"TÁR" is an exceptional film with a terrible ending
Saturday, October 29, 2022 at 2:30PM By Ben Miller
I can't say I went into Todd Field's TÁR, only his third film, with any sort of expectations. Rave after rave of Cate Blanchett's performance piqued my interest but I wanted to go in with fresh eyes so I didn't read them. The opening credits hit. We're in for something different. Then we get Lydia Tár's introduction and her interview with Adam Gopnik. All the way on board. The next two hours were magical, transfixing. This is a perfect film. It might be my new number one of the year! Everything was working. The tone, the supporting players, the drama, the comedy. Nothing was missing.
But then we reached the last 15 minutes. SPOILERS AHEAD - READ ONLY IF YOU'VE SEEN TÁR...
For 2+ hours, Field and Blanchett crafted this difficult and complex character destined for a fall from grace. There's constant tension, threats, ominous sounds, and deflections. Finally, the other shoe drops. Lydia had spent her career honing her craft to a razor's sharpness, but also left sexual conquests and professional misconduct in her wake. When Krista, one of her conquests, commits suicide, the gears of justice begin to turn. Investigations are formed; depositions are scheduled.
Lydia looks to her do-all assistant Francesca (an exceptional Noémie Merlant), but the conductor's professional ruthlessness has alienated Francesca as well. Francesca is on the opposing side. The truth comes out. Lydia is deposed, she loses her position in the orchestra, her reputation is in shambles, and her long-suffering wife Sharon (the even more exceptional Nina Hoss) leaves her - taking their daughter as a result. To add insult to injury, she bursts into the live performance she was supposed to conduct and embarasses herself further.
With no other options, Lydia returns to New York to a crisis managment firm, who suggests she gets back to basics and lay low for a while. She returns to her Staten Island home and cries while watching tapes of her mentor, Leonard Bernstein.
All of the sudden, Lydia is in Southeast Asia. She is conducting a small orchestra in a warehouse. She is still focused on her work, but she is alone and alienated. The film ends as she conducts the orchestra score to a video game in a room filled with cosplayers.
But what is is the goal of the Asian prologue? Do we need to see some sort of righteous retribution? The audience is not exactly on Lydia's side after 2+ hours of her general misbehavior. Isn't enough that we know her life is in shambles?
Field had an idea for the destruction of Lydia, but it feels as if he didn't know when to stop. Why hammer home her fall? The final 15 minutes only demonstrates the relative squalor she is now forced to live in when compared to her previous lavish lifestyle. This adds nothing to how we feel about Lydia, but it does make the audience feel that much better about karmic justice.
I have been watching a number of older films lately. Most of them have the dreaded Hays Code lingering over them. Pre-code films get away with things you would never expect from films made in the 20s and 30s. Enforcement of the code stiffled filmmakers in such drastic ways, you wonder what exceptional art could have been made if not for the puritanical enforcement of the Hays Code.
One of the sticking points of the Code was the retribution of the criminal/villain. This is where TÁR lost me. This is the story of a woman losing everything due to her professional and sexual naricism is one thing. If the film ends with Lydia crying over Bernstein, it's five stars all day. Instead, this previously observational film needs to editorialize to give us Lydia's punishment. There can't be any ambiguity about how she might be tortured, we need to be shown. For 2+ hours Field puts the utmost faith in his audience, but abandons that faith right at the goal line.
Ending the film with the Bernstein tape puts ambiguity in the forefront. Where does Lydia go from here? Does she self-destruct even further? Does she go on an apology tour? These are questions we could ask ourselves, to enrich our engagement. Field doesn't let us ask the questions but provides the answers in a spoon-fed conclusion. See, she's suffering despite doing the work she was meant to do. Do you get it?
This isn't new of course. Do you remember the Netflix film I Care a Lot with Rosamund Pike? Pike's character was deplorable but the film expected you to enjoy her amorality. Still, the ending had her killed to tie it all up in atidy bow. Whether it's TÁR, I Care a Lot, or any number of Hays-enforced films from the 40s and 50s, justice doesn't need to take us to the finish line. Sometimes complexity of character and narrative is more than enough to get the point across.
TÁR is still an exceptional film with a powerhouse Blanchett performance. I just wish Field would have held that faith in the audience all the way through to the end credits.
How did you feel about TÁR? Were you with it all the way?
Cate Blanchett, Hays Code, I Care A Lot, Nina Hoss, Pre-Code, Todd Field, Tár, endings
Reader Comments (17)
While I dont fully agree that Field is making a total "punish the witch" value judgment at the end I do fully see your point that it feels kind of extranneous and a bit less ambiguous than the rest of the movie which definitely lets the audience feel whatever they're going to feel without too mjuch in the way of "wow, isn't she a giant asshole?" editorializing.
so in short I didn't hate the ending but i totally get feeling this way.
Great article, Ben. While I disagree, I really appreciated your insight. Your bit about it feeling Hays-code esque was something I hadn't thought of before. Great point!
I have my own quibbles with the Southeast Asia section. The scene where she goes to get a massage but runs out to vomit feels on the nose. It's as if we have to know she understands and feels bad. Perhaps that is the Hays Code behavior you're writing about.
Still, in those last 15 minutes, there were many moments that exemplified why I love the movie and think Lydia Tar is one of the great fictional characters to come out of the last 20 years. She still considers herself a great artist and walks around as such. It's more interesting to see how her hubris stays in tact even after her life has gone up in flames. When she's in the boat going down the river, she is hilariously above it all, which makes you wonder what she must've been like when she was doing studies in South America before the EGOT. I really loved the final beat as well. She's still a maestro, but rather than being the main attraction, she's an invisible artist. Her downfall has come, but there's a sense that she's still doing what she loves... being in charge, albeit on a smaller stage.
All great signs of a great movie that we can discuss so many aspects of it, including the ones that don't ring as true for us.
This is largely how I felt after my first viewing too. I'm eager to see it again, but it felt weird to me how such a meticulous film effortfully grounded in reality suddenly switched tone. Mainly:
- I don't buy her showing up and ruining the performance. It feels out of character and I don't think it's stylized enough to be read as fantasy (a take I'm seeing from some)
- I generally agree that it feels like audience satisfying karmic retribution and unnecessary. Hardly anyone who's been "cancelled" in the last few years has fallen very far, that is, unless we believe the reports of Armie Hammer.
I have been pondering a lot on what to make of her in the ending. Is she still driven by her love of the art as she seems to be desperately telling herself, or is it retaining that power and position, no matter the context? Anyway, Cate's incredible here.
The "I Care a Lot" is a great example. The first movie that came to my mind is "The Eyes of Tammy Faye." We all know how her life turned out, so the third act of her living in poverty was the least interesting part of the film. She was so earnest and humble which took the edge off an over-the-top tale. It made me long for Moira Rose, another character, albeit fictional, who went from rags to riches and kept us in stitches. Seeing the villain get her due sometimes just isn't any fun.
Maybe the first time I watch "Tar," I will end it with the Bernstein part so I can truly leave the movie having enjoyed the experience. The rest sounds a little ridiculous.
I've been waiting for a discussion of the ending. I noticed three things that I haven't seen discussed yet.
And to be clear, I'm not bringing this up because I think the movie is a puzzle box to be solved or Googled, etc. I'm genuinely curious about the filmmakers artistic intent.
First thing - In the scene where Tar returns to her family home, her brother calls her "Linda" and then says, "Sorry, Lydia". His name is the credits is spelled Tarr. I think we are supposed to wonder if she not only changed her name but maybe faked a number of her credentials.
Secondly - in the scene where she is in a boat in the South Asian country, the young men make a reference to a movie being filmed that I think is an allusion to Colonel Kurtz - Apocalypse Now / Heart of Darkness. If that allusion is intentional, it's a loaded one to compare Tar to him.
Lasty, because I was primed in the whole South Asian sequence, I felt like I was maybe missing an allusion in the very final scene -- something specific about gamer culture that I don't know but perhaps Field assumed some viewers would? I'm looking at this at the level of metaphor and thinking there is something else there. Something deeper that I missed.
Offering all of the above as food for thought and conversation.
Lynn -- i absolutely had the same thought on gaming culture "i'm missing something here that others will get" since I dont participate in that at all. On the other hand I also wondered if it was more just about Tar circling back to relive simpler years by returning to a culture that wasn't her own but that she could benefit from without being in (since she's her own insular world)
interesting thing about her brothers name. She definitely changed her name. added the accent too, apparently. But i hadn't thought about the faked credentials thing.
Chris -- i also think these are great signs about the movie being incredible that there are so many interesting takes/interpretations
Super interesting!
chasm301 - Agree that her violent outburst onstage seems way out of character (and doesn't read as fantasy, you're right) but Will Smith's violent outburst onstage was out of character too.
Still, doesn't quite add up. Like the doctored video of her in the Julliard classroom. What is that supposed to mean, that she's the victim of fake news? Not sure if Field has thought it through.
Also as the movie/video game is starting above Lydia's head at the end, we hear a profound narrator say something like, "Our world has changed" ? Feel like there's some significance there.
This is a fascinating discussion. Put me in the camp that didn't love the ending but also don't think it's just piling on / gilding the lily. But I'm also still trying to unpack what it means. I like Chris's interpretation, and I can't also help seeing a glimmer of - not redemption, exactly, but a reminder of why she is still doing this. It can't be a coincidence it comes after her revisiting the Bernstein tapes.
Other Lynn - yeah, that Apocalypse Now reference was very pointed. Not sure what it means other than a joke-poke at white exploitation of "Other" cultures, which Tár herself has also done.
I actually laughed out loud when Tár punched out the other conductor (who I totally thought was Stanley Tucci for most of the movie). The movie is a weird mashup of comedy and horror movie as well as character drama, but it all somehow works.
Side note: I watched this movie with my parents, who being of an older generation that still can't believe fuckers like James Levine and Placido Domingo really did what they did, came away thinking Blanchett's character totally got railroaded by social media. I don't agree, of course, but it's true that Field is very careful to avoid showing explicit proof of Tár's precise degree of guilt - and he *doesn't* make her a complete villain. That scene where she takes down the young male conducting student - yes, she's being bitchy and narcissistic, but she has, you know, a point. And her fall does leave some sense of loss because she's clearly so gifted. Again, the film doesn't really pass judgment on whether her fall was deserved justice or a random turn on fortune's wheel. It could be both are true.
i love how surprising the ending is, leaving room for so much interpretation. there's an argument to be made that at the end, she's possibly succeeding better than ever before, in that she's conducting music that will deeply move its eager audience, an audience with the same shared passion as her high-brow classical aesthetes. lydia speaks in the opening interview about reaching people, and her "final" audience is one that is as rabidly invested in their shared subject as the ones we've seen previously. surely the pan along her audience, uniformly dressed in extreme cosplay, indicates that she's swapped one hermetically-sealed universe for another?
those final passages in thailand seem to show lydia's quick detachment from local culture, choosing to stay "above it" and be her own self-soother and champion. her head is down and she's nothing but her own tortured creation.
i agree wholeheartedly with lynn lee...the accomplishment by field and blanchett is to refuse to serve easy answers or judgments. the scene with the student is so powerful and disturbing because they are both arguing with validity. she's a gross person, but she's also brilliant, and has such a scorching conviction that she sometimes makes you sit in your own discomfort. the ending, like the rest of the film, wants you to be discomforted, and her ambition is rattling and thrilling in equal measure. at the very least, i don't think anybody saw that particular ending coming...it's out there, and to me, it felt right.
I thought there was humour spread throughout (very dark humour) so it didn't strike me as entirely out of the blue. And I don't necessarily agree that it was a queer punishment thing, rather the sort of comical footnote that you'd find on Wikipedia many years later when reading her bio. I also don't begrudge the film wanting to end on something of a laugh given how serious most of the movie is.
My issue with the movie was that it is so long and attempting to do too much. The metronome, the screaming woman, the neighbour...
This is such an interesting and well-articulated take! I, like some of the other commenters, don't quite agree that she's being punished by the ending.
I feel like the Tar we see throughout the bulk of the film is used living in a rarefied world of her own creation, insulated from the consequences of her actions and the truth of her upbringing. But the cracks are starting to show, in the form of what I took to be a series of paranoid delusions. (The screams in the park, the unexplained noises in both of her homes, the cellist's disembodied humming when she's trying to return the bear, the various glyphs and anagrams. "You're confused!" says Mark Strong's conductor after Tar tackles him, and I think we're supposed to understand that to be true.)
And then, after she revisits Bernstein's wisdom, we get a little "sequel" featurette that imagines where she might go. Much humbled and no longer in her rarefied air (staying in a downscale hotel, performing for cosplayers, working in eateries never frequented by Bach), she is still able to experience the sublime through her work. If anything, I found the ending erred slightly on the optimistic side!
My love for this movie grows and grows the more I see how it's affected everyone so differently!
Hard disagree on Ben’s claims about the ending, even if I appreciate the perspective. Ending on Bernstein’s scene would’ve been a far more generic choice, especially with Lydia’s tears, indicating how far she’s taken from grace (very Dangerous Liaisons). The shift to Southeast Asia is virtuosic and brings the film into a Eyes Wide Shut-esque fever dream even as it remains ambiguously realist. The Monster Hunter allusion at the end is hilariously apt for a film about the consequences of cancel culture wrought upon Lydia.
Can we all agree that Cate's Oscar clip should be where she's badly playing the accordion while yelling "APARTMENT FOR SALE!"???
Also, Cate seems to be morphing into Charlotte Rampling in the picture above, which I didn't expect but welcome.
I agree, Ben, that I thought the film was going to end after Lydia’s tearful rewatching of Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts episode and her brother admonishing her for not knowing where she’s from or where she’s going, but I found the epilogue to be darkly funny and hopeful. Even removed from her celebrity status and trappings (no more bespoke suits, private jet, modern apartment, assistant, etc.), she is fulfilling her essential purpose. Is it because she truly loves music? Or does she also still have a need to be in charge of an orchestra? Or a bit of both? Cate Blanchett said that the first time she read the ending, she was heartbroken, but when she filmed that Monster Hunter concert scene, she felt joyful.
In a film that is particular with details, I wish a little more attention had been paid to getting the "unnamed Asian city" right; the screenplay states that Lydia ends up in the Philippines (her hotel is in Makati, and the orchestra is referred to as the MPO), and several clues make that clear: the portraits of Emilio Aguinaldo and José Rizal in the room where Lydia is welcomed, the conversations in Filipino among the orchestra staff/administrators, the jeepney, and the Sarah Geronimo song playing as Lydia studies her score outside a restaurant.
However, Thai is heard over the PA at the train station when Lydia arrives in Asia; the accent of the actors portraying Shirley & Cirio is not Filipino-English (I think the actors are Thai); Filipino signs aren't visible during the jeepney ride; the orchestra is the Siam Sinfonietta; and in the outdoor restaurant scene, Bizotel (only found in Bangkok) is visible in the background. If the film was so specific to portray New York (Berlin stood in for some? of the locations) and Berlin, I wish it had been more explicit in depicting Manila & Makati. (The film credits only referred to "East Asia" as the location but explicitly named New York and Berlin.)
(The screenplay can be found here: https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/tar-screenplay.pdf)
Lynn Reed & Nathaniel — If you pause the film when someone (I thought it was Lydia, Francesca, or Krista) is editing Lydia’s Wikipedia page, it says that her father was Hungarian and named Zoltán Tarr, and in her childhood bedroom we see certificates of merit (including one for a spelling bee) with her real name, Linda Tarr (before she runs into her brother Tony, who is mentioned in her Wikipedia article earlier as well).
I also wondered which of her credentials might have? been faked, since her biography reads like an improbable, super-rare Renaissance musical beast (pianist, ethnomusicologist, EGOT composer, conductor, guest lecturer). If she was born in 1972, she would have only been a teenager (17, if her birthday is in December, based on the conversation about her book release) when Bernstein passed away in October 1990. I wonder why no one ever questioned how he could truly have mentored her if she is only 49 in the film.
Her Wikipedia also states that she left Harvard early due to the death of her father, but she completed her PhD in ethnomusicology through the University of Vienna and spent 5 years in the Ucayali among the Shipibo-Conibo. People I went to music school with were at least 29 when they completed their musicology PhDs (if they finished undergrad at 22 and graduate studies at 24). That means between ages ~29-42, Lydia would have garnered her EGOT *and* completed conducting stints at all Big Five orchestras, because her biography prefacing the Adam Gopnik interview states that she has spent 7 years helming Berlin.
Speaking of her changed name, in addition to the “rat” anagram featured in the movie, others have noted that it rearranges to “art” and could allude to the dark color and stickiness of actual tar or pitch. Cate Blanchett noted in an interview that film score composer Hildur Guðnadóttir noted that “tár" means “tear” (as in what falls during crying) in Icelandic.
Lynn Lee — I also laughed so hard when Lydia beat up Eliot, and it made sense to me that she did it in that manner when I realized that the medal she wore in her childhood bedroom was for field hockey, that her bedroom had a hockey poster, and the cap she wore on plane trips (with that amazing cashmere wool coat from The Row!) bears the logo of the New York Rangers.
I don’t totally buy that the end of the movie is purely in Lydia’s head. (Slate opined that everything from Lydia pursuing Olga through the derelict building to the end is a dream or hallucination.) I recall from the delightful Actors on Actors interview between Cate and Michelle Yeoh that they discuss rage and how it can be viewed as negative in female characters, and Lydia gets to do things people maybe wish they could but wouldn’t in every day life. (I hope she meant the asserting one’s power and beating up Eliot vs. not the grooming and abuse of vulnerable people.)
Adrian S-G — I agree completely :) I know that Field and Blanchett have noted that Lydia didn’t have to be a conductor of a prestigious orchestra, that this could explore power structures within a corporation or other milieu, but the classical world setting made it even more compelling to me because I went to music school. I watched the film three times in 48 hours and look forward to watching it again — I love all the clues and details that reward repeat viewings. I’m hoping it is added to the Criterion Collection so we get more behind-the-scenes content.
I thought I read on Vulture that there will be a short film, The Fundraiser, premiering in Berlin, that expands the Tár universe. I wonder if this was shot separately or includes footage featured in the trailer that we didn't see in the film... https://www.vulture.com/2022/12/tar-short-film-the-fundraiser-berlinale.html
James from Ames — I wish “Apartment for Sale” had been included on the Tár concept album! I love that the credits affirmed that Field and Blanchett co-wrote it. I hadn’t been sure if the According Foundation meant that Lydia played that instrument but this scene (and the smaller instrument on the shelf in her childhood bedroom) confirmed this. That and the scene where Lydia tells off Johanna in German were among my favorite scenes.
The resemblance to Ms. Rampling was something I noticed recently as well :)
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I loved the ending and it’s references to Apocalypse Now on the trip down the river. The scene where she conducts an orchestra in Asia in front of an audience dressed in feather head dresses and other costumes was for me reminiscent of Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now being surrounded by his followers in native head dress in the jungle way down the river who provided him with a form of worship. I thought it may be that Tar was seeking a new kind of ‘worshipper’ in Asia after her downfall much as Kurtz found in the jungle in Apocalypse Now after he ‘went rogue’. Tar vomiting after being confronted with the women who could provide her with a massage made me feel that she found this confrontation with this very clear form of exploitation of the women too overt and ‘real’ to manage and it may have confronted her with the fact that her, maybe more covert, exploitation of women prior to this was not really any less damaging. I also loved the references to older forms of media such as VHS videos and music on vinyl which Tar often prefers as for the abuser, the pre digital age was so much safer. No email records of abusive communication and grooming were possible in the pre social media, pre-digital age. It was easier to get away with things I guess.