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      Frederic Forrest, 86, Dies; Actor Known for ‘Apocalypse Now’ and ‘The Rose’

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      He appeared in a string of films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, and his performance as Bette Midler’s love interest earned him an Oscar nomination.Frederic Forrest, who appeared in more than 80 movies and television shows in a career that began in the 1960s, and who turned in perhaps his two most memorable performances in the same year, 1979, in two very different films — the romantic drama “The Rose” and the Vietnam War odyssey “Apocalypse Now” — died on Friday at his home in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 86.His sister and only immediate survivor, Ginger Jackson, confirmed his death. She said he had been dealing with congestive heart failure.Mr. Forrest began turning up on the stages of La MaMa and other Off and Off Off Broadway theaters in New York in the 1960s. In 1966, he was in “Viet Rock,” an antiwar rock musical by Megan Terry that was staged in Manhattan and in New Haven, Conn., and is often cited as a precursor to “Hair.”In 1970, he moved to Los Angeles and, while working in a pizza restaurant, appeared in a showcase production at the Actors Studio West. The director Stuart Millar saw him there and cast him in his first big film role, as a Ute Indian (though Mr. Forrest had only a little Native American blood) in “When the Legends Die,” starring opposite the veteran actor Richard Widmark. That film, released in 1972, put Mr. Forrest on the map.“Forrest, a husky, strong-featured actor of great sensitivity who probably won’t escape comparisons with the early Brando, holds his own with Widmark,” Kevin Thomas wrote in a review in The Los Angeles Times.From left, Gene Hackman, Cindy Williams and Mr. Forrest in “The Conversation” (1974), the first of several movies directed by Francis Ford Coppola in which Mr. Forrest appeared.via Everett CollectionAmong those impressed with Mr. Forrest’s performance was Francis Ford Coppola, who cast him in “The Conversation” (1974), his study of a surveillance expert played by Gene Hackman. Five years later, Mr. Forrest was on a boat going up a river in search of the mysterious Kurtz in Mr. Coppola’s harrowing “Apocalypse Now.”Critics were divided on the movie as a whole, but Mr. Forrest’s portrayal of a character known as Chef (who ultimately loses his head, literally) was widely praised. The film was shot in the Philippines, an experience Mr. Forrest found grueling.“Because we were creating a surreal, dreamlike war, nightmare personal things began happening. Sometimes we would think we were losing our minds,” he told The New York Times in 1979. “I became almost catatonic in the Philippines. I could think of no reason to do anything.”Less taxing was “The Rose,” in which Ms. Midler played a Janis Joplin-like singer who self-destructs. Mr. Forrest portrayed a limousine driver and AWOL soldier who became her romantic partner.Mr. Forrest, Janet Maslin wrote in a review in The New York Times, “would be the surprise hit of the movie if Miss Midler didn’t herself have dibs on that position.” The role earned him his only Oscar nomination, for best supporting actor. (Melvyn Douglas won that year, for “Being There.”)Mr. Forrest might have seemed poised at that point to become an A-list star. Yet even though he worked steadily throughout the 1980s and ’90s, he landed only a few leading roles, and those movies didn’t do well. His next project with Mr. Coppola was “One From the Heart” (1981), a romance in which he and Teri Garr play a couple who split up and try other partners. Critics savaged the film.Mr. Forrest and Bette Midler in “The Rose” (1979). His performance in that film earned him his first and only Academy Award nomination.Everett CollectionHe next played the title role in Wim Wenders’s “Hammett” (1982), a fictional story about the mystery writer Dashiell Hammett, but that movie had only a limited theatrical run. His later films included “Tucker: The Man and His Dreams” (1988, another Coppola project), “Cat Chaser” (1989) and “The Two Jakes” (1990), the ill-fated sequel to “Chinatown,” directed by Jack Nicholson. He was also in numerous television movies, as well as the 1989 mini-series “Lonesome Dove.” His most recent film credit was a small part in the 2006 Sean Penn movie “All the King’s Men.”“This is a fickle town, no rhyme or reason to it,” he said of Hollywood in 1979. ”By the time you go down the driveway to pick up your mail, you’re forgotten.”Frederic Fenimore Forrest Jr. was born on Dec. 23, 1936, in Waxahachie, Texas, to Frederic and Virginia Allee (McSpadden) Forrest. His father ran a large wholesale greenhouse operation. Young Frederic played four sports at Waxahachie High School and was named the most handsome boy in the senior class.He graduated from Texas Christian University, with a degree in television and radio and a minor in theater, in 1960, the same year he married his college sweetheart, Nancy Ann Whittaker, though that marriage lasted only three years. He moved to New York shortly after graduating and worked odd jobs while studying acting with Lee Strasberg, Sanford Meisner and other noted teachers.Mr. Forrest in 2007. Although he worked steadily throughout the 1980s and ’90s, he landed only a few leading roles, and those movies didn’t do well. Stephen Shugerman/Getty ImagesHis early stage roles in New York included a hunky guy in Ted Harris’s “Silhouettes,” which was staged at the Actors Playhouse in Manhattan in 1969. He reprised the role in Los Angeles the next year, after his move to the West Coast.“Frederic Forrest is perfect as the lazy stud in what may be one of the sleepiest roles ever written — he never gets out of bed,” Margaret Harford wrote in The Los Angeles Times.A second marriage, to the actress Marilu Henner in 1980, stemmed from a screen test that year for “Hammett” that included a kissing scene.“Someone almost had to throw cold water on us,” Ms. Henner told The Toronto Star in 1993. “The tape is pretty wild.”They married six months later, but that marriage, like his earlier one, lasted only three years. A third marriage also ended in divorce, Mr. Forrest’s sister, Ms. Jackson, said.Barry Primus, an actor who worked with Mr. Forrest on “The Rose,” recalled his skill both onscreen and as a raconteur.“Working with him was a treat and, for me, a learning experience,” he said in a statement. “It was absolutely enchanting to spend an evening hearing him tell stories. So much fun, and in its own way, a kind of performance art. There was a love in them that made you feel how crazy and wonderful it was to be alive.”In a phone interview, Ms. Jackson said her brother was particularly pleased to have been able to bring their mother to the Academy Awards ceremony in 1980, when he was nominated for “The Rose.”“It was so wonderful for her to be able to see that,” she said. More

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      Angela Bassett and Mel Brooks Are Among Those to Receive Honorary Oscars

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      The Sundance Institute executive Michelle Satter and the film editor Carol Littleton will also get prizes at the Governors Awards ceremony in November.Just a few months after Angela Bassett came close to clinching a supporting-actress Oscar for “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever,” she’ll become one of four Hollywood figures to receive an honorary Oscar at this year’s Governors Awards, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has announced. Also getting honorary Oscars will be the director Mel Brooks and the editor Carol Littleton, while the Sundance Institute’s Michelle Satter will be presented with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award.The awards “honor four trailblazers who have transformed the film industry and inspired generations of filmmakers and movie fans,” the academy president Janet Yang said in a statement.Bassett, 64, was first nominated for playing Tina Turner in the biopic “What’s Love Got to Do With It,” and also starred in films like “How Stella Got Her Groove Back,” “Malcolm X” and “Boyz N the Hood.” Her awards-season run for Wakanda Forever” earlier this year netted her a Golden Globe, and though she lost the Oscar to “Everything Everywhere All at Once” supporting actress Jamie Lee Curtis, Bassett is still one of only four Black actresses to have received more than one Oscar nomination for acting.Mel Brooks previously won for “The Producers” screenplay.Richard Shotwell/Invision, via Associated PressBrooks, who turns 97 this week, is the rare recipient of this honorary award to have already won a competitive Oscar: In 1969, he triumphed in the original-screenplay category for his debut film, “The Producers.” Much more was still to come, as Brooks went on to become one of Hollywood’s most notable comic directors, making beloved films like “Young Frankenstein” and “Blazing Saddles.” He’s even one of 18 people in show business to have reached competitive EGOT status, after having added Grammys, Emmys, and Tonys to the Oscar on his awards shelf.Satter, the founding senior director of the Sundance Institute’s artist programs, has spent four decades nurturing independent filmmakers at the earliest stages of their careers: Projects like Wes Anderson’s “Bottle Rocket,” Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream,” Miranda July’s “Me and You and Everyone We Know” and Ryan Coogler’s “Fruitvale Station” were all developed at Satter’s Sundance Labs.Littleton was Oscar-nominated for editing Steven Spielberg’s “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” and went on to work primarily with the directors Lawrence Kasdan (on films like “The Big Chill” and “The Accidental Tourist”) and Jonathan Demme (on “Beloved” and his remakes “The Manchurian Candidate” and “The Truth About Charlie”).Though these honorary prizes are not televised, they remain one of awards season’s most star-studded events: Scheduled this year for Nov. 18, they offer the chance not only to herald the deserving but also to get schmoozy face time with a packed ballroom of Oscar voters. Expect emotional speeches delivered to scads of this season’s hopeful nominees, all of whom will work the crowd at every intermission. More

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      ‘Sin La Habana’ Review: A Long Way From Home

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      In Kaveh Nabatian’s new drama, an Afro-Cuban dancer tries to bring his girlfriend to Canada through a sham marriage.Kaveh Nabatian’s “Sin La Habana” is a study in contrasts: the sticky, vibrant heat of Cuba’s capital versus the pulverizing winter of Montreal; a spontaneous street performance versus the rigid formality of a ballet studio audition; a planned marriage versus an impulsive romance.The story of Leonardo (Yonah Acosta) — an Afro-Cuban dancer who seduces an Iranian Canadian tourist, Nasim (Aki Yaghoubi), into a sham marriage with the hopes of securing passage to Canada for himself and his girlfriend (Evelyn Castroda O’Farrill) — is a familiar immigrant tale with predictably disastrous results. Upon moving in with Nasim, his new wife, Leonardo finds that life in the north is not only difficult to adjust to, but not nearly as liberating as promised, as he faces the same racism at dance studios and workshops that drove him to leave Cuba in the first place.Nasim, suspecting that her connection with Leonardo may have been fraudulent from the beginning, nevertheless tries to build their relationship and defend him from her insular Iranian family and ex-husband. And in his absence, Leonardo’s girlfriend, Sara, sacrifices their future together in order to get a leg-up in her career as a lawyer.Nabatian is sympathetic to all three characters and their lack of easy choices, and his eye for small cultural details and rituals — the intricacies of Afro-Cuban dance, the tiles on the floor of a Havana apartment, the teacups at a gathering for Nasim’s family — enforces how identity continues to shape their lives even as they’re far from home. While the fate of their relationships is left ambiguous, these transient moments linger long after Leonardo has performed his last dance in front of the camera.Sin La HabanaNot rated. In Spanish, English and Persian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes. Rent or buy on most major platforms. More

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      What’s on TV This Week: ‘The Bachelorette’ and ‘Casa Susanna’

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      The 20th season of the reality dating show premieres on ABC, and PBS presents a documentary about a safe home for trans women in the ‘50s and ’60s.Between network, cable and streaming, the modern television landscape is a vast one. Here are some of the shows, specials and movies coming to TV this week, June 26 — July 2. Details and times are subject to change.MondayKevin Jonas, left, and his youngest brother, Frankie Jonas, in “Claim to Fame.”John Fleenor/ABCCLAIM TO FAME 8 p.m. on ABC. A new group of 12 A-list celebrity relatives will live together and compete in a series of challenges while trying to conceal their identities in the second season of this game show from the executive producer of “Love Is Blind.” Hosted by the singer Kevin Jonas and his youngest brother, Frankie, these lesser-known relatives must guess whom their fellow housemates are related to before they themselves are found out and eliminated. The last person standing will win $100,000.THE BACHELORETTE 9 p.m. on ABC. Charity Lawson, a child and family therapist from Georgia, will be “The Bachelorette” in the 20th season of this reality dating show. Last year, Lawson was a contestant on the 27th season of “The Bachelor,” becoming a fan favorite before she was eliminated in Week 8. Hosted by Jesse Palmer (a former football player and Season 5’s “Bachelor”), the show will follow Lawson on her search for lasting love as she is courted by 25 men in dates across the globe.POV: AFTER SHERMAN 10 p.m. on PBS. The 36th season of this documentary series follows the New York-based filmmaker Jon-Sesrie Goff as he explores his Gullah Geechee heritage by returning to the South Carolina Lowcountry, where his family purchased land after emancipation. Through interviews with his family and locals and a mix of animation and home movies, Goff explores themes of Black inheritance, trauma and survival. “The film is expressionistic but never at a cost to its subjects and archival material,” wrote Lisa Kennedy in her review for The New York Times, adding that the documentary is an “investigative and intimate work of belonging.”TuesdaySusanna “Tito” Valenti in “Casa Susanna.”Collection of Cindy ShermanCASA SUSANNA 9 p.m. on PBS. As a part of its Pride Month programming, PBS presents a documentary about Casa Susanna, a home in New York’s Catskills region where transgender women and cross-dressing men found refuge during the 1950s and ’60s. Through a collection of photos, archival footage and interviews, the film explores the cultural significance of the house and dives deep into the lives of the transgender woman Susanna Valenti and her wife, who owned it.WednesdayMarcus ScribnerMike Taing/FreeformGROWN-ISH 10 p.m. on FREEFORM. The sixth and final season of this “Black-ish” spinoff follows Andre Johnson Jr. (Marcus Scribner) as he navigates college. The first episode of the new season begins the summer before Andre’s sophomore year, which finds him stressing over choosing a major, his relationship with his girlfriend and what the new school year might have in store for him. The season will also feature his older sister, Zoey (Yara Shahidi), as she attempts to revive her company, in addition to a number of guest stars including Kelly Rowland, Lil Yachty and Anderson .Paak.ThursdayREVEALED 10 p.m. on HGTV. This home renovation show blends design with culture as the interior designer Veronica Valencia Hughes remodels homes into modern spaces that reflect her clients’ family histories and life stories.FridayMichel Serrault, left, and Ugo Tognazzi in “La Cage aux Folles.”United ArtistsLA CAGE AUX FOLLES (1978) 10:30 p.m. on TCM. Based on the 1973 play of the same name by Jean Poiret, this French-language farce tells the story of a middle-aged gay couple — Renato Baldi (Ugo Tognazzi) and Albin “Zaza” Mougeotte (Michel Serrault) — who operate a drag nightclub in a French resort town. Comedy ensues when Renato’s son brings his fiancée and her conservative parents home to meet them. Despite its multiple Academy Award nominations and two sequels, the movie failed to impress The Times movie critic Vincent Canby, who wrote that the performances were “energetic, broad, much too knowing and superficial.”SaturdayTrevante Rhodes, left, and André Holland in “Moonlight.”David Bornfriend/A24MOONLIGHT (2016) 5:05 p.m. on HBO2e. This coming-of-age drama begins in a Miami housing project and follows the young Black protagonist, Chiron, through childhood, adolescence and early adulthood as he grapples with his sexuality and masculinity. In his review for The Times, A.O. Scott said it is “both a disarmingly, at times almost unbearably personal film and an urgent social document, a hard look at American reality and a poem written in light, music and vivid human faces.” Directed by Barry Jenkins, who received an Oscar nomination for best director and won the award for best adapted screenplay with Tarell Alvin McCraney, “‘Moonlight’ is about as beautiful a movie as you are ever likely to see,” Scott concluded.SundayTOUGH AS NAILS 8 p.m. on CBS. From the Emmy Award-winning producer Phil Keoghan (“The Amazing Race”), this competition show takes place, for the first time, in Ontario, with 12 American and Canadian contestants vying for $200,000 and a pickup truck. The premiere of the fifth season challenges them to see who can cut, grind and torch 500 pounds of scrap metal the fastest. More

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      ‘Twilight Zone: The Movie’ and the Deadly Accident That Plagued It

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      It’s been 40 years since the release of the film, but questions of what risks are permissible in the making of art have persisted.When the anthology film “Twilight Zone: The Movie” opened on June 24, 1983, reviews were mixed; The New York Times’s Vincent Canby deemed it “a flabby, mini-minded behemoth,” and that was a fairly representative view. A middling box office performer, the film may well have been forgotten entirely were it not for another news event, related to the picture, reported that same day: the unsealing of the grand jury indictments against five of the filmmakers, including the director John Landis, for their responsibility in a stunt gone horrifyingly awry, killing three people during the picture’s production.It happened at 2:20 a.m. on Friday, July 23, 1982. Landis’s segment — which concerned a loudmouthed bigot (Vic Morrow) who gets a taste of his own medicine when he steps into the Klan-era South, Nazi Germany and a Vietnam War battle, and is mistaken for the very people he’d previously derided — was to culminate in a spectacular display of stunts and firepower. Chased by a military helicopter, Morrow’s character was to carry two Vietnamese children across a river to safety as a village exploded behind them. But the sequence was poorly planned and barely rehearsed, and the explosions damaged the rotor blades of the chopper, causing the pilot to lose control. The helicopter crashed into the river, dismembering Morrow and the two children: Myca Dinh Le, age 7, and Renee Shin-Yi Chen, 6 (spelled Renee Shinn Chen in The Times’s early reporting).As investigators examined the crash, they discovered that the children’s mere presence on the set had been illegal. Child labor law regulations prohibited children from working at that late hour; further, no on-set child-welfare worker would have permitted them to work in such proximity to explosions or a helicopter. So Landis and one of the producers, George Folsey Jr., went outside regulations, casting children of mutual acquaintances, keeping their names out of the production’s official paperwork and paying them in petty cash. A production secretary recalled Landis joking of the scheme, “We’re all going to jail!”That cavalier attitude carried over onto the “Twilight Zone” set. Landis was described as a “screamer,” prone to temper tantrums and abusive invective, and thus resistant to concerns raised by crew members about the safety of that sequence — or an earlier scene, in which Landis, unsatisfied with the effects achieved by fake gunfire, ordered the use of live ammunition.The director John Landis, center, in February 1987, when he was on trial on charges of involuntary manslaughter. He would later be acquitted.Bob Riha Jr./Getty ImagesCommunication between the director, the special-effects crew and the helicopter pilot was all but nonexistent that night. When a stunt performer noted that the explosion was more forceful than expected in an earlier helicopter shot, Landis reportedly replied, “If you think that was big, you haven’t seen nothing yet.”It took three more years, after the unsealing of those indictments on the film’s opening day, for the case to come to trial. Landis, Folsey and three other defendants were charged with involuntary manslaughter, a felony. The trial was a media sensation, promising “some of the splashy drama of a guns-and-action Hollywood film.” Yet the defendants were acquitted on all charges, thanks to a somewhat bungled prosecution and a seemingly star-struck jury.There were some consequences for the filmmakers and for Warner Bros., the studio behind the picture, including fines for labor violations and settlements in civil suits filed by the families of the deceased. But in spite of the deaths on his set, and the troubling stories of his behavior and decisions leading up to it, the industry rallied behind John Landis. Sixteen significant directors — including Francis Ford Coppola, Ron Howard, John Huston, George Lucas, Sidney Lumet and Billy Wilder — signed an open letter of support for the filmmaker. Several director pals also appeared in cameos in “Into the Night” and “Spies Like Us,” two of the features Landis made between the deaths and his acquittal.Landis also directed the music video for Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and the feature comedies “Trading Places” and “Three Amigos” in that period. Dan Aykroyd, who appeared in the Landis-directed “Twilight Zone” prologue as well as in “Trading Places” and “Spies Like Us,” dismissed the tragedy: “That was an industrial accident, nothing more.” After the trial, the “Trading Places” actor Eddie Murphy hired Landis to direct his 1988 comedy “Coming to America,” though they clashed during production; while promoting the film, Murphy was asked if he’d ever work with Landis again, to which he replied, “Vic Morrow has a better chance of working with Landis than I do.” But the film was a gigantic hit, and six years later, Landis again directed Murphy in “Beverly Hills Cop III.”Landis’s career would eventually slow down — not because of the deaths, but because his films stopped making money. In a hearing after the “Twilight Zone” deaths, Art Carter, the chief of the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health, said that while speaking to industry veterans and union representatives about tightening safety restrictions on sets, “No one could recall a single instance in which a given movie or television program could not be made because of safety considerations. Rather, it was a matter of spending the necessary money to assure protections.”After the “Twilight Zone” deaths, the Directors Guild of America issued formal, firmer safety guidelines, yet the cutting of budgetary corners has continued to put the lives of actors and crew members in jeopardy. The very day the verdict was handed down in the “Twilight Zone” case, a helicopter crash on the Manila set of “Braddock: Missing in Action III” killed four Filipino soldiers. The camera assistant Sarah Jones was killed by a freight train while working on the low-budget film “Midnight Rider” in 2014. And apparent negligence on sets resulted in the shooting death of the actor Brandon Lee during the production of “The Crow” in 1993 and of the cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of “Rust” in 2021.The questions of verisimilitude versus safety, of what risks are permissible in the making of art, have not gone away in the 40 years since “Twilight Zone: The Movie” was released. But the sole public statement on the matter from Steven Spielberg, who directed another of the film’s segments, remains illuminating. His name was conspicuously absent from the open letter of filmmakers supporting Landis, and in April of 1983, he summed up the experience in a Los Angeles Times interview: “No movie is worth dying for. I think people are standing up much more now than ever before to producers and directors who ask too much. If something isn’t safe, it’s the right and responsibility of every actor or crew member to yell, ‘Cut!’” More

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      Sterling K. Brown Is on His Best Behavior, Just in Case

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      The Emmy-winning actor and star of the new movie “Biosphere” is sweet on vegan cookies, his Audi e-Tron and Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye.”The first time Sterling K. Brown read the script for “Biosphere,” his new sci-fi movie with Mark Duplass, he thought, “‘This is very non-Randall-esque,’ which is always one of the criteria that I’m looking for in the next project.”He was referring, of course, to his beloved character in “This Is Us,” which aired for six seasons on NBC and snagged Brown an Emmy, a Golden Globe and a Screen Actors Guild Award.“But being known for a character and being known for a body of work are two different things,” he added.In a video call from Los Angeles — during which one of his sons lugged in a Harry Potter book for his dad to read to him — Brown talked about some of his coming projects in addition to “Biosphere,” which opens July 7: Cord Jefferson’s untitled adaptation of the Percival Everett novel “Erasure”; and “Washington Black,” Brown’s debut as a TV producer.He’ll also reunite with Dan Fogelman, the creator of “This Is Us,” in a Hulu series about a Secret Service agent.“I have a secret man crush on Dan Fogelman, I think because of what he was able to do for me for six years,” Brown said before revealing a few other things he’s been crushing on, like the relationship expert Esther Perel and the Tony-nominated play “Fat Ham.” These are edited excerpts from the conversation.1Trader Joe’s Vegan Oatmeal Chocolate Chip CookiesIs it sugar? Yeah. Is it health food? Not by any stretch of the imagination. But I have a sweet tooth, and it’s vicious. If I have two to three of these cookies, my sweet tooth is sated and I get a chance to go on with the rest of my day.2PelotonI find the instructors on this medium to be exceptional. The level of positivity that they have and the things that they share with you are the kinds of voices that you want reverberating in your head as you take on physical challenges. One of my favorite instructors is Jess Sims.3Audi e-TronIt’s nice to know that you’re not putting anything into the air. And nobody hears you coming. I’m not a flossy man, so I don’t need a car that peacocks too loudly. But I do enjoy comfort. I do enjoy a few bells and whistles. And as far as a luxury vehicle is concerned, I feel it blends in in a pretty nondescript way. I like to flash, but in the least flashy way possible.4Cocoa ButterBeing African American, something happens when you don’t moisturize your skin. You get what we call in the community “ashy,” where you can draw “D-R-Y” across your skin and it just stands out (#notagoodlook). So I drink a lot of water and I moisturize. I keep my skin as supple as I possibly can. Because the alternative for someone with a deeper shade of soul is you look like you’ve been walking around kicking flour.5Esther PerelMy wife and I have been married 17 years, and we’ve known each other since we were 18. The love that you have deepens over time with your partner. But what can suffer is the spontaneity and that spark that you had in the beginning. Esther has given us a couple of tools and insights. Just because we’ve been together this long doesn’t mean that passion has to die.6AlexaAlexa is Encyclopaedia Britannica, basically. If you want something quick-quick, Alexa gives you a fast answer, and then will ask you, “Did that help?” And you’ll be like, “Yes, Alexa, that did. Thank you very much.” I try to be polite. Listen, as A.I. is continuing to develop, and we don’t know if we’re making ourselves extinct to any potential sentient being, Brown is on his best behavior.7‘The Bluest Eye’There can be an inferiority complex that becomes internalized when you don’t get a chance to see yourself presented to the world as beautiful. In “The Bluest Eye,” Toni Morrison encapsulates that internalization in the most profound, poetic and incredible way.8‘Fat Ham’You’re taking the story of Hamlet, you’re putting it in a backyard barbecue in the South with a young, queer, Black male protagonist. It is such a faithful following of Hamlet until it’s not. Then it’s such a delightful departure.9My Children PlayingI played basketball, football, soccer, track, a little bit of Ultimate Frisbee. The joy of watching your children accrue skills and be able to engage with you in something that was such a big part of your own childhood is great.10Crying in the TheaterThe first Broadway show that I ever saw, in 1998, was “Ragtime.” Audra McDonald came out and sang “You have your daddy’s hands.” And I was like, “Is this woman an angel? Is she a real human being?” You want to see Sterling cry? Then I had the privilege of working with Renée Elise Goldsberry. If she sings “It’s Quiet Uptown” [from “Hamilton”] — child, please. I am a mess. More

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      John Williams on ‘Indiana Jones’ and His Favorite Scores

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      In a long career making music for the movies, the composer has made an indelible contribution to cinema. Williams shares his thoughts on some landmark works.When the New York Philharmonic honored the work of the film composer John Williams this past spring, the director Steven Spielberg introduced a clip of the opening scenes of “Raiders of the Lost Ark” — without the music. The effect, he noted apologetically, was like something out of the French new wave.The clip was played again, this time with the orchestra joining in. Like magic, the adventuresome spirit of the movie was restored.On June 30, the rugged archaeologist at the heart of that film (played by Harrison Ford) will return for the fifth entry in the franchise, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” He’ll be accompanied, as ever, by Williams’s indispensable music.The composer, who turned 91 this year, had said it would be his final film score. Speaking during a video call more recently, he walked back his retirement plans. “If they do an ‘Indiana Jones 6,’ I’m on board.”Ahead of the new film’s opening, Williams shared his thoughts — with contributions from others closely connected to this work — on milestone moments in an extraordinary career.1966‘How to Steal a Million’Williams made some of his earliest contributions to movie music playing piano for the scores of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” and “West Side Story,” among others. (That’s also him playing the chugging piano riff on the “Peter Gunn” theme for television.)Under the name Johnny Williams, he gradually transitioned, as he put it, “from the piano bench to the writing desk,” composing several light, jazzy scores for comedies. “How to Steal a Million,” an art-heist caper starring Audrey Hepburn, was an early high point. “It was the first film I ever did for a major, super-talent director, in William Wyler,” Williams said.With moments of comedy and tongue-in-cheek suspense, that score was an early clue of “just how versatile John Williams could be,” said Mike Matessino, a producer of numerous Williams soundtracks.Many years later — long after his name had become synonymous with the sound of the cinematic blockbuster — Williams would channel his earlier, funnier work into the jazz-inflected score of “Catch Me if You Can.” That mode “had been residing there in the intervening decades, waiting to come howling to the surface,” Williams said. “It was the easiest thing in the world for me to do, and I was giggling while I was doing it.”1972‘Images’1973‘The Long Goodbye’Working with the director Robert Altman produced a couple of the strangest entries in Williams’s filmography. The soundtrack to “The Long Goodbye,” Altman’s woozy neo-noir starring Elliott Gould as a laconic Philip Marlowe, consists of several cheeky variations on the title tune, including a bluesy nightclub number, a mariachi and a tango.For the psychological horror “Images,” Altman gave Williams the kind of freedom he famously gave his actors. “‘Do whatever you want. Do something you haven’t done before,’” Williams remembers Altman saying.The result was an eerie, fractured score that reflects the deteriorating mental state of the protagonist. The music was a collaboration with the Japanese percussionist Stomu Yamashta, who performed on sculptures by the artists François and Bernard Baschet. Williams said that had he devoted his career to composing for the concert hall rather than the cineplex, his work would have sounded most like his “Images” score.When Spielberg was looking for menacing music to accompany scenes of dread in “Jaws,” he tried sounds from “Images.” But Williams believed the movie needed something more primal, less psychological, and eventually built a theme around two brutish bass notes.1977‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’How to sum up the Williams-Spielberg collaboration? Beginning with “The Sugarland Express” and concluding (for now, at least) with “The Fabelmans,” the partnership has spanned 29 films.Spielberg has described Williams’s score for “Schindler’s List” as “one of the most stunningly evocative gifts that John has ever given us.” It says something about the range of their collaboration that “Jurassic Park” came out the same year, featuring another towering Williams score — infused with an almost religious awe for the prehistoric creatures of the film.In an interview, Emilio Audissino, the author of “The Film Music of John Williams,” made the case that “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was the movie on which “the two fully realized the mutual advantage and compatibility of their partnership.” One moment in that film captures some of Spielberg and Williams’s alchemy: the musical dialogue between the humans and the otherworldly visitors, itself an artistic collaboration of sorts.Williams remembers spending hours with Spielberg, listening to countless musical phrases. “We were waiting for that eureka moment.”Many years later, Williams figured out why the phrase they ultimately chose (re, mi, do, do, so) feels so perfect. The “re, mi, do” feels musically resolved, he explained, after which “do, so” — the alien response — feels like an appropriately startling interjection. “I realized that 20 years after the fact.”1978‘Superman’Remember when superheroes had memorable themes?The score for “Superman” demonstrated one of Williams’s own musical superpowers: making the unbelievable feel thoroughly believable. His indomitable sounds are essential to audiences’ accepting — and being stirred by — the sight of a man in flight.The director Richard Donner had a theory that the three-note motif in the main theme — the one that makes you want to punch the air in triumph — is a musical evocation of “SU-per-MAN!”Is there anything to that?“There’s everything to that,” Williams told me.1999‘Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace’Williams remembers feeling “a little bit insecure” on the first day of recording “Star Wars” in 1977. But Lionel Newman, the studio musical supervisor, “who was sitting there next to me, said, ‘This is really going to work very well — you’ll see.’”The music for the central “Star Wars” saga was consistently extraordinary even when the films themselves failed to strike a chord. This is true of “The Phantom Menace,” which, despite its 51 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, features some of the composer’s most exciting work. Today, the Carl Orff-inspired symphonic banger “Duel of the Fates” is the most streamed piece of “Star Wars” music on Spotify.“It was pretty indescribable,” Maxine Kwok, a London Symphony Orchestra first violinist, said of the recording session. “I remember getting chills the first time the ostinato started.” Kwok joined the institution partly because she associated it with the music of “Star Wars” — the soundtrack to her childhood. “I grew up with those heroic trumpets and soaring strings. It had a profound effect on me.”Scoring “The Rise of Skywalker” in 2019, after more than 40 years with “Star Wars,” Williams said he didn’t want it to be over. “My feeling was, ‘This is fun. Let’s go back and do nine more.’”2023‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’The “Indiana Jones” movies feature a number of Williams’s most recognizable character themes. They also feature swaths of swashbuckling music precisely calibrated to the action onscreen.“I don’t see John as simply a genius of themes and tunes, which he is of course,” the director James Mangold said. “Rather, it’s John’s moment-to-moment scene work that astounds me. Film scoring is really a kind of duet between the director and the composer. It’s John’s sensitivity to this partnership that most defines his work for me.”On the appeal of scoring a fifth “Indiana Jones” movie, Williams said, “I just thought, if Harrison Ford can do it, I can do it.” The movie features a new theme for the character of Helena, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. “I had a wonderful time writing a theme for her,” Williams said.“When John first played that theme for me, with the orchestra, I was wowed, of course,” Mangold said, “completely knocked over by the music. But I was also a bit nervous that it was just too much — too damned lush. Too romantic. John just smiled, gently, and let me babble, because I think he knew it was going to work beautifully.” More