6 min read
There’s an image that Ludwig Göransson will never forget. At nine years old, the future film composer crept down into his family’s basement in Linköoping, Sweden. He was met by the noise of thumping kick drums and guitars as loud as car engines. The sound was shocking enough, but what he saw evaded comprehension: his father headbanging to Metallica.
Göransson’s father is a Swedish blues guitarist, but he was a teacher as well and was listening to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” to better relate to his students. The kid never forgot the dichotomy: his dad, a master of smooth improvisation, appreciating the chaos of Metallica. Because even if you can’t understand the words, or even what you’re hearing, you can still feel it.
“At the time, I didn’t think that without blues, there wouldn’t be Metallica,” Göransson, 41, tells me now. “Blues music changed my dad’s life, and it made him put a guitar in my hands.” The young Metallica fan would grow up to work with some of the most celebrated directors of the 21st century, composing award-winning music for films such as Black Panther and Oppenheimer—both of which aggressively defied genre conventions. His latest, for Sinners (in which he teamed up again with Panther director Ryan Coogler) will most likely earn him Oscar, which will sit next to his Best Original Score trophies for Panther and Oppenheimer. “I’m working with the best storytellers, not just filmmakers, and it takes a lot out of you when you’re really giving it your all,” Göransson says. “I become so obsessed because I love the work so much.”
If you’re unfamiliar with Göransson’s transcendent work in Sinners, you should change that now. Göransson partnered with a lineup of blues legends and modern-day torch-bearers: Buddy Guy, Raphael Saadiq, Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes, and Al Green’s producer Lawrence “Boo” Mitchell, who helped him write nearly the entire score on a vintage 1932 Dobro Cyclops from Göransson’s personal collection. “Working on Sinners, it really allowed me to explore the connection between blues and every kind of music,” he says.
In one of the film’s most celebrated scenes, an aspiring Delta blues musician, played by newcomer Miles Canton, strums a song on his guitar so powerful that it conjures up the spirits of music’s past and future. L.A. rappers crip-walk next to traditional Zaouli dancers from Côte d’Ivoire. A West African drummer chants in Mandinka. An electric guitarist dressed like Jimi Hendrix wails away as the music burns a massive hole in the roof. The scene not only celebrates the impact of Black music throughout history, but it also drives home one of the movie’s messages about music’s power to transcend barriers and bring people together.
“I remember reading that on the page and my jaw dropped,” Göransson says. “I’ve had moments on stage where I get in a trance, but I’ve never seen it written down. I thought, How the hell are we going to do this?”
How did he do it? Did Göransson conjure the ghost of Robert Johnson to sell his soul to the devil in return for his skills? Or was he serious when he said his dad named him after Ludwig van Beethoven and then handed him a guitar at six years old? Let’s just say both.
Ludwig Göransson is a two-time Oscar winner for his work on Black Panther and Oppenheimer.
Growing up, Göransson listened to as much music as he could get his hands on. He was a teenager when Napster illegally flooded the Internet with every song ever recorded for free. Naturally, Göransson shoved everything on his hard drive, from John Williams scores to traditional Middle Eastern, African, and Balkan music. Not only was his father a guitarist, but his mother was a pianist—so a career in music was all but inevitable.
It’s tough to put your finger on why the Swede was so drawn to film scores, but Göransson remembers the day when Danny Elfman’s score for Edward Scissorhands left tears running down his cheeks. And if you can weep over a man with giant knives for fingers simply from the music alone, then you’re certainly hooked for life. “That was the first time I understood that I’m crying because of the music,” he tells me. “It was just so beautiful.”
It was enough to make him seek out a proper education in film scoring, so Göransson moved to Los Angeles in 2007 to study at the University of Southern California. He lived in a closed-down fraternity house, describing the scene as the craziest American college movie come to life. One night, he was playing pool at a party when a mutual friend introduced him to a man who would change his life: Ryan Coogler. The aspiring director happened to be into Swedish indie artists like Lykke Li and Little Dragon, who were both having a moment abroad in the late aughts.
The young men talked about music, then about film, and before he knew it, Göransson was scoring Coogler’s first short film, Locks. “He was really excited that I had written the music on my guitar,” Göransson says. Coogler didn’t know much about scoring at the time, so he loved that Göransson prepared something that felt real and tangible. Sometimes, film scores simply sound like a formula, according to Göransson. “It’s just not interesting when you keep hearing the same things,” he says. Since then, from Fruitvale Station and Creed to Black Panther and Sinners, there hasn’t been a Coogler film without Göransson’s music.
Every Ryan Coolger (left) film, from Fruitvale Station to Sinners, boasts a score from Ludwig Göransson.
While some composers argue that the perfect film score is unobtrusive, working behind the acting to help enhance the emotions of any given moment, Göransson’s work often sets the scene itself. It’s not overpowering, but his music is just as important to the characters and the world-building on screen. And much like his memory of his dad headbanging to Metallica in his childhood basement, Göransson’s sounds attempt to instill that feeling of What the hell did I just hear? in his audience.
Case in point: For Coogler’s take on Black Panther, Göransson traveled to Africa and recorded Fula flute players who shouted the name of the film’s supervillain into their Senegalese woodwinds as they blew through their trills. In Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer, the composer messed with time signatures to force the roughly 60-piece Hollywood Studio Orchestra to emulate the sporadic nature of quantum mechanics. Then, for Tenet, the time-traveling sci-fi film, the composer manipulated his score to seamlessly play both forward and backward.
“When you can play an instrument, that’s how you have your conversations,” he says of his ability to fuse his ideas with musicians around the globe. “I give people space to lead, and if you’re genuine about why you’re there and what you’re trying to do, it’s really fun to be able to explore something together.”
“Working on Sinners, it really allowed me to explore the connection between blues and every kind of music,” Göransson says.
Next up, audiences will hear Göransson’s score for Nolan’s The Odyssey, in theaters July 17. The ambitious and highly clandestine film—from how it looks to how it sounds—is bound in more secrecy than the construction of the Trojan horse itself. The first round of IMAX tickets sold out within an hour, months before audiences even saw the first teaser. When the trailer finally arrived, Göransson’s score was merely hinted at with war horns, a full chorus, and pounding synthesizers.
“What’s been important for me is to keep that playfulness,” Göransson says about his approach to each of his film scores. “Connecting with my younger self—just lost in some kind of adventure. That’s the feeling you’re trying to re-create.”
He teases that he’s debuting “a whole new thing” in the upcoming blockbuster, but whatever ancient Greek traditions or unheard-of island seashell ocarinas he immersed himself in for this film are momentarily his secrets to keep. When Troy’s gates open, Göransson promises you’ll hear it.