Hildur Guðnadóttir took home the Oscar for best original score for ‘Joker’. She is the first solo woman to take home this award for a dramatic composition, and the first Icelander ever to win an Oscar. Rachel Portman won best musical score for ‘Emma’ in 1996, and Anne Dudley won best comedy score for ‘The Full Monty’ in 1997. The academy combined the categories in 2000, after splitting them in the mid 1990’s after Disney movies won best original score six years in a row.
This achievement is completely unprecedented. She was up against giants of the industry for the award. Among the other contenders were Thomas Newman (1917) Alexandre Desplat (Little Women) Randy Newman (Marriage Story) and John Williams (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker). Hildur acknowledged her fellow masters of the craft before thanking director Todd Phillips. Then she said, “To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up.”
Hildur’s Oscar win and her speech was greeted with thunderous applause at the Dolby Theatre. Representation and recognition of women in Hollywood was a recurring theme throughout the ceremony. Renowned icons of feminine empowerment Gal Gadot, Brie Larson, and Sigourney Weaver presented the awards.
It is worth noting that Hildur has won every award she has been nominated for thus far. She won an Emmy in September, and a Grammy in January for her somber score in HBO’s ‘Chernobyl’. She also won a Golden Globe and a BAFTA for ‘Joker’. If she wins a Tony, she’ll have an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony). ‘Joker: The Musical,’ anyone?
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