{"id":471376,"date":"2025-10-03T15:16:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T15:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/471376\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T15:16:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T15:16:11","slug":"joker-composer-hildur-gudnadottir-on-gyllenhaals-the-bride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/471376\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Joker’ Composer Hildur Gu\u00f0nad\u00f3ttir on Gyllenhaal’s The Bride!’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHere comes \u201cThe Bride!<\/a>\u201d Composer Hildur Gu\u00f0nad\u00f3ttir<\/a>, who received an Academy Award for \u201cJoker,\u201d is already waiting for her.<\/p>\n

\n\tMaggie Gyllenhaal\u2019s upcoming monster movie, taking on the \u201cFrankenstein\u201d mythos, stars Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. In the film, Frankenstein travels to 1930s Chicago to seek the aid of a Dr. Euphronius in creating a companion for himself. They end up reinvigorating a murdered young woman.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was a little bit nuts,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Bride!\u201d debuted its trailer<\/a> back in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt\u2019s a very layered world with lots of different things happening. There\u2019s a love story, thriller and the monstrous birth of a woman. There\u2019s lots of excitement and violence,\u201d says Gu\u00f0nad\u00f3ttir, describing Gyllenhaal\u2019s follow-up to \u201cThe Lost Daughter\u201d as \u201cintense.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was both very punk and very romantic, which made it kind of crazy. There\u2019s screaming electric guitar AND an orchestra. That\u2019s what\u2019s so interesting to me about film as a medium. It\u2019s not about being \u2018real\u2019 or accurate. You can have fun and let your imagination run wild.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGu\u00f0nad\u00f3ttir, born in Iceland, talks to\u00a0Variety\u00a0at Zurich Film Festival<\/a>, where she\u2019ll receive the career achievement award and showcase Nia DaCosta\u2019s \u201cHedda.\u201d Featuring Tessa Thompson, it\u2019s based on Henrik Ibsen\u2019s 1890 play.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThroughout history, women were portrayed as a good princess or a bad witch. But they\u2019re much more than that, which is why it\u2019s so important to revisit juicy characters like Hedda. She\u2019s not just nice or resentful. She\u2019s everything. Just like Lydia T\u00e1r,\u201d she says, mentioning Cate Blanchett\u2019s tour-de-force role in Todd Field\u2019s drama she also scored.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m so interested in these complex women and I try to match their complexity with my music.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWith DaCosta\u2019s post-apocalyptic horror \u201c28 Years Later: The Bone Temple\u201d set to premiere next year, Gu\u00f0nad\u00f3ttir admits she generally tends to \u201cgravitate more towards darkness.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m trying to understand why that is. Why do I keep coming back? Then again, we can\u2019t shy away from difficult subjects, darker sides of human nature, mental illness or catastrophes like Chernobyl.\u201d She also scored the acclaimed HBO miniseries, winning an Emmy and a Grammy for her work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe have to learn from these stories \u2013 and our mistakes. And try to understand what we can do better.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tShe wanted to go dark also in \u201cWomen Talking<\/a>,\u201d based on a novel by Miriam Toews and depicting an isolated religious community where women are being drugged and sexually assaulted. Director Sarah Polley changed her mind.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThat was such an interesting project to score, because the subject is so harsh. It\u2019s really violent \u2013 it\u2019s hard to face what these women went through. When I first read the script, I just remember being so angry on behalf of them,\u201d she recalls.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI was upset, so it would be easy to write very angry or aggressive music. Sarah\u2019s approach was interesting, because she didn\u2019t want to dwell on the horror. What we see is horrendous enough \u2013 we don\u2019t need to add more. She wanted to give these women hope. This doesn\u2019t have to define who they are forever.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThat was the role of the music, she explains: to serve as \u201cthe counterpoint to the horror.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was supposed to be hopeful and light, and drive the story forward while looking at their beautiful relationship. My intuition was dark \u2013 Sarah pointed me into something lighter. It gave me a lot of hope, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a precious experience also because it\u2019s not easy to remain hopeful these days, she notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s the uprising of hate speech and we\u2019re going backwards on women\u2019s rights. It\u2019s something I\u2019ve really been struggling with and struggling with how to respond. It makes you numb, seeing where this whole conversation about women is heading. You\u2019re speechless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe adds: \u201cI thought to myself: What difference does it make if I make music or not, when there\u2019s so much hatred? I\u2019ve been sitting with it for the last few months, but the worst I can do is to stay silent. I have to continue using my voice and connecting with people from a place of empathy and care.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTo prove her point, Gu\u00f0nad\u00f3ttir will be heading on a small tour with latest album \u201cWhere to From.\u201d<\/a> \u201cMy first solo album in 10 years!,\u201d she enthuses. Puppeteer Gis\u00e9le Vienne is behind the cover art.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI used to tour all the time, but when I had my son, I stopped traveling as much. I focused more on composition and less on performing. I haven\u2019t played a cello concert for nine years, almost to the day,\u201d she shakes her head.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt was time to go back. Sitting in a room full of people, listening to music together\u2026 It\u2019s so powerful.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here comes \u201cThe Bride!\u201d Composer Hildur Gu\u00f0nad\u00f3ttir, who received an Academy Award for \u201cJoker,\u201d is already waiting for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":471377,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3935],"tags":[77,156980,156981,3943,150591,16,15,156982,152941],"class_list":{"0":"post-471376","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-hildur-guu00f0nadu00f3ttir","10":"tag-maggie-gyllenahaal","11":"tag-movies","12":"tag-the-bride","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom","15":"tag-women-talking","16":"tag-zurich-film-festival"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115310899137479204","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=471376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/471376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/471377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=471376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=471376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=471376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}