Meet Hildur Gudnadóttir, The Historic Oscar Winner And A Total Fucking Badass
Hildur Gudnadóttir wrote the score to both 'Joker' and 'Chernobyl' -- but she's been a music legend for years.
Earlier this week, at the Oscars, a young Icelandic composer named Hildur Gudnadóttir stood up and delivered the sweetest speech of the night.
Gudnadóttir won the coveted award for her work scoring Joker, the Todd Phillips-directed character study. Gudnadóttir and Phillips had worked together closely throughout production on the film — unusually, the composer wrote all her music before cameras even started rolling, and it was played live on set for star Joaquin Phoenix to react to.
The win was historic. Gudnadóttir is only the third woman in the Academy’s history to win the Best Original Score Oscar, and the first woman to win after two separate awards — Best Original Music and Best Comedy Score — were folded into one, back in 2000. Then there was the matter of her speech.
Clearly overwhelmed with emotion, Gudnadóttir began her address by thanking her fellow nominees, calling them “masters of the craft.”
Then, in two succinct sentences, she issued something of a call to arms. “To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters, who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up,” Gudnadóttir said. “We need to hear your voices.”
"To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up, we need to hear your voices." Watch Hildur Gudnadóttir's moving speech after winning best original score for #Joker https://t.co/qk9EfzkrUE #Oscars pic.twitter.com/o8jgRQsxT9
— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) February 10, 2020
For those who had been paying attention to Gudnadóttir’s time on the press circuit, it was a typically endearing presentation. After all, just watch the press conference she gave immediately after winning the Golden Globe, a heartwarming chat which opens with her confusedly asking if she’s meant to say anything:
Or, for instance, her very brief run-in with Brad Pitt himself at an Oscar’s after-party, as she says a sweet hello to him while getting her award engraved with her name.
thinking pic.twitter.com/jhTw4B2bI8
— dee (@bradasstra) February 10, 2020
These clips have made her something of a viral star, almost overnight, much to the delight of the musician’s fans, who have been following her since at least 2009. But who is she, and where is the best place to start with her diverse and varied discography?
So, Who Is Hildur Gudnadóttir?
Gudnadóttir, who was born in Iceland, trained as a cellist, and began her career collaborating with other musicians. She extensively toured with both indie heroes Animal Collective and psych-rock doomsayers Sunn O))), and her playing can be heard on a host of beloved records, including some by The Knife and slow motion dreampoppers Múm.
By 2006, however, the musician had gone solo. She released her first record, Mount A in late that year. An exercise in isolating herself from the world, the record features a host of instruments, all played by Gudnadóttir alone. Of all the tracks on the record, ‘Reflection’ is the most beautiful — a becalmed, slightly eerie soundscape that provides an excellent introduction into the musician’s work.
Three years later, the musician released another masterwork. Without Sinking expanded the remit of her sound, moving away from her isolated approach on Mount A, and enlisting the help of other musicians like the late, great film composer Jóhann Jóhannsson. That record nestles around ‘Unveiled’, a track that pushes and expands the sound of the cello, producing a throttled, thick-as-molasses masterpiece.
Gudnadóttir’s Soundtrack Work
Gudnadóttir’s first solo soundtrack was for Sicario: Day of the Soldado — the original film, Sicario, had been scored by her longtime collaborator Jóhannsson. Although the film itself was unfairly derided by some critics — it’s actually a haunting masterwork, as dark and impressive as the original — Gudnadóttir’s work won acclaim.
Three years later, Gudnadóttir wrote one of her best known works, the score to the massive HBO miniseries Chernobyl. Sweeping and eerie, the score has been heralded as one of the instrumental works that most clearly and intelligently deals with the destruction of the environment and the failure of the capitalistic machine. In a review of a live performance of the Chernobyl score, Pitchfork’s Philip Sherburne noted the anger and the devastation at the heart of the piece.
“The physicality of it was overwhelming,” Sherburne writes, “and then Guðnadóttir began to sing. Barefoot, head bowed, she offered up a wordless song of almost terrible beauty, her high soprano as fine and sharp as a surgical instrument. It became clear that this was nothing less than a lament — for the dead and the sickened, for the ruined land and poisoned future, for all the human-made disasters still to come.”
Indeed, the score netted the composer a Grammy, another historic win — she was the first solo woman to pick up the award. Combined with her Emmy win for the same soundtrack, that means that Gudnadóttir is only a Tony award from nabbing the historic EGOT. Sounds like we need a Hildur Gudnadóttir musical, and stat.
Joseph Earp is a staff writer at Junkee and an OG Hildur Gudnadóttir stan. He tweets @Joseph_O_Earp.