John Williams – Happy 90th Birthday – American Film Insitute

And we continue with the celebrations of the 90th birthday of the maestro John Williams. In 2016, the prestigious American Film Institute gave Williams the AFI Life Achievement Award, the first -and for the moment the only- composer to receive it in its history.

 

The award, created in 1973, had previously celebrated 43 editions, where people such as John Ford, Orson Welles, Bette Davies, Henry Fonda, James Stewart, Jack Nicholson, Steven Spielberg, Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese, Robert de Niro, or Maryl Streep, among many others, were awarded.

 

The ceremony took place at the Dolby Theater in Los Angeles, home of the Oscars, in a night entirely dedicated to John Williams, where collaborators and people close to him took part (Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Carrie Fisher, Drew Barrymore, Harrison Ford…).

 

Below, you can find a 5-minute video with John Williams going on stage to collect the award, as well as his full speech. A speech that ended in the humblest way possible: “I will treasure this night always, and tomorrow morning, when I’m back at work, I will try to deserve all of this”.