said: “It's very difficult to sum up because we're always together, and so I feel like when I start thinking about summing up, it's almost like we're taking our retirement at the same time. I just found out it isn't. So obviously it's a whole new wrinkle in the story, other pages, other chapters. Returning to Williams: “I can't believe you said that tonight. It's amazing!"

Alex J. Berliner

Hands down the hottest post in town on Thursday - with dozens of optimistic hopefuls in waiting, hoping for places to open - the event had Burlingame choose a dozen film clips from the 29 feature films made together by the director and composer who would most likely be photographed...