Born in Kiev and raised in Milwaukee before finding her leadership destiny as Israel’s female force of stone-hard nature, the striking figure of Golda Meir has been on screen in the avenging angel personages of Colleen Dewhurst and Lynn Cohen in “Sword of Gideon” and “Munich,” Ingrid Bergman on the miniseries “A Woman Called Golda” and with Tovah Feldshuh’s one-woman stage show. Yet arguably there’s no actress better created for playing heads of states in crisis than Helen Mirren, who essays a pitch-perfect “Golda” for her role in the near-catastrophic Yom Kippur War, during which enemy Arab Nations tried to annihilate Israel at its holiest holiday – all despite the warnings that Israel received.
The ticking time bomb that was heard for nearly three weeks of a nation on the precipice is recounted by director Guy Nattiv (“Skin”) in “Golda,” a film that holds front and center on a never-better, yet less-effusive than usual Helen Mirren – whose leader makes a point of holding back emotion to catastrophic effect on herself. It’s a movie that reflects Meir’s steely determination in a strikingly off-center psychological fashion that pays no favors to traditional biopic filmmaking or scoring for that matter in the equally offbeat work of Moscow-born and Berlin-trained composer Dascha Dauenhauer.
Lauded in Germany for “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” “Bliss” and “Evolution,” Dauenhauer’s often unnerving work truly travelled to American ears aboard “Blood Red Sky,” an ingenious vampire mom versus terrorists on a plane picture that landed via Netflix. Remaining prolific and award-winning in Germany with “Tender Years” and the series “Souls” and “The Swarm,” “Golda” strikingly represents Dauenhauer’s true flight to an essentially English-language film via an Israeli film.
Where Meir’s past appearances had been treated with the kind of impassioned biopic scoring one might expect, Daunhauer’s approach is one of discombobulating menace, inner fear and at times pure terror – which suits Nattiv’s stylistic way of embodying chaos outside of Meir’s orbit in the form of pressure cooker meetings, private breakdowns, dead birds and, in its most effective sequences, a humorously barbed, oh-so-gently goading meeting with Liev Schreiber’s Henry Kissinger, whose Jewish identity and Nixon administration offers no favors to a Hebrew state on the edge of annihilation.
Like such impressionistic peers as Hildur Guðnadóttir (“Tar”) and Micah Levi (“Jackie”), Daunhauer applies an unsettling experimental vocabulary to “Golda.” It’s a score full of harsh metallic effects, sorrowful violins, ghostly voices, stabbing percussion and unforgiving rhythm – the sound of a woman watching her country’s doomsday clock tick away as one counteroffensive goes wrong after the other to the radio screams of dying soldiers. Yet we basically have to imagine these horrors in Golda’s face as Daunhauer’s powerfully succinct music plays over tight close-ups, its often-dissonant structure hammering away at a resolve that can only drop in blood-coughing private. Just about the only mercy that Daunhauer shows to musical convention comes towards the end in a greatly moving, neo-classical elegy for Golda. It’s a particularly unsettling approach to Meir, yet one perfectly in tune with an a deliberately obtuse portrayal of crisis, as put on the chain-smoking shoulders of a controversial icon, and an acting Dame who knows how to play formidable first lady leaders like no one’s business.
Tell us about your musical upbringing, and what got you into scoring?
I had a strict and very intense Classical education where I started playing the piano and composing at the age of 5. This was followed by many concerts with my own pieces for different instrumentation. After completing numerous degrees in piano and music theory, I thought about what I wanted to become in my life and decided to combine my two absolute passions – film and music. I studied film scoring at the film university in Babelsberg. In my final year of my masters, Burhan Qurbani asked me to compose the music for his new movie “Berlin Alexanderplatz,” which won numerous awards and got quite a lot of attention internationally.
How would you describe your musical voice?
Curious, experimental, minimalistic, unique, drastic, uncompromising, bold, with some influences from “New Music.”
Director Guy Nattiv and star Helen Mirren
What brought Guy Nattiv to you to compose “Golda?” And once you got the gig, did you do your own research into Golda and The Yom Kippur War?
Actually, it’s a funny story because Guy discovered me on Instagram and listened to my music which he loved. During filming for “Golda,” Guy was looking for a composer and approached me with an Instagram message. During our first zoom call, he told me that he played my music from another film (“Evolution” while shooting scenes with Helen Mirren. When Guy approached me for this project, I immediately started doing research on the Yom Kippur War and on Golda. I watched footage of Golda Meir to capture her aura and to see her talking and gesturing, and of course I wanted to get more knowledge about her and the Yom Kippur War.
With director Guy Native at the “Golda” recording session
How did you and director Guy Nattiv decide on a musical style for “Golda,” and what was your collaboration like?
Guy approached me with the idea to create an orchestral score, so this was clear from the very beginning. We decided not to use electronic sounds and focus on an acoustic score. It’s a challenge to write an interesting acoustic score. It was up to me to work on compelling harmony colors, musical playing techniques and to find unique combinations of instruments.
“Golda” is an often dissonant, stripped-down score that could easily be mistaken at points for emanating from a horror movie. Do you think that eerie, harsh chamber approach is all the better for throwing audiences into a life-or-death situation – to the point where Meir tells her confidante that she won’t be taken alive if the Arab attack succeeds?
“Golda” is an extraordinary biopic and an anti-war film. It plays on the psychological level because you don’t see big battlefields as in most films about war, which I really like. We tried to convey a lot through the music and sound (alongside the outstanding performance of Helen Mirren and the other actors). The music includes different music mood directions. It was also important to convey the horror of war through eerie and harsh chamber sounds.
As intensely played by Helen Mirren, Golda Meir is a no-nonsense, highly calculating leader who masks her emotion. How did you want to capture that?
I think the film captures the emotional moments behind this hard and tough facade very well. The music is versatile and always tries to add a layer that you can’t see in the picture, each one telling its own story.
What kind of Hebraic elements did you want to put into the score?
I didn’t work in this way. Every story is a universal story for me. I find culturally told music can be a constraint. We see an Israeli woman and a film set in Israel so, we did not want to duplicate this using regional music. I always try to tell a universal story with my music, so that everybody can find themselves in a story regardless of their origin, gender or culture.
“Golda” is told in flashback way that is nonetheless chronological in depicting the day-to-day progression of the Yom Kippur War. How did you want to capture that essence of the doomsday clock ticking for Israel?
The music isn’t built this way, rather motif-like or thematic. I find that the film does it amazingly well on the dramaturgical level, so I didn’t feel the urge to create it artificially with the music.
There’s often a metallic nature to “Golda’s” score. What kind of sampling did you use to achieve that?
I consider composing an acoustic score to be very challenging. I tried to find a very specific sound for my instrumentation. So I went to Budapest to record with the Inspired Strings because of the dry recording hall they use and followed this up in the mixing as well. Sometimes the mix sounds like there is a feeling of breathlessness, which I love. Besides this, I used an uncommon instrument: Cowbells. I was looking for a pitched percussion instrument and was tired of the xylophone and then I discovered the cowbells, I sampled them and tuned every bell to a slightly different pitch giving the score a distinctive sound.
Tell us about conveying Golda’s crushing anxiety.
I tried to capture Golda’s anxiety mainly through the orchestra. I decided to work with musical textures. When I went to Budapest, I went with certain ideas but knew that I would have to experiment a lot and to try things out. The chaos in her head when she suffers these anxieties is told in the music through the several layers of different playing techniques. I wanted to make the audience feel overwhelmed through the music.
As a woman, what do you think you brought to the depiction of a steel-strong female in charge, even if you don’t get a sense here of her being belittled for being the emotional, “weaker” sex, as some of the men around her might think?
All women sit in the same boat when it comes to our representation to the outward. As a woman, you often have to seem hard and kind of unemotional to be taken seriously. This is the way women prove themselves to work in these kinds of positions. As for Golda, we are talking about a female politician surrounded by men, fifty years ago. I think it was really important for me to show her multilayered facets through the soundtrack and to capture her fears, doubts and regret.
Tell us about scoring the scenes of Golda and Henry Kissinger, as well as her adversarial relationship with the Nixon administration that’s about the threat of not helping?
The scenes between Golda and Kissinger are my absolute favorite in the film. They are ingeniously scripted and directed because they manage the balancing act between being deeply shuddering, overwhelming but also entertaining and ironic. I also think that the acting between Helen and Liev works incredibly well which encouraged me to write a theme that contains elements of tango. It’s like a passionate dance for life or death.
Your score resolutely avoid whole-hearted melody until we got your Requiem for Golda, as well as the impactful scene of her viewing the solders’ coffins at the airport. How did you to decide to “open up” the music for more of a traditionally emotional response?
The entire film has a consistent tension that doesn’t let up until the point at which the war is finally over. Exactly at this point Golda’s extreme tension turns into a deep emotional hole of sadness, regret and remorse. It’s a tragedy and devastating. I wanted to compose a kind of requiem for Golda and all the people who died in the war. In order to convey the depth of these emotions, I decided on a piece in a more classical style, as what is familiar and simpler to us, usually affects us much more emotionally.
What do you want your score’s listeners to take away about the character of Golda Meir?
I wanted to tell many different layers with my music. It is a score intended to convey an uneasy and apocalyptic feeling to the audience, I also wanted to depict this incredibly strong and complex woman who is also vulnerable and tragic. Overall I wanted capture the horror of war and what it makes of people.
What’s up ahead for you? And are there any historical figures, or incidents of particular resonance to you that you’d like to score?
I just finished the score for the highly political film “Tatami,” which was directed by Guy Nattiv and Zar Amir Emrahimi. The premiere will take place in Venice. Next, I’m working on a new project by Burhan Qurbani of “Berlin Alexanderplatz.” He is going to make a modern adaption of Shakespeare’s Richard III. In general, I’m very interested in historical and political stories that are really relevant to watch.
Do you think there’s a rise in impressionistic female composers like yourself, Hildur Guðnadóttir (“Women Talking”) and Mica Levi (“Jackie”)? And if so, what do you think it shows in a larger context about how experimental film scores can get?
I think that there is a general rise in the wish for hearing more experimental soundtracks, and simultaneously there is a rise and a higher recognition of women composers. I’m always on the lookout for something we haven’t heard before in films. The braver, the better. My personal dream is to compose a score for 21 plastic bags and 3 contrabasses but it might be a challenge to find a director who is willing to have such a score.
See “Golda” in theaters and VOD now, and get “Golda’s” soundtrack on Lakeshore Records HERE
Visit Dascha Dauenhauer’s website HERE
Special thanks to Sarah Roche at White Bear Public Relations