Memoirs of a Geisha Music by John Williams Sony Classical Munich Music by John Williams Decca   Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	In my book (and that of many others), the undisputed king of film scores is John Williams. To wit, in 2005 Williams delivered four landmark scores, for Revenge of the Sith, War of the Worlds and the two films we're looking at here, Memoirs of a Geisha and Munich. Geisha, based on the novel by Arthur Golden and directed by Rob Marshall, is an intricate, multi-layered and epic-minded film that explores the life of Sayuri, Japan's greatest geisha. The film was to have been directed by Steven Spielberg, but it ultimately went to Marshall, who so expertly directed Chicago. John Williams was signed to score the Spielberg version of the film and went so far as to ask Marshall if he could stay on the project when Spielberg withdrew. Lucky break: Though the film has received mixed reviews, I found it endlessly compelling, and its score is a bounty of wonders that bring it to life in the singular way that Williams' work can. Using a smaller ensemble, Williams employs classic Japanese instrumentation with more traditional orchestral colors to dramatize Sayuri's emotional life. In sweeping melodies that sometimes butt against chest-pounding percussion, the score follows the arc of her life from orphaned girl to alluring teen to knowing and talented woman, by turns surrounded by poverty, then glamour, then the bitter disappointment of war and, finally, ultimate glory. Williams laces his music with mystery, wonder and a deeply-felt undercurrent of passion. He wisely uses the best string players of our time, Itzhak Perlman on violin and Yo-Yo Ma on cello, whose talents highlight the melodies and boost the power of the score. When the full string section swells beneath them, hold on: It's a rare emotional surge that paints the movie screen in your mind. Strangely, given the considerable Japanese colorations of this score, there is an occasional aftertaste of another ethnic Williams work. Williams' music for Schindler's List; odd but never anachronistic, it sounds perfectly appropriate. Geisha's score is masterful, and while nay-sayers might find it tempting to try and imagine what a Spielberg version of the film might have looked like, it's hard to imagine the film with any other score. Such is the majesty and mastery of Williams's work that he continues, in film after film, to deliver scores that illuminate character, punctuate narrative and indelibly enhance the moviegoing experience. For Munich, Williams has taken another minimalist route, but in a year of so much work, who can blame him? Besides, it works beautifully. Munich is the story not of the slaughter of the Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics, but the aftermath of that event: the covert operation undertaken by Israel's secret service to eliminate the terrorists. Williams's score runs the gamut: here it's quiet and introspective, there it's all-out thriller music that rivals the best nail-biting cues in the films of Hitchcock, courtesy of composer Bernard Herrmann. There are recurring themes for Avner, the team leader, and his wife. The action has Avner caught in a sticky web of conflict: like any other Israeli soldier, like any patriot, he wants vengeance for what was done to his countrymen; he wants to do the job that Prime Minister Meir has asked him to do; and he wants to secure the world for his wife and infant daughter. All this, and he has to become a killer who deplores killing, an agent without an identity, all but renouncing the country he calls home. Thus, the music for Avner is filled with conflict, by turns both dark and lovely. It's some of Williams's best writing in years. With a script co-written by Tony Kushner, author of Angels in America, Munich feels like a real change for director Steven Spielberg. It's a different kind of film -- strictly for adults, rated R, with nary a wink or a nod to any of genre or film -- and one that ends darkly, almost ambiguously. It is relentless in its staging, its acting and its articulate grappling with both sides of the Middle East conflict. The film hurtles toward what seems, when we get there, an inevitable final image, and the road to it is marked by brutal death, political machinations and moments of real tenderness and camaraderie. With so much going on physically, emotionally and intellectually, Williams had to ground the film with a consistent tone. He succeeds brilliantly, providing a base that brings the story together while letting each element shine. In Munich, Williams has composed music that's only occasionally reminiscent of his work for Schindler's List, although one might have thought there would be more similarity, given the common thread of Jewish history. In the end, though, this newer film has a sharper edge because so much of it resonates with our world today. It's a complex work whose parts are bound by a deceptively simple score. Once again, Williams proves he's one of the master storytellers of our time. | January 2006   Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse and a contributing editor to January Magazine and Blue Coupe. He and his family live in Lawrenceville, New Jersey where he is hard at work on an exciting new chapter in his life.	Williams laces his music with mystery, wonder and a deeply-felt undercurrent of passion. He wisely uses the best string players of our time, Itzhak Perlman on violin and Yo-Yo Ma on cello, whose talents highlight the melodies and boost the power of the score.