Saving Private Ryan: Corey Johnson on Spielberg, and John Williams' Greatest Scores

Documentary First, Episode 258. Christian Taylor and actor Corey Johnson finish minute 131 of Saving Private Ryan with Rob on the Movie Rob Minute, in the second of two parts. 51 minutes. Released August 13, 2025.

Listen: Apple Podcasts, Spotify and other apps
Watch: YouTube
Read: Full transcript

What can an actor do with half a day on the Saving Private Ryan beach?

Corey Johnson's part in Saving Private Ryan took half a day to film. He played the radioman in the foxhole whom Tom Hanks grabs to report that "Dog One is not open." Between takes, a dummy with blood bags in its face waited just out of frame beside him. While the camera panned away to Hanks and Tom Sizemore, "two absolutely enormous guys" pulled Corey out and rolled the dummy in, so the camera could come back to a face blown open. Spielberg didn't need many takes. "20, 30 takes, that ain't him," Corey says. "Two, three, four, that's him."

Later, Corey was hugging his dummy for photos when Spielberg asked him to say a line, then say it a few more ways. Then Spielberg turned to the assistant director: "This guy's a good actor. Can we get him in something else?" Corey picked up the dummy and told it, "You got to ask this guy, because I don't think I'm going to be in the rest of the movie." He went home the next day, after a week in Ireland, and he was in Private Ryan.

In Episode 258 of Documentary First, the second of two parts, Christian Taylor shares the rest of her Movie Rob Minute crossover with Rob and her college friend Corey, on minute 131 of Saving Private Ryan. Corey tells stories from Band of Brothers, Ed Burns's overnight discovery at Sundance, and why a stage actor learns to protect himself on a film set. Christian ties the minute's shared stick of gum to what she has seen among World War II veterans and her own sons in the military: the bond of a tribe, and what happens when soldiers lose it. She recommends Sebastian Junger's book Tribe.

The last 20 minutes are Maestro Monday, where Christian and Corey each name their top five John Williams scores, from Jaws and Jurassic Park to Schindler's List and Star Wars, and talk about the power of silence. Christian admits she struggled with the score in her own film: "I think I overscored it a little."

In this episode, you'll learn

• What Corey Johnson's half day on the Saving Private Ryan set involved
• How a dummy replaced Corey in the foxhole in the middle of a shot
• What Steven Spielberg said about Corey after hearing him read a line
• Why the soldiers sharing gum in minute 131 shows a band of brothers
• Why soldiers leaving the military can lose their tribe
• Which John Williams scores Christian and Corey rank highest
• Why Christian thinks she overscored The Girl Who Wore Freedom

Questions and answers

What happens in Corey Johnson's scene in Saving Private Ryan?

Corey plays the radioman in the foxhole. Tom Hanks's character calls for the shore party and grabs him to relay that "Dog One is not open," throws him back, then grabs him again. On the third pass, the camera moves to Hanks and Tom Sizemore while two crew members pull Corey out and slide in a dummy with its face blown open. Then Hanks picks up the radio and realizes it's dead.

What did Steven Spielberg say about Corey Johnson?

After hearing Corey deliver a line several ways, Spielberg told the assistant director, "This guy's a good actor. Can we get him in something else?" Corey didn't end up with more in the film, but he remembers it as the kind of moment that stays with you. He was later cast in Band of Brothers after auditioning for another role.

What are Christian Taylor's and Corey Johnson's top five John Williams scores?

Christian's top five, from five to one: Harry Potter, Jurassic Park, Catch Me If You Can, Jaws and Star Wars. Corey's: Jaws, Superman, Jurassic Park, Schindler's List and Star Wars. Both put Star Wars at number one, and Corey gives Raiders of the Lost Ark an honorable mention.

Why does the gum scene in Saving Private Ryan matter?

When one soldier splits his gum with another in minute 131, Christian sees a brotherhood that has formed over the course of the film. It reminds her of World War II veterans meeting in Normandy who never served together but are instantly bonded, and of what she sees in her own sons in the military. She points to Sebastian Junger's book Tribe on what happens when soldiers come home and lose that tribe.

How was Ed Burns discovered?

Corey tells a story he heard from Ed Burns himself. Burns was working in the mail room at ICM in Los Angeles when he drove to Sundance on a Friday evening for a Saturday screening of The Brothers McMullen. The next day, people lined up out the door to meet him, and he said maybe 150 industry people asked him to get in touch. The only reason he went back to the mail room was to resign.

Did Christian Taylor overscore The Girl Who Wore Freedom?

She thinks so, a little. Talking about how John Williams lets the music disappear in the last part of Jaws, Christian says she really struggled with the score in her own film, because you can overscore a movie and the music overtakes it. If she could go back, she'd remove a little of the score in a couple of places. "Not much, just a tad."

Chapters

Times match the YouTube video.

• 0:00 Part 2 and a Font of Crap
• 2:20 Corey's Half Day on the Beach
• 7:20 "This Guy's a Good Actor"
• 11:33 Sharing Gum and a Band of Brothers
• 17:08 Trauma Bonding, in Combat and on Set
• 19:54 Ed Burns, Tom Hardy and Protecting Yourself
• 24:25 The Tank Passes, and Spielberg's Genius
• 30:15 Maestro Monday: Harry Potter, Jaws, Superman, Jurassic Park
• 37:04 Catch Me If You Can and Schindler's List
• 43:04 The Power of Silence, and Star Wars
• 48:05 Where to Find Us, and Midnight Caller

About the guest

Corey Johnson is an American actor and documentary narrator who has worked in London for decades. His credits include Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, and his latest film, Midnight Caller, in which he plays a disc jockey, is streaming in the US. He and Christian have been friends since college. Rob, the host of the Movie Rob Minute, is an American film lover living in Israel who reviews films one minute at a time.

Related conversations

Start with Part 1 of this Movie Rob Minute conversation, then hear World War II veteran Ceo Bauer with Rob and Christian in Part 1 and Part 2. Corey's own interview with Christian is in Part 1 and Part 2, and everything is together on the Corey Johnson and Saving Private Ryan page.

About Documentary First

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.

Follow the show | Support the show

This episode is sponsored by Artillery Sports. Use the code DocFirst for 10% off your first order at artillerysports.com.

Full transcript

Christian: Welcome to Documentary First, an inside look at documentary filmmaking. I'm your host and a documentary filmmaker myself, Christian Taylor. Welcome to part two of Movie Rob Minute number 131. Now, if you are just joining us and haven't listened to last week's episode, stop. Go no further. Go back and listen to that episode, and then come back and pick up here. You see, we're taking a bit of a break from our regularly scheduled program to share with you a great podcast called Movie Rob Minute. In part one, we ended with a question from me to Corey: What was it like on your first day of shooting? Tell me everything. How did it go, start to finish? What was it like? What did you have to do?

And in this episode, we continue the conversation, diving deeper into Corey's experiences, with plenty of side stories along the way. We eventually break down this minute of Saving Private Ryan like we were supposed to do. I share my own perspective, drawing parallels from the journeys of veterans that I've met and my sons who are currently serving in the military. And you'll hear how we came up with the episode title, A Font of Crap, as well. And in the final 20 minutes, we'll shift gears to talk about the legendary John Williams in a segment we called Maestro Mondays. We'll share our top five movie score themes as well and discuss the reasons behind our picks. Enjoy, everybody.

Christian: I just want you to answer the question really simply, and then we need to move on to the next minute.

Corey Johnson: Right.

Christian: So when you had your time, your moment in the sun, you basically were just sitting on a beach. They put you on a beach. Tell me exactly what you had to do when it was your time to shoot. I want to know from the beginning to the end. What was your day of shooting like? Did it take one day, two days? Like, give me what you had to do, please.

Corey: Half a day.

Christian: Okay.

Corey: Half a day.

Rob: Half a day. What'd you have to do?

Corey: We got to my bit, because he would shoot it incrementally. He'd shoot the bit up to where Tom Hanks gets his eardrum blown out or something, and he can't hear, and his hand is shaking, and he's looking around, and he sees a guy walking with his arm going, "Oh, there it is." Picks up an arm and goes off. He's got only one arm now, but he picks up his arm and goes off. Other guy's just screaming, screaming, you know, this, that and the other. And he finally gets it together and puts his helmet on. And so they shoot that sequence, and then they shoot the next sequence, where he runs to the foxhole and he buries himself in the foxhole and he finds his guys. And that's when Sizemore rolls over and says something to him, and then he leans across and grabs me, because he's getting the information. Where are we? We're supposed to be here, but we're not here. How do you know we're not here? Because these guys are supposed to have come in and done that, but they haven't.

So that's why he's saying, you know, "Dog One is not open." It's not open, meaning they're going to bring these ships in and they're going to back up on the shoreline, where they're going to be sitting ducks. They're saying, "Hold them off. We haven't blown things up yet." So that's where I come in. I'm the contact with the shore. I'm the shore party, you know. So he's calling me. "Shore party!" Grabs me, pulls me over. Says, "Say again, Dog One is not open. I repeat, Dog One is not open." Throws me back. Grabs me again. Says another line. Now, the whole time I'm sitting there, and all I've got to do is literally... I'll show it to you. I'm just rolling like this, with a thing in my head going, "Uh-huh. Uh-huh." And rolling out, and "uh-huh, uh-huh."

The second time I did it, I had two absolutely enormous guys. I would roll out and reach my hands out. They would grab me, pull me out. Right next to me was the dummy, with blood bags just right in the face. They'd roll it in. Tom Hanks grabs: "Shore party! Shore party!" My face is blown open. Blood's coming out of it. I mean, that was like something out of a Hammer horror film.

Christian: That's right, because the face is just caved in. I actually always thought that that was CGI. I didn't realize it was a dummy.

Rob: No. So wait a second. How... Wait, wait, wait. You're going too fast. Okay. Wait.

Corey: Who knows the movie? It's never boring with me.

Rob: So, okay. So you're acting, and so the two guys that pulled you out, they pulled you out, stuck a dummy in, and then...

Corey: There was a dummy next to me in the foxhole, ready to go, just out of frame. I would roll in, lean in. I did it again. Rolled in, lean in. The third time I was supposed to do it, before the third time, they reach in, because Tom Hanks is talking to Tom Sizemore. So the camera goes from here to here. And then they pull me out, replace me with the dummy. It comes back to here. Tom Hanks is here. The dummy's here, gushing blood. Tom Hanks grabs the thing. The dummy slides down. He slid down and slid away. They just pulled him by the legs and pulled him out.

Rob: I see.

Corey: And then Tom Hanks picks up the radio and realizes it's dead.

Rob: Yeah. So they're screwed.

Corey: And that's what they did.

Christian: I mean, I realized... I could never watch Saving Private Ryan. And I had a friend that was a director, and he's like, "You are going to watch this." And I was like, "I can't." This is when I was doing directing. And he's like, "You cannot do this film unless you watch Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. So, you're going to watch this, and we're going to watch it at slow speed, and you're going to realize that this is movie magic." And so he did. He slowed everything down for me. And I realized, "Oh my gosh, those are dummies." And so I learned that every single one of those things that exploded, like lost their legs or whatever, were dummies.

Corey: Well, some of them, no, some of them were amputees. Some of them had lost an arm previously, and they just were hired to look around. They had a shredded kind of sleeve that was bloody, and they'd find a piece of arm and they'd go, "Yeah, this will do," and walk away, you know.

Christian: Wow.

Corey: Because that's what happened.

Christian: Yeah.

Corey: You know, that's what I'm saying. Some of these guys were like, what's his name, Upham, where they were just so terrified and screaming. And some of them just had no awareness of the significance of the fact that their arm was no longer attached to their bodies.

Christian: Yeah. It's kind of like shock.

Corey: Oh, complete shock. Yeah.

Rob: So, how many takes?

Corey: Oh, I don't remember doing more than a handful. This is the other thing I was going to say. 20, 30 takes, that ain't him. Two, three, four, that's him.

Rob: Hm.

Corey: That's him. That's what he does.

Rob: So then you were done?

Corey: No. No. Then we had another thing, where he wanted a bunch of actors to say... I can't remember the line. He wanted us to say a line, a sequence of lines, like... I can't remember. I'll just make some up. It could be like Tom Hanks's line: "Shore party! Shore party! Dog One is not open. Repeat, Dog One is not open." "Okay, say that like you're freaking..." "Dog One is not..." You know, we're all saying this and that, and some of the guys, God love them, some of the guys can't do it. They can't say it. They're either Irish army guys, or they're just really actors who are used to playing nice people, and they don't get what this situation is. And so I popped off and I said my line. He says, "Do it once more." And I said it again.

And I'm literally... I was having pictures taken with my dummy. I've got a picture somewhere of me and my dummy with the face blown off. And so I'm hugging... I don't know where it is. Katrina took so much of my memorabilia. I'm hugging my dummy and they're taking pictures, and he says, "Can you say that line?" And I put the dummy down and I said it, and he said, "Say it another time. Say it like this." He says, "Okay, give me one where you're doing this and let it come." And he looked at the AD and he said, "This guy's a good actor. Can we get him in something else?" And I picked up the dummy, and I just looked at the dummy and I went, "You got to ask this guy, because I don't think I'm going to be in the rest of the movie," you know.

Rob: That's awesome.

Corey: Well, I mean, that's the stuff you remember. That's the stuff you remember, though.

Rob: Is that why you got in Band of Brothers?

Corey: No, I got in Band of Brothers... same thing. I auditioned for another role and didn't get it, because, you know, they were casting who they cast, and it was beautifully cast, Band of Brothers. And I was just...

Christian: So frustrating that he can say that. So Steven Spielberg said that to you.

Corey: Yeah. But I'm sure he said... look, there was an armorer on the set. He was on Band of Brothers as well, and I worked with him on something else as well as Private Ryan. And he would say, "Okay, you got a sidearm here. It's no bullets. See, the chamber's empty," click, and this and that. And he showed me when you hold it... because they used to just... they wouldn't train you.

Rob: Private Ryan, they were the first movies where you really did this training.

Corey: The '90s was where they really...

Rob: Dale Dye.

Corey: Exactly. So they would show us how to do it. And Simon Atherton, I know it was a stock line. He'd come up and he'd see me one morning and say, "Hello, Corey." And I'd say, "Hi, Simon. How are you?" "Very good. Very good." And I said, "How's everything going?" A chat about this. "Here's your gun. And you could click it like that." And I'd say, "So it's all ready to go. Simon, thank you so much." And he goes, "It's all right. Can't do enough for a good actor." And I know he said that to everybody. You know, it was just his stock line, like saying "top of the morning to you." "Can't do enough for a good actor." That's what he would say. It made you feel great, you know. But that's why they're good at what they do, because they make you feel like you're very talented.

Christian: You are talented, and Steven Spielberg was right, and you should have been given more roles.

Corey: Well, no, you know, I mean, I did what I did. I loved doing what I did. I thought it was great, what I did. And, you know, that was me done, and I went home like the next day, which was great. I was a week in Ireland, you know, and I was in Private Ryan.

Christian: And you got to have all that meat.

Corey: And I got to eat beef. All that beef. I had my beefing. I haven't had a similar beefing in my life. I haven't ever had that much beef in one week in my life. I'm telling you, I think I bought a heart attack. I'm not sure.

Christian: Well, you're still here, so that's already...

Corey: I am still here. Yes. So, it's good.

Rob: And we are talking 27 years. So I don't think, if it's not going to be from...

Christian: And congratulations for answering the questions directly. I'm very thankful.

Corey: You're so lucky.

Rob: All right. So, because we've talked about so many other fascinating things, we're just going to quickly go through this minute, just everything that's going on. If there's anything you guys want to point out as we go through it, feel free. So the scene changes, and then we have Henderson and Mellish getting their gun ready, and then Henderson notices that Mellish is chewing gum, and he looks at him and goes, "You got any more of that?" And he basically halves it and gives it to him and puts it in his mouth, which I've always found pretty disgusting. But, you know, as we mentioned, these guys don't know what's really in store for them, how much longer they're going to be alive. So you might as well enjoy it while you can.

Christian: I have a lot to say about this, actually. So that scene, to me, depicts what I believe... I see from the time that they're trying to decide if the German soldier is going to live or die...

Rob: Steamboat Willie.

Christian: All the way through to when the battle here in Ramelle has calmed down or whatever. It's this whole idea where you see the fight, and you see them getting mad at each other, and you see Tom Hanks solving the question of what he does in real life, and you see them finding Ryan, and you see them being told that his brothers are gone, and him saying, "I'm not leaving. I'm staying with my guys."

Rob: "I'm staying with the only family I have left."

Christian: Right. And then him beginning to tell his stories of remembering his brothers. And then you see this splitting of the gum, and what you see there is this brotherhood that has been developed. This close-knit family.

Corey: Sharing of the gum like that, that's a family thing that you do. You know, we share the same germs.

Christian: That's what it is. And they did. They shared the same germs. They are that close. And when I watched all of that, it reminds me so much of what I have heard from the veterans for such a long time. When I see them together... and it doesn't even have to be ones that have served together. I have seen ones that have served in the same units be together, and it is so special. But I've seen ones that come together in Normandy that have never seen each other, didn't know each other, but they served in the same war. They can speak the same language. They have the same understanding of these pure things.

Corey: They saw the same things.

Christian: And they are instantly bonded, just like brothers. And then you come down... I haven't mentioned this yet, but I have two sons that are in the military. And in my film, if you watch The Girl Who Wore Freedom, which you can if you're in the US, you can find it on Amazon, Apple TV, Vudu [now Fandango at Home], etc., if you watch that, you'll see that my oldest son Hunter was in the Army at the time. He's now in the Navy, and my younger son is in the Army as a mechanic. So I spent a lot of time with both of them. And what I see with them is the exact same thing. It's happening today. They spend time in the field, in these field exercises, living with these guys, and that develops that sense of brotherhood, and family develops. And they fight like they hate each other and they want to kill each other, and then the next thing you know, they're best friends. I mean, it's crazy. I don't understand it. And the sense of humor... there's military humor that is absolutely horrific. Seriously, if the real world heard what the military humor is, they would be in such trouble. But that's the way that they kept themselves sane. And so I talked to Hunter, who's fought in Afghanistan, and he explained this to me, that, you know, this is their tribe.

Rob: That's right.

Christian: This is their tribe. And what happens when a lot of soldiers leave and get out, and they finally have understood this, is that the rate of alcoholism or drug use or even suicide is because they've lost their tribe. And that's right. You hear this from Sebastian Junger. I don't know if you've heard of the book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, but if you haven't read that book, that is a phenomenal explanation of exactly what I'm talking about. And he was embedded with... Restrepo, actually. Joe distributes that movie. Restrepo is a great movie. You should talk about that.

Rob: Joe's connected to Restrepo? Wow, I didn't know that.

Christian: Joe distributes Restrepo. And so, yeah, Sebastian Junger. He's also a good friend with Sebastian Junger. You could probably get him on here. But he was embedded with these guys, and he then learns afterwards what their life is like, and he learns about this when they get out and how lost they are. And so he writes this book, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, and talks about what happens to them. And that's what I see here. This is their...

Rob: Again, you've hit the nail on the head there, for sure. I talked about it a few weeks ago, right after Miller tells Ryan why he's there. And then we see some of the other guys standing around, and one of them goes, "Hey, what's going on?" He goes, "Ryan lost his brother." And then he goes, "Which one?" And he goes, "All of them." Now, the thing that I picked up from that is, okay, Ryan's with these guys a day or two. Because remember, they told us that an officer grabbed Ryan and put him in this makeshift unit. These are not necessarily guys that he's known for a long time. But they're together this day, two days, whatever it is. They've formed this bond, and therefore...

Corey: He already knows how many brothers he's got and who they are.

Rob: It doesn't matter, right? These guys already know that he's got three brothers that are also fighting in this war. Just a little line like that. And again, that's the whole idea of Band of Brothers. Stephen Ambrose wrote the book, and they made the miniseries...

Corey: Based on the idea that...

Rob: That brothers in arms will have lifelong connections. And it doesn't matter if it's World War II, doesn't matter if it's Vietnam, doesn't matter if you're talking about the American Revolution. Any war, when you have guys that are together, it's not just a war. I mean, it could also just be an army unit that's together. It's the same thing.

Christian: It's called trauma bonding. Trauma bonding. And truthfully, it could be in combat, but also when you go through a really tough thing like basic training, or just living together, it's called trauma bonding. And on a side note, as an actor, this is what actors love about shooting and being on set, principal photography, because you are together in this stressful situation and you become a family. Really quick, back me up here, John. It's true.

Corey: Yeah.

Christian: You become a family, and so all of a sudden you have this closeness in a really short period of time, where you've got this family for however long you're shooting, and you become really close. You've known these people two or three days, but you have these emotional bonds. That's why actors get in relationships with each other. This is my theory. You are emotional people. You've brought these emotions out, and now you're like these raw nerves or whatever, and you get to know each other on an intimate level. And when you leave, you're like popped out of a family, and you're alone.

Rob: Mhm. Wow.

Christian: And so it's true in the acting world.

Corey: Yeah.

Rob: Right. So, Corey, I have a question for you about that, then. Did you bond with anyone on the set of Saving Private Ryan that you're still in touch with?

Corey: No, I wasn't there long enough really to bond with anybody.

Rob: Any trauma bonding from that movie?

Corey: Oh, no, no. Look, there was a guy who was a spark. He was an electrician. His name was Dave. And there have been about three or four movies that I've worked on that I found out he was working on. And I would just see him somewhere, and I'd go, "Dave." He'd go, "Hello, Corey." And I was like, "Dude, we got to play some golf." And it's like, "Okay, let's go play some golf." We played golf in Ireland. We played golf, I think, once in Malta. A couple other places, you know.

Interesting, Christian. I'm such a theater animal that I never really felt like I was completely at home on a film set. And I have watched actors with jealousy who I know are very, very comfortable on a film set. Ed Burns was one of them. Ed Burns... I mean, I say he grew up on a film set. He became who he was right on his film set. And within a few years of The Brothers McMullen coming out, he was in Private Ryan. He did other things. You know, he's working with...

Rob: He gets second billing in this movie, you know.

Corey: He gets second billing in this movie. That already... Yeah. Well, and he was huge, you know. He told us a story about The Brothers McMullen. I think it was that one that was his first one. He was working in the mail room at ICM in Los Angeles, and on a Friday evening he drove to Sundance.

Christian: Wow.

Corey: Because The Brothers McMullen was showing on Saturday afternoon, you know. So he drove to Sundance and crashed in his car. He got up. He went to check the theater. He did such and such. The movie played. He came back. "Yay. Hey, good." And the next day they have a thing where you go and sit in a room behind a desk, and people come and say, "I really liked your movie. Here's my card. Get in touch." And he went, "Okay." And so he goes there, and there's like a line of people coming out of the door, and he's going, "Well, someone hit it big." He goes and sits down. They're for him. He said maybe 150 industry people went, "You've got to get in touch with me. I absolutely loved your movie. We got to talk." And it's all for him. He said the only reason he went back to the mail room one day was to resign. He said, "I'm done."

Christian: Wow.

Corey: And I think he then went upstairs and met with half a dozen agents at ICM, and they pitched him what they were going to do for him. So in a weekend his life changed. That's being born on a film set. I'm used to working in theater, and I've also learned how to pull back, because you can't anymore... You invest yourself in the role, in what you're doing. You can't anymore invest yourself into people, because of that. You know, these guys were traumatized, and I'm not in any way comparing what we do to what they did. They were traumatized from doing it that one time. If I'm lucky, I'm going to do six or eight jobs a year. I can't go through that six or eight times.

Christian: Right. Yeah. You do have to learn how to protect yourself.

Corey: Just learn to protect yourself. So, you know, it's not as...

Christian: You did make friends. You did make some friends on Band of Brothers, didn't you?

Corey: Well, sure. There are still people on Band of Brothers who I still talk to every once in a while. Ross McCall. Tom Hardy was on Band of Brothers, but I worked with Tom in... and I also did a movie called The Code with him and Robert Forster, about five or six years after Band of Brothers. And that was right around the time we were doing The Code that Tom said, "Yeah, I've been offered this role, and I've got to gain 50 pounds of muscle for it." And I said, "Dude, you can't do that in two months." He said, "Oh, yeah, I can. Don't worry about it." And he sends me these pictures of himself, and he's all like this. And I went, "Holy cow, man." He's bald with a mustache. It was Bronson. You know, that was the movie that made him.

Rob: Wow.

Christian: Wow.

Corey: Yeah.

Christian: You know so much crap. I can't even believe it. It's crazy.

Corey: I'm a font. I'm a font of crap.

Rob: Right. All right. Let's keep moving here. So then we get a shot with Ed Burns and Matt Damon. The two of them are sitting there, also waiting for the tank to show up. And...

Christian: I love that, where they look at each other. That's that knowing look of, like, we've gone through all this. Guys have died. "I've not wanted to do this, but now, you know, I think... you didn't want to leave. I have respect for you, man. All right."

Rob: He gives him a nod of approval at the time. So, it's great.

Christian: Yeah. "I'm over my anger. We're in this together. Let's do this."

Corey: Yeah.

Rob: That's right. And then the shot changes, and we see the guys in their foxholes. We see Mike in front of them also, and they give us their perspective of the street, waiting for the tanks to finally show up.

Corey: You can hear them, but you can't see them.

Rob: That's right. And then you see a whole bunch of German soldiers just scuttle across the screen in the distance.

Corey: And then behind them...

Rob: And then behind them comes the tank. Right. Right. And I mean, this is just done so well, because it really gives us the anticipation that these characters are having, and it puts us there, that we're also anticipating. We're waiting. Okay, we know that the tank is supposed to turn down the street. And then you see the tank just passes by them.

Corey: Yeah.

Rob: And at this point, Miller just says, "Panzers didn't take the bait." He knows that his plan just didn't work.

Corey: He doesn't know.

Christian: That's right.

Rob: Right. No. And then he looks up at Jackson, up in the bell tower, trying to get some sort of an idea. And I mean, Christian, I think you mentioned this at the beginning. He's looking to Jackson for help, but he's also looking up into the heavens, asking for some sort of divine help with what they have to do here, because he knows that...

Christian: I think that was Corey.

Rob: Oh, Corey said it. I don't remember which one. Sorry.

Corey: Yeah. I think it's just one of those things. We do a lot of things... It's like they say, the reason something is a cliche is that it's true. A cliche doesn't become a cliche because... it becomes a cliche because it's the truth. And the idea of doing this and looking up... I'm not certain. I can't remember ever in my life looking up to look for God or a god. But I know you look up to kind of get a breath in you. You don't look down. It's like when you look to the right, you're thinking with the left side of your brain. When you look to the left, you're thinking with the right side of your brain. There are indicators that we have. And I think it's one of those lovely artistic kind of moments, that he looks up, but there's always a practical reason for us looking up. We never just simply go, "God, it's me, Margaret. Where are you?"

There's a reason for him looking up, and it just works in two ways. That's the beauty of a movie: it's never completely practical. There's always ever so slightly an artistic license that comes into play that gives us, again, the luxury of being able to think in a way those men aren't able to think. We can say, "Oh, look, he's invoking the deity there." And it's like, "No, I'm hoping the sniper can shoot the tank." That's what I'm hoping, you know?

Rob: That's right. Yeah. It's all a matter of perspective with these sort of things.

Corey: Yeah. Yeah. Which is what's brilliant about it, you know. And talking of another war movie that he made, Schindler's List, he took a real chance shooting one of the scenes where the little girl is walking around and she's got a red coat on. Everything else is in black and white, except you see this red coat. He took a real chance, because it's such an obvious thing to do, and it calls attention to itself as a trick of the cinema. But in that moment of the movie, you believe that that's the only clean bit of colored clothing in this entire city, because everything else was so oppressively gray and oppressively dirty and oppressively downtrodden that this poor little girl walking around in what looked like a red coat was the only bit of vibrancy left. So it worked not only practically, but it worked as a metaphor in the movie, which I think is one of the reasons why he's ostensibly one of the greatest, certainly in the top five filmmakers of all time.

Rob: Correct.

Corey: And that's a heady list, because you've got some great... every decade another five come out and you go, "Well, these men are geniuses." But Steven has stood kind of the test of time, where his movies become more beautiful. Even the early ones become more beautiful. You find more things in them. You never look at Jaws and go, "Yeah, you can really see the wheels turning there. You can see the gaps." There were no gaps. You look at the bit where they find the shark tooth and you go, "That was shot in a swimming pool." And you go, "Yes, it was shot in a swimming pool."

Rob: Yeah.

Corey: Because he didn't have the studio time or the money to shoot it properly, so he did what he could, and he makes it work. You don't see the joins with him, which is why he's brilliant.

Rob: Yeah, for sure. All right. So we've made it through this minute. So let's do...

Christian: Miracle.

Rob: Hey, it's been fascinating. Don't get me wrong.

Corey: I don't know if this is better or worse than the last one we were on, but anyway, go on.

Rob: So, every Monday we have a segment called Maestro Monday, where my guests, because it's two of you, will give me their top five John Williams movie score themes. So I think the best way to probably do this is just do it in snake fashion. So, Christian, why don't you start off with your number five, and then Corey will give us his five and then his four, and then your four. We'll just quickly go through that in snake fashion.

Christian: All right. My number five: Harry Potter.

Corey: Oh my god. We're just going to do this, just one up? You're not going to explain why it's great?

Rob: You can if you want. Whatever you want. Just... yeah. Give me some stuff about Harry Potter.

Christian: I mean, you're asking me to give you like... I mean, I have to...

Rob: Why do you like it?

Christian: Why do I like it? Yeah. Well, I mean, I like all of these because they stick with you, right? They stick with you. You know instantly, when you hear it, what it is. There's absolutely no question. And that's the thing with all of these that I'm going to tell you, with John Williams tunes. They are just so iconic that you hear them instantly and you know what movie that is, and it puts you right in the middle of the movie. It's not just you hear a song, but you hear the theme song, and all of a sudden you're in the middle of the movie. You're in the middle of the feeling of... I can hear the Harry Potter theme song, and all of a sudden I can feel the feelings of...

Corey: You feel the magic.

Christian: Yeah. Yeah.

Corey: I mean, I hate putting them in a list of preference. So, I'm going to try and go in some kind of chronological order. So my number five would be...

Christian: Chronological? That's crazy. I don't know how you could do that.

Corey: Well, because I'm going early. When I first recognized who did that, it was there. I don't think there's been a theme that is more singularly evocative of a movie than the theme from Jaws.

Christian: Of course. So you would put that as your... See, I started with the first, because...

Corey: No, because it's the first one. Because I'm going to say, look, you write two notes. He wrote two notes. And then he basically went with that, and every once in a while he added a couple of things, and that was it. That was the movie. It's not even a song.

Christian: He's breaking the rules. He's breaking the rules.

Corey: But there are themes. But that, to me, is the most complete and...

Rob: Perfect.

Christian: So he's giving his number one. I gave my number five. Now...

Corey: That's my number five. That's my number five.

Rob: Number five. Okay. Go to your number four.

Christian: Go to your number four.

Corey: Me?

Rob: No, it's you. Now it's you.

Corey: Oh. Oh. My number four: Superman. And I will say not only the overture to Superman, because there are moments in the movie where you hear the brilliance of his soundtrack. This is what he does through his scores. When he shows the planet Krypton, you come up on Krypton from space, and you see the planet, and you see the way the buildings are and how striking they are, and he plays it different. There's a different undertone to it. And by the time he gets to the final phrase, there's something else that has happened that tells an entire story.

Rob: Right.

Corey: And that's why he's brilliant, you know. And look, you've got the Superman theme as well. That's evocative of Superman. It's brilliant.

Rob: Right.

Corey: And "Can You Read My Mind," the love theme from Superman, is also brilliant. But those moments, the things like that, they don't leave you. And so you hear the overture of that and you get all of them, and when you hear it after the movie, you go back and you go, "Oh my god, that was a beautiful moment." So you remember the movie as well, you know?

Christian: Yes.

Corey: Because it just...

Rob: Locks you in. Perfect. Perfect. All right, Christian, your turn. Number four.

Christian: So I'm going to have Corey just describe my movies, because he also puts the song in there. So, okay, Corey, my number four is Jurassic Park. So, why don't you describe why my number four would be Jurassic Park?

Corey: Why is it so great? Obviously, because... how do you evoke a dinosaur? You can't. But it's the way... and this is just my opinion. There are things in the theme, because this would have been my number three, there are things in the theme that evoke a kind of... if I was going to sum it up in a phrase, it would be "the return of the king."

Christian: For me, I feel like it's so big. When I hear it, you know how the gates in Jurassic Park are so...

Corey: Yeah.

Christian: And the dinosaurs are so huge. I feel like the beginning of that music is just so big. Kind of like that big.

Corey: But the way it starts, it starts from something so small, where he just goes... and it just builds onto something else. By the time he gets to the phrase... this is the brilliance of John Williams. I'm going to do it wrong. That's not what he did. He goes... and it's just like, oh man. Just a little tiny moment like that, of making you... he grabs you and picks you up to their level and says, "Go on, live with them. See what they are." That's what makes him a genius.

Christian: That's true.

Rob: Yeah. All right. Okay. Your number three, Christian.

Christian: Yeah. I got out of sequence, but anyway, go ahead. Okay. So, Catch Me If You Can.

Corey: Wow. Good choice.

Christian: First of all...

Corey: You're just a jazz fan.

Christian: I love the jazz. Well, I love the movie. It's going to be on my Steven Spielberg...

Rob: Hey, don't give it away. Don't give it away.

Christian: Sorry. I love the movie. I absolutely adore the movie. And so the music to me puts you right in the time period of the film. And so, for me, it sets the stage, and it's really unique. So that's why I love it. John could probably elaborate better than me.

Corey: No, no, no. I was just going to say, the thing it tells you about the character is that this guy was literally flying by the seat of his pants. And there's something about a knowledge he gained and used, maybe before he completely owned the knowledge, and there's something about jazz that is like that. You can be a great musician, but jazz is encouraging you not to live where you know, but to attempt to live in places you're not aware of yet.

Christian: And so that's how you grow as an artist, by expanding that. There's this wonderful line in La La Land, where Sebastian is trying to teach Mia the beautifulness of jazz. He takes her to this jazz club, and he's like, "Look, you see this guy? He's right now taking over. He's grabbed it, and now he's fighting for the stage." And that is the wonderfulness of jazz: you never know what's going to happen, and somebody can take it and run with it. And that is what happens in Catch Me If You Can. The main character, you never know what he's going to do, and he's always stealing stuff.

Rob: Yeah. Great. All right. Your number three, you said, is Jurassic Park, right?

Corey: Yeah. My number three is Jurassic Park.

Rob: Okay. So what's your number two, then?

Corey: My number two is Schindler's List. And the reason it's number two...

Rob: Oh, because chronologically it came out the same year as...

Corey: Yeah. Yeah. No, but I was saying it was vague chronological. But the reason it's number two is there are very few movies nowadays that are made where you have a composer. People just take pop songs and put them in, because they're a cheap, quick way of getting to the emotional content of a scene. They indicate to the audience exactly where they should be in order to experience this scene. Do you know what I'm saying?

Rob: Mhm. Yeah.

Corey: So they play a pop song, and it tells people, "Oh, that was 1978," or "I was 10," or "I was 15," or "I was 22," or whatever, "and it's about this, and so I know that's because it parallels what they're going through. Okay, so I'm good." But it's a layer of separation. There's one guy writing today, and I want to say it's the guy who did Meet Joe Black. It's like Thomas Newton or something.

Christian: No.

Rob: Thomas Howard Newton?

Christian: Thomas Newton Howard?

Corey: It's not Thomas Newton. It's... Newton... Anyway, look it up. Look it up. There are phrases he uses that are dissonant. The notes don't play nicely with one another. He does it on purpose, and he doesn't do the thing you expect. He goes off on 90 degree angles in his music, and it's the only way to...

Rob: Newman?

Corey: No.

Christian: Randy?

Corey: No, no, no. And the only way to describe it is agonizing.

Rob: Thomas Newman.

Corey: Thomas Newman. Thomas Newman. The only way to describe it is agonizing. His chord choices and the way he layers notes on top of one another. I could play phrases for you that are just agony to listen to. He's doing it not because of what's going on in the scene. Of course, what's going on in the scene isn't agonizing, but his music is telling you things about the people that you don't know from seeing what they're experiencing. Schindler's List just underscores the experience, but does it in the most beautifully horrifying way.

Because when he asked him to write the score, he said, "Well, I'd love to have a look at the movie." And he showed him the movie, and he said, "I can't write music to this. You've got to get someone else to do it." He said, "Well, I would, but the guys who are better than you are all dead," you know, meaning you're the only person alive who can write this. And that's why he's as great as he is, because down the line he was probably the only person alive who could have written these scores, you know.

Rob: Yeah.

Christian: Wow.

Corey: He's that good.

Rob: Yes. All right, Christian. What's your number two?

Christian: Okay. Well, we're going to have to skip my number two and go to my number one, because number two is Jaws. So I'm going to give you my number one.

Rob: Well, you're not skipping it. You just have to tell me what it is, and you don't have to then explain it.

Corey: Why, though? Why do you like Jaws?

Christian: Well, I mean, same reason you like Jaws. So I'm not going to redescribe it. You know, it's just iconic, super scary, and the same reason. Two notes.

Corey: Yeah.

Christian: In fact, it's so scary, I've never seen it. I've seen scenes.

Corey: Oh my god.

Christian: I was a little kid, and I was so scared by the music and the picture of the poster and the commercial, I would never go see it. So, I've never seen it.

Corey: Can I just say... we're talking about the music, so I'll just talk about the music. There is a point when they realize they're on the trail of this shark, and John Williams writes chase music that makes you think they're going to get him. "This is great. They're going to get him." And they don't know, and you don't either, what it is they're up against.

Rob: Correct.

Corey: And when you discover what they're up against, the music disappears. I mean, maybe I'm wrong.

Rob: The point where the shark goes back under the water.

Corey: Right. Shark goes under the water. The music goes under the water with him. After the Indianapolis speech, there's very little music.

Rob: Correct.

Corey: You know, and it's just like, that's the last 20 minutes.

Christian: I mean, that's what I mean. Silence. When you have a great composer and you have a good director that knows how to use the silence of no music, like...

Corey: I'm afraid of the silence.

Christian: Yeah, that is actually...

Rob: Look at this movie, Saving Private Ryan. Most of the movie does not have a score.

Christian: Yeah. There are moments that have it, and then the end, you know.

Rob: Because it was important to have the sound.

Corey: Yes. It was important to have the noise, and it wasn't all explosions. It was like the tanks coming from a long way off. And this was something that was created because people have said, you fire a bullet into water and the bullet almost immediately stops. It doesn't keep going through. You can't get killed by a bullet underwater. And I was...

Christian: Sure you can. Yeah, you can get killed, because a lot of people in Pearl Harbor died that way. People get...

Corey: There were guys who were saying, "Yeah, you just can't." The bullets don't travel through water like that. They weave, they turn like fish, but they're slowing down exponentially.

Christian: They slow down, but they still can kill you underwater. And I will say that I really struggled with this movie score thing in my own film, because you can overscore a movie and it overtakes the film.

Corey: Yeah. And you also have to figure out, you can underscore it as well.

Christian: So that was very difficult for me to figure out, that nuance. And I think if I could critique that film on anything, I think I overscored it a little. And if I was going to go back and do anything, I would probably remove a little bit of the score in a couple places. Not much, just a tad. And so, yeah, it is hard to get comfortable with the silence in a movie. So the master stroke of what he did there in Jaws is amazing. So now can I go to my number one?

Rob: Yeah. Yes, you can.

Christian: What do you think it is?

Corey: Same as...

Rob: What'd you say?

Corey: Same as mine. Star Wars.

Christian: Yes. Star Wars. I mean, how could it not be?

Corey: Yeah. It's got to be.

Rob: You didn't just go in chronological order.

Corey: No, I said that as a ruse.

Christian: And it just has to be Star Wars, you know? Because the movie, of course, was so revolutionary during that time, the score had to be as well. I mean, there's just nothing like it, you know?

Corey: Lucas made Star Wars around the same time Spielberg was making Close Encounters. And they were on a beach in Hawaii at one point, before Star Wars came out.

Christian: You know this? How do you know these things?

Corey: I read it. I read it. That's when they thought of Indiana Jones. But they were both going, "This is going to be horrible, man. We're never going to make movies again." They didn't know. I mean, not that Star Wars made Close Encounters possible, because they're very different movies, but Close Encounters built on what Star Wars had made possible, you know. I think without Star Wars, Close Encounters would have been a niche movie, and instead it became one of the titles of the '70s, you know.

Rob: Correct.

Christian: We did it.

Rob: All right. Yeah. Thank you.

Corey: And, I mean, look, Raiders of the Lost Ark, you know, that's a great, great theme as well.

Christian: Yeah. Yes. There you go.

Rob: All right. Well, thank you both for those lists. So, Christian, do you want to tell people where they can find you?

Christian: Yes, absolutely. Well, my production company is Documentary First Productions. So, that's documentaryfirst.com. And you can find me there, my movies there, and if you want to write me and ask more questions, christian@documentaryfirst.com.

Rob: All right. And Corey, how can people get in touch with you if they want to?

Corey: They can't. No one can get in touch with me. You just got to take a shot. If you're up after 2 a.m. and you're watching an obscure television channel, you'll probably see me walk across your screen.

Christian: You can look him up on IMDb, and you can see his huge list of credits.

Corey: Watch Midnight Caller. I think it's on Amazon Prime, Apple TV. It's streaming right now in America. So, Midnight Caller, it's a movie that was made in 2020. I think it was released in 2024. So it's not the TV series with Gary Cole, but it is about a disc jockey. So, you know...

Christian: Yeah, that's his latest one.

Corey: Guess who plays the disc jockey.

Christian: Go check that out. Also, all my social medias are Documentary First, so you can check that out: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter.

Rob: And finding me is very simple. Just do a quick search for Movie Rob Minute. You can find me on Facebook. You can find me on Twitter. You can find me on Instagram. So until tomorrow, earn this.

Christian: Earn this.

Christian: Wow. What did you think about that episode? I absolutely love it. I can't think of anything I would rather do. How amazing. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that deep dive and all the side tangents that Rob, Corey and I went on. You know, I think we spent about four or five days, or a million, talking about this one minute of Saving Private Ryan. Who knew there was so much to say about one minute in Saving Private Ryan? But I guess, to be fair, we didn't just talk about one movie in one minute in Saving Private Ryan. And also to be fair, Ceo Bauer will take one day in the chair for Corey Johnson, and that episode will be coming up right around D-Day, I think. Anyway, there's still a couple more episodes to come. So stay tuned as we continue this conversation, coming up in the next couple of weeks, and as we bring you more episodes from Documentary First along with these special Movie Rob Minute episodes. Until then, earn this. And if you know, then you know. And if not, well, you better go back and listen to some of the episodes before this one. Thank you for listening to Documentary First, where we believe everybody has a story to tell, and you can be the one to tell it. Bye, everybody.