Iceland review - 2019, Page 40

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Iceland Review
Powering the Future
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work from, she actually reads the
script. It’s an activity which, for her,
is also corporeal. “I experience it
very physically when I read. You feel
the scene or what the character is
going through internally.”
Hildur’s experience has a basis
in neurological research, which has
shown that reading activates the
same regions of the brain as actual experience. It is in
fact a more creative process for the brain than process-
ing images or speech – i.e. watching a film. In the words
of researcher Dr. Maryanne Wolf, it forces the brain
to “construct, to produce narrative, to imagine.” It’s
easy to see how reading a script could jumpstart the
compositional process in a way that watching a screen
simply can’t.
Beyond words
There’s nothing more natural to Hildur than express-
ing these inner experiences through music. “For me,
music is a mode of communication, and I express
myself better in music than in words,” she asserts. This
is one reason the musician prefers to work with people
she knows well, like her partner Sam Slater, who pro-
duced the music for both Chernobyl and Joker. “I try to
work with people who know me well enough that I don’t
have to explain what I mean. It makes the collaboration
much warmer, closer, and easier. I’m
very lucky that I can work closely
with my family.”
Nevertheless, Hildur says, the
process of scoring a film is “a huge
exercise in patience and collabo-
ration. There are so many people
that have a say, especially when it
comes to the music. There are so
many opinions you have to take into account. For some
scenes, it takes months of meetings and back-and-
forth to find the right pace and feel.”
Intrapersonal
After a packed year, Hildur tells me she looks forward
to taking some time off, and then returning to her
closest collaborator – herself. “It’s really important
to me to have space to think and look inside myself.”
In an industry so focused on image, it can be a hard
need to accommodate. I ask Hildur about the pressure
musicians face to be constantly active online. “I find
it a bit of a sad development, to be honest. I find the
more time I spend on social media, the less headspace
I have for making music. If I had to give advice to young
musicians, I would say absolutely without a doubt focus
more on looking inward rather than looking outward.”
Ultimately, For Hildur, being true to the story on the
screen springs from being true to your inner self.
“Because the events at Chernobyl
were so devastating in themselves, I
found it was really important that I
wasn’t exaggerating anything with
thriller music or dramatic strings.”