Icelandic composer and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir is part of a wave of European composers entering the world of film music from modern classical, experimental and concert music. They include Volker Bertelmann, Jerskin Fendrix, Daniel Blumberg, Max Richter and Kangding Ray – all of whom, like Guðnadóttir, made this year’s Oscar shortlist for Best Original Score.
But while Guðnadóttir is something of a thriving community that has put a bold spin on film music, she is also rare because she is the only woman this century to win the Oscar for a film score, and one of only three composers to ever do so. (The first two were Rachel Portman and Anne Dudley, who won for “Emma” and “The Full Monty” in the 1990s, in the four years that a separate category for best original score or musical existed.)
Guðnadóttir won for “Joker” in 2019 and has since composed music for films like “Tár” and “Women Talking.” She also made it three-quarters of the way to an EGOT in the span of about a year, winning an Emmy for “Chernobyl” and Grammys for “Joker” and “Chernobyl.”
Her latest film is Nia DaCosta’s “Hedda,” which transplants Henrik Ibsen’s late 19th-century play “Hedda Gabler” to 1950s England and lets all the action unfold during a raucous party on a huge estate. Music plays a central role in this wild evening, which helped Guðnadóttir focus the film’s musical approach. But as she told TheWrap in a recent conversation, it also took her in some bold directions, including turning the film’s crew into a makeshift choir and recording them as they all stood around a broken chandelier that fell to the ground during a particularly dramatic scene.
Did the fact that the entire film took place in the same location over one night influence the musical vocabulary you used?
Certainly, it really is. And because it’s a party and the band is playing and it’s a period piece, the band is obviously going to play music from that period. So that really set the parameters quite strongly. I think it’s really exciting to have a framework to work within and figure out how to make the most of what you have. Rather than bringing in an orchestra and blowing things up, sonically, how can I keep it in the world of these people and this band?
That’s always the most exciting part when you start working on a film: imagining, what sound world are we in? In this case, I wanted to lean into the fact that they were playing jazz and I wanted the theme of love to be part of the music the band played. So I wrote a song for the band that also becomes the big love theme, and Nia wrote the lyrics.
But also, I think it’s very exciting when you do a period piece to understand what music was written at the time. One of the most exciting composers for me at that time in England was Cornelius Cardew, who wrote music for a combination of professional and amateur musicians. He was doing large-scale performances where he had people singing together, so I kind of imagined he was at the party and starting to write some of these pieces.
So I put together a choir made up of the cast and crew of the film. We all sang together and breathed together, so that all the voices and all the breaths came from this chorus made up of women from the production office, gaffers, extras and part of the cast. There are so many people behind and around the camera, and it was fun to incorporate them all into the music. I recorded it all around the broken chandelier on the floor. (Laughter)
Were the crew members eager to participate?
Many of them were not used to singing and were therefore very nervous. But I had just finished a book on breathing and Nia was studying Samuel Beckett’s piece that is essentially just an inhale and an exhale (the 35-second 1969 piece, “Breath”). We were both thinking about it, and when I had the idea to record the cast and crew, breathing together was a great starting point for creating sounds. The song came from the breath.
With some of the musical elements of “Hedda,” you wrote arrangements for the big band, but then went back to the theme and removed elements, until you had reduced the piece to, say, percussion.
Exactly. I think it’s really interesting to see how much you can do with very little. I’m always very interested in trying to figure out how to create a whole world of sound from very small elements.
I remember an amazing concert you gave at Disney Hall a few years ago, where one of the pieces was performed by a single musician standing at the front of the stage playing a little triangle.
Exactly, exactly! (Laughter) This really embodies what I’m so interested in, which is listening to details and textures to understand the sound world that you can get from this one thing. I’m always curious about it – like with “Chernobyl,” where I composed an entire score based on the sounds of a power plant. It’s always exciting for me to take on these challenges and see how far I can go with them.
After the success you have experienced in recent years, what does it take for you to say yes to a cinema mission?
I try to always use these film projects as a sort of place to try something that I wouldn’t have tried otherwise. I’ve been writing music for a very long time and playing the cello and my instruments for a long time. These are things that I’m comfortable with, but I really try to find something that I haven’t explored yet when I go into a film. In “Hedda,” the jazz element was something I probably wouldn’t have done myself.
Has “Joker” radically changed things for you, especially in Hollywood?
Absolutely. I think “Joker” and “Chernobyl” were really sweet for me, because before those two projects, I was asked a lot more if I could handle those types of projects. (Laughter) For some reason I kept hearing this question. And then the way I like to work, which is to write music very early on to accompany the filming, people weren’t as used to that way of working.
But when I did these two projects, making them work the way they did gave people more confidence in my sometimes unorthodox working methods. People are less afraid when I come in and say I want to do a whole score with the sounds of a nuclear power plant, because they realize I can actually make it happen.
You have a few scores coming up, including “The Bride,” but also some of your non-soundtrack work.
Yes yes. I have a band (Osmium), we just released an album this summer. I’m starting to do gigs again because my son is a teenager, so I feel like I can travel a little more. I released my first solo record in 10 years in October and played my first cello concert in nine years a month ago. And next year is the 20th anniversary of my first record. I have a record coming out to celebrate, and I’ll be doing quite a few shows next year.
So I’ve been quite busy. I laughed about it: I really loved playing Tetris when I was younger, and now I think I play Tetris with my calendar.
