The Fault in Our 'TÁR'
Monday, October 10, 2022 at 7:05PM by Nathaniel R
Cate Blanchett as "TÁR" © Focus Features
The world famous conductor Lydia Tár is breathing strangely in the wings. As she inhales and exhales forcefully with tiny staccato bursts of her facial muscles, the image of a rock star hopping in place, self-hyping before their concert is conjured. Will Tár's elite audience devolve into a hysterical screaming teenager at the first sight of her?
Conductor as rock star? It's a rare and incredulous notion. Gone are the days of monoculture when a "Maestro" like Leonard Bernstein (emphatically name checked) could become a household name. But in Todd Field's TÁR we believe it, surely in part because one of the most famous movie stars in the world is playing her. In the year of our lord 2022, Cate Blanchett needs no introduction; Lydia Tár is a different story, and her introduction -- an exhausting recitation of her many diverse accomplishments as she turns 50 -- is a doozy...
Despite the hoopla we're not here for a concert, but an on-stage interview. Nevertheless two points are boldy and quickly made: Lydia Tár is a rock star in the rarified world of classical music; Lydia Tár is an absolute believer in her own hype.
By the time the title card comes up, putting TÁR in all caps feels exactly right. Lydia would demand it.
As the interview progresses, the maestro waxes profoundly and charismatically about Time. She thinks of the conductor (i.e. herself) as, essentially, the God of it. While her words have both a poetic beauty and the ring of aesthetic truth, they also feel like a blasphemous dare. Even the way she jokes about herself, self-identifying as a "U-Haul lesbian", is double-edged. Her quips are amusing but off-putting from rehearsed self-deprecation masking the narcissism.
The next time we see Lydia with a large audience the scene is even more loaded with the kind of inexorable dread you'd more normally associate with a horror film than a character-based drama about a classical musician. As a guest instructor at Juilliard she becomes annoyed with a student about his disinterest in the great composers because 'they're all old white men' and attempts rather forcefully to browbeat him into appreciative submission. When that doesn't work she shifts tactics 'Would he want to be judged solely based on his ethnicity once he enters the musical profession?' Her words are convincing until they aren't; she takes it too far belittling his intelligence and 'social media based personality' in front of his classmates who are as offended as he is.
Noemi Merlant as Tár's trusted but abused assistant in TÁR © Focus Features
We have every reason to believe that Lydia Tár is the great and influential conductor the movie posits her as. But she's also definitely an asshole. And why is she tempting fate at the peak of her career? Even before Lydia begins to unravel, we can feel it coming. The film's haunting sound work (featuring a score by Oscar winner Hildur Guðnadóttir along with many classical pieces) foreshadows that something awful is around the corner as Lydia hears noises on occassion that feel almost supernatural in their irregularity and origins. A conductor can stop the music with a simple gesture but Time is no one's plaything. It doesn't stop and Lydia's peak cannot last. Once you've reached the top of the world, there's only one way to go.
Surprising virtually no one who has followed her long career, Cate Blanchett is up to the task of this incredibly demanding role. Lydia is both a feminist trailblazer and monstrously self-serving, especially when it comes to her career ambitions and sexual conquests. It's a towering and daringly confident performance, perched on a razor's edge between legitimate genius and emperor's new clothes hollowness. Blanchett's work is so robust she allows you to lean towards either interpretation or accept that all of your conflicted feelings about Lydia are earned. She's a recognizably human mess of contradictions underneath the tailored suits and elite sophistication.
Still, for all the bouquets and hosannas that will be tossed Blanchett's way it's worth noting how masterfully Todd Field sets her up for success. His world building specificity, inspired choice of craft collaborators, and sensititivity to performance provide the sturidest springboards for the cast. TÁR may be Cate's show, but it's no solo. The supporting players including Nina Hoss as Lydia's complicit wife, Noemi Merlant as her longsuffering assistant, Allan Corduner as the thorn in her side, Sophie Kauer as a new cellist she lusts after, and Julian Glover as her mentor are all marvelous.
Field's screenplay, too, is a thing of ingenious construction. That intro we began with, Lydia breathing in the wings, is recalled perfectly in an alarming pivot point when Lydia behaves more like a feral animal uncaged than a rock star emerging from behind a curtain.
Nina Hoss and Cate Blanchett as longtime partners in "Tar" © Focus Features
Nevertheless to call Tár a "downfall" movie is wildly simplistic. It also feels reductive to describe it thematically as a response to current social conversations about "grooming" (not in regards to age -- they're all adults-- so much as power imbalances and sexual ethics), "cancel culture", generational shifts around identity, and the never-ending battle about when and why and how to separate the art from the artist. In short, TÁR is loaded with ideas and provocations.
At 158 minutes this challenging barrage won't be for everyone and Field risks overstuffing the picture. But risks can also bring rewards. His duet with Blanchett is so suffused with fine scene work, thrilling performance flourishes, and impressively thorny ideas that the film flies by. Even the arguably meandering epilogue brings new understanding if not resolution to Lydia's undoing. The maestro fashioned herself a master of time until her time was up. But the most satifsying takeaway when it comes to the clock might be how willfully Todd Field has bent it in his own favor to start anew. Despite vanishing from the cinema after just two features (In the Bedroom, Little Children) his third film, fourteen years later, might well be his best. At the very least its inarguably his most ambitious. Lydia herself, so hard to please and opinionated about ART, would approve. A-
Tár is currently in limited release. It expands on October 28th. Expect it to factor into a few Oscar races but especially Best Actress. After you've seen the movie there's also an article on its divisive ending to discuss.
Reader Comments (9)
Nice review. I’d give it an A+.
Having seen it, the “difficult” label following TÀR around pisses me off. Enjoying and absorbing this movie is not hard work—it absolutely glides through 158 minutes, something that can’t be said of *most* overlong Best Picture nominees in recent years. It’s a visual feast, deeply funny at moments, entertaining as hell. It doesn’t drag or lose momentum. It’s told in a very linear way.
If you’re expecting some punishing pretentious art film that tests your patience, keep your expectations right there—they’ll be wildly exceeded. TAR is a popcorn flick compared to Nomadland and loads of other patience-testing slogs that never got called “difficult.”
I do want to see this though I really need to watch In the Bedroom. 158 minutes? Pshh... I've seen films that are longer than that.
The whole thing about it being “challenging” due to its 158-minute length is frankly a bit frustrating to me considering nobody is going to call the new Black Panther or Avatar movies “challenging” even though they’re even longer. It reminds me of 2019 when I knew a bunch of people who scoffed at watching The Irishman because of its length but gladly watched the only slightly shorter Avengers: Endgame.
For the record, I’m totally not saying you’re guilty but of that behavior. I’m just getting annoyed by others complaining about the length of certain independent/arthouse movies when a lot of blockbusters are just as long if not even longer.
Your review made me even more excited to watch a film I was already pretty psyched to see. But, sadly, TÁR only comes to Portuguese theaters in February, so unless it gets a press/festival screening or I get my hands on a screener, I'll have to wait until then to see it. I'm so fed up I could cry.
I can't wait, can't wait, can't wait. I've sat through a lot of slogs that end up winning big at the Oscars: GHANDI, OUT OF AFRICA, AMADEUS, THE ENGLISH PATIENT. I have a feeling this one will sail along for me in comparison. Welcome back, Todd Field. We've missed you.
What a great review,I know a bit more but still in the dark,Blanchett is obviously the frontrunner but I have a hunch she'll lose to Williams who is in a friendlier picture.
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Really loved this writeup. It's a film and a performance that I can't stop thinking about, even four days after seeing it.
Neither Todd Field or Cate Blanchett easily guide you on how to feel about our central character. This leaves room for great rumination and interpretation. Every moment we spend with Lydia Tar feels lived in, from how she drives with her daughter to when she sneaks pills from her wife. Could easily spend more time with Lydia Tar, getting into the psyche of a woman who refuses to apologize.
Also, the accordion scene is my favorite and will stay with me the rest of the season.
It's also interesting to note that her final scene involves a headset. Despite how much she wants to tell her musicians about the meaning of the score, she is musically imprisoned by a click track in her ears. The music is prescribed for her, she will repeat this same performance for as long as she has the gig. She is no longer in charge of the tempo, which she so lovingly discusses at the start of the film.
Regarding the on-stage attack at the start of the Mahler, it had to have been a hallucination. Out of character, but also I doubt the off-stage trumpet soloist would have performed with her standing there in her conducting attire. And the cello piece would have opened the concert anyway, so would she have just walked in halfway through the performance with no one noticing? No stage manager, no house manager stopping her?