"Snubbing" John Williams

I recently became aware that John Williams will be doing the score to The Book Thief.  While Williams has had a score almost every year for the past four decades or so, this seemed odd because Williams hasn’t worked with anyone except Steven Spielberg since 2005’s Memoirs of a Geisha.

Williams name being attached to The Book Thief immediately rocketed that film from nowhere on my personal Oscar prediction charts to the top of the list.  While I think that Steven Price’s Gravity and Hans Zimmer’s 12 Years a Slave will ultimately be fighting it out for the win, Williams has one of the highest success rates of any person in Oscar history when you compare the number of scores he’s made to the number of scores he’s gotten nominated (he's been nominated 48.9% of the times he's been eligible, and it seems almost certain that he'll cross into 50% before his career is over).

Williams stats with Oscar continue on as staggering, considering he has amassed 48 nominations in his career, the second most of any person, and more than any other living person by at least twenty (I can’t actually figure out who the number two living person is, so Oscar sleuths, let me know in the comments).  To put Williams numbers into perspective, if you took Kevin O’Connell, Sandy Powell, and Meryl Streep, three people who are “always” nominated, and added up their nomination totals, it would still be less than Williams.  Only Walt Disney, with 59 nominations, can top him, and Disney’s numbers are largely because Animated Shorts didn’t have the competition in his era that they do now.

So it seems silly to discuss Williams in any frame of a “snub,” since he has enjoyed a near unparalleled success rate, but I’m going to give it a try anyway (a far more sane conversation would be what films he most deserved that elusive sixth trophy for, but that's for another time and post).  Looking at other awards and the statures/success rates of other films, below are in my opinion the seven closest misses in Williams Oscar career:

7. The Cowboys (1972)

Though Mark Rydell didn’t make too an impact with the Academy for this late-in-his-career John Wayne picture, he’s been an Oscar favorite since, with On Golden Pond getting him his sole nomination and his 1969 film The Reivers scoring John Williams his second Academy Award nomination.  Williams probably didn’t make it due to getting two other nominations in 1972 (for The Poseidon Adventure and Images), but this is a rousing score and is somewhat frequently featured on Williams film score collections.

6. Midway (1976)

This 1976 Jack Smight film seems to constantly be playing on AMC (for years I seemed to see it every time I turned on the station) and starred Oscar-winning actors Charlton Heston, Henry Fonda, and James Coburn.  That all added up to what one would have assumed would have been a solid play for Williams, but this was not to be.  Unlike 1972, there wasn’t the obvious excuse that Williams was nominated already (though this category allows multiple nominations, a feat that Williams has pulled off an unbelievable eight times), but the film didn’t score at all with Oscar, so perhaps I shouldn’t be too stunned.

5. Earthquake (1974)

While we are still in the early 1970’s (where Williams wasn’t quite the icon that he would be post Star Wars and Superman, and therefore him not being nominated made at least a bit of sense), Earthquake was definitely a closer bet for Williams than The Cowboys or Midway.  For starters, Earthquake was a major success with Oscar-it received four nominations (winning Best Sound) and also picked up an honorary trophy for Visual Effects.  This is also one of only two times that Williams received a Golden Globe nomination without a subsequent Oscar nomination (we’ll get to the other in a second).  Williams did score a nomination for The Towering Inferno with AMPAS this year, but probably missed out on a nomination here and got sixth place due to Alex North (another perpetual nominee) getting a nomination for the bizarre Marcel Marceau picture Shanks (a film which is going to be a nightmare for the OVP, as it has never been released on VHS or DVD-if you know of a way to get a hold of it, you’re my new best friend).

4. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Yes, we’re all aware that the film was terrible.  Like truly terrible (not just missed expectations bad).  But that doesn’t mean that Williams didn’t win two Grammy Awards for it.  Plus, Williams had never missed for an Indy picture and this is one of only two years in the past 25 years where Williams wasn’t nominated at all in a year where he was eligible.  Despite what people may think, I suspect that he was extremely close for getting in for this film despite the Razzie Award it would eventually win.

3. Far and Away (1992)

By 1992, Williams had become a perpetual presence at the Academy Awards.  It didn’t matter that this film wasn’t well-received by basically anyone-it’s still stunning that he didn’t get in for the film.  The reasons are pretty obvious-aside from this being the only other year that he was eligible for a nomination but missed in the past 25 years, this is the only time in the past 33 years where he had two eligible scores and missed (Home Alone 2 being the other).  His biggest competition was probably Mark Isham for A River Runs Through It (which is one of my personal favorite scores of all time, so I’m good with this miss).

2. Seven Years in Tibet (1997)

Seven Years in Tibet is largely remembered for Brad Pitt’s perfectly coiffed hair now (if for anything), but it, like Earthquake is one of only two films that Williams received a Globe nomination for that didn’t translate with Oscar.  What’s odd about this, aside from the rare Williams miss, is that this was in one of the few years in the 90’s where the Score category was split, with Dramatic Scores and Comedic Scores getting their own categories (this went on for only three years).  Therefore, Williams missed here despite not having to compete against The Full Monty, Anastasia, and As Good As It Gets for nominations.  Instead, it was Danny Elfman’s Good Will Hunting that beat him out for the nomination.  Williams could console himself knowing that he was nominated for Amistad the same year, however.

1. Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (1999)

There are multiple reasons this is the first place film.  For starters it received three Oscar nominations in 1999 (only Earthquake received more nominations without Williams being included).  Secondly, it picked up a Grammy nomination for Williams.  Third, it was the highest-grossing film of the year (Williams has only missed twice for the top box office film, and with Revenge of the Sith he already had two other nominations and had become unnoticed for his Star Wars work).  And lastly, Williams made it in with Oscar for the first three Star Wars films and one would have assumed would have double-nominated this year with Angela’s Ashes.  Instead, John Corigliano stunned us all and got not only a nomination but a shocking trophy for The Red Violin.  Thomas Newman in particular should have been cheering for Williams-had The Phantom Menace managed to get in, Newman’s American Beauty would have transitioned into the frontrunner spot (it was actually there until Corigliano upset).

And those are the closest Williams got to a 49^th nomination.  I know this is a bit silly (48 nominations is enough for a dozen people, so to quibble that he deserves more is wildly greedy), but since we’re on the subject, should Williams have made it in for one of these films?  Share in the comments!