In 2020, Hildur Gudnadóttir earned the Best Original Score Oscar for Joker, completing an awards season which also included her taking the BAFTA, Golden Globe and Critics Choice honors. This made her the first woman composer to ever sweep these competitions during a single season. She also became the first woman to receive the Original Score Oscar since the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences combined different score categories into one in 2000. Overall she became the fourth woman composer to earn distinction from the Academy for a feature score–Anne Dudley won for The Full Monty in 1998, Rachel Portman for Emma in 1997, and Marilyn Bergman alongside Michel Legrand and Alan Bergman for Yentl in 1984.
Now Gudnadóttir is once again in the Oscar conversation–this time for her work on Women Talking (Metro Goldwyn Mayer Studios).
Directed by Sarah Polley who penned the adapted screenplay based on the novel by Miriam Toews, Women Talking introduces us to the women of an isolated religious community as they grapple with reconciling their reality with their faith. Dealing with continued sexual and physical abuse from the men in their colony, the Mennonite women come together to discuss whether they should leave or stay and fight. Polley assembled a cast which includes Rooney Mara, Claire Foy, Jessie Buckley, Judith Ivey, Ben Whishaw and Frances McDormand.
Gudnadóttir’s initial response to the story was understandably anger given the horrifying and disturbing plight of these women. She did not envision making music that was hopeful and optimistic–but ultimately she did just that to reflect a story that's very much about women coming together as a community to act.
Gudnadóttir said she made “the discovery” that her score should, like the story, be one in which light emerges out of darkness. She saw parallels between the women in the story and her own creative process as an artist. From the outset, the suffering of these women weighed on Gudnadóttir, making her both mad and sad–and at times even “paralyzed.” She shared, “There were days I couldn’t literally get myself to make the music.”
But just as the women in the story confront what’s befallen them, uniting to create a better world for themselves and their children, Gudnadóttir too found a creative path that had to be traversed. “Am I going to be paralyzed with anger or am I going to stand up and find the energy to go forward?” As an artist, the latter alternative made for a fulfilling journey to take on with Polley.
Still, there was a challenge to ultimately making what Gudnadóttir described as “the most optimistic score” she had ever created. Gudnadóttir noted there was the danger of crossing “the fine line” between “hopeful and optimistic” and “something over-the-top corny.” Gudnadóttir observed that to finally find this sweet spot, she had to avoid the pitfall of sugarcoating in any way what these women endured. Rather the hopeful vibe had to come from how the women responded to and dealt with brutal adversity. The music had to “define the light that came out of the darkness” without being “melodramatic,” explained Gudnadóttir.
Women Talking now comes at a time when womens rights are moving “backwards,” particularly in the U.S., observed Gudnadóttir, alluding to the recent Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade. “What I learned from this film and what I found is the courage to voice my longing to move forward for the rights of women,” affirmed Gudnadóttir, adding that working with a cast of mostly women and a deeply supportive crew was “incredibly energizing.”
Tár
Women Talking isn’t the only notable feature that Gudnadóttir worked on that figures prominently in awards season banter. She also scored Tár which stars Cate Blanchett as the fictional Lydia Tár, a lauded composer, musician, philanthropist and conductor. The EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony) winner, mentored by Leonard Bernstein, is the first woman to preside over a prestigious German orchestra. At the outset of the film, Tár’s career is continuing on a seemingly irreversible ascent as she prepares to debut her autobiography “Tár on Tár” and complete the Gustav Mahler cycle with the orchestra. But after being introduced to the celebrated genius and breaker of the glass ceiling, slowly the private Tár comes to light when we see her anxiety, seemingly almost haunted by an unseen yet felt force as her lofty status begins to erode amid allegations of misconduct.
At one point it was thought that Gudnadóttir would have a chance to make more awards history as the first female composer to be nominated twice for the Original Score Oscar in the same season. But at press time, it was revealed that the Motion Picture Academy deemed Tár ineligible in the scoring category because the amount of original, audible music wasn’t sufficient in relation to the significant use of pre-exising music.
However, Guðnadóttir’s work on both films is remarkable as evidenced by her earlier this week receiving Best Score nominations for Women Talking and Tár from the Critics Choice Awards.
Tár features new works by Gudnadóttir recorded with the London Contemporary Orchestra and conductor Robert Ames, as well as extracts from the Elgar Cello Concerto, with Sophie Kauer and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Natalie Murray Beale, and Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, with Blanchett as the helm of the Dresdner Philharmonic.
Gudnadóttir worked closely with Field in a multi-faceted musical role, which included not only penning the score which we see the gifted artist Tár shaping but also creating a soundtrack reflecting a world separate from the music processes and delving into the psychological aspect of the story, conveying the protagonist’s troubled state of mind and spirit. Gudnadóttir’s score has an unsettling feel. which she described as “otherworldly” and “this kind of invisible thing” that seeps into your psyche.
Gudnadóttir said that working on Tár was “a wonderful experience. It was such a great joy to get to explore the creative process of writing and performing with such artists as Todd Field and Cate Blanchett.” The composer added that to take “a deep dive” with Field and Blanchett into a story about art, music, the creative and personal mindset–and to bring all that to the big screen–was especially gratifying.
This is the sixth installment of a 17-part series with future installments of The Road To Oscar slated to run in the weekly SHOOT>e.dition, The SHOOT Dailies and on SHOOTonline.com, with select installments also in print issues. The series will appear weekly through the Academy Awards gala ceremony. Nominations for the 95th Academy Awards will be announced on Tuesday, January 24, 2023. The 95th Oscars will be held on Sunday, March 12, 2023.
