Directed by Todd Field
Language: English
Year: 2022
Shaun’s Rating: 4.7/5 ★
Before Watching:
The lawless wasteland that is Film Twitter (trust me, don’t look for it) has occasionally been enthusiastically divided by a single work, but Todd Field’s new psychological thriller has left an unprecedented meme-flooded hellscape in its wake. Critics have both loved and hated TÁR with similar magnitudes, and I’m sure many of you are wondering which side I fall on. Per usual, I find Richard Brody to be, well, frankly unhinged. TÁR is a masterpiece, both in crafting a winding and captivating cerebral journey and in following through with transcendent acting and a brilliant soundscape.
Cate Blanchett, our imperious stár, is radiant and delivers con fuoco, yielding a performance as relentlessly crisp as it is captivating. She is also making a run at a third Academy Award with this portrayal, which has already won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival. Lydia Tár, as we hear in an early on-screen interview with The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik (played almost unconvincingly by Adam Gopnik), is a titan of the orchestral world, an EGOT, and the first female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. She plugs her upcoming live recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, which features her wife Sharon as concertmaster. Tár calls herself a “U-Haul lesbian,” and—as we learn—conducts Mahler far better than she conducts herself.
Field chronicles Lydia Tár’s slow and ignominious demise, as she is pulled under by a series of alleged improprieties. While some critics have lambasted the film for haphazardly targeting “cancel culture,” I’d argue that TÁR’s commentary is not so narrow, instead singing about the trappings of power and public image, the exigent dynamics between art and artist, and the unnerving psychological decline of an ego confined. This counterpoint is at times dissonant and often polyphonic, with our antihero’s tárring and feathering shown from various vantage points (including a pseudo-anonymous digital perspective) and punctuated by auditory phenomena. Lydia experiences the world sonically, and thus for over two hours we’re brought along for fortissimo rehearsals and mezzopiano doorbells, electrical hums, and other quotidian soundbites-turned-soundtrack. All diegetic sound (including Blanchett’s piano playing) is recorded live.
Arguably the film’s most electric sequence occurs in its first movement, when Tár guest teaches a class at Juilliard. We witness a generational disagreement, disguised as a discussion of identity politics, disguised as a lecture on Bach—when Lydia’s student voices moral objections to their program of study “as a BIPOC pangender person,” the discourse becomes so contemporary and explicit it might as well have been ripped from The White Lotus. Can musicians separate identity from performance, can they sublimate themselves to the composer, can they study Bach even though he… let’s say, doth improve no D&I quotas? Lydia Tár (putting the “ego” in EGOT) certainly thinks so, foreshadowing her own personal lack of remorse for her transgressions in the industry. But, at what point does music flow from identity, and then identity from the art that its interpreters create? It’s just tártles all the way down.
TÁR stuns as a character study, a thriller, and a deep look at art in the modern era. Admittedly, it can be somewhat difficult to follow if your musical lexicon is limited, but the discussion of PR’s critical role in fame rings true even to the most tone-deaf audience members. At one critical juncture, Lydia’s mentor paints a grim comparison to his experience under fascism, sharing that he had to ensure all the “hangers in [his] closet were facing the same direction.” Crude as the comparison may be, it underscores a central motif: the significance of never missing a beat, on or off the conductor’s podium.
TÁR premiered at the 2022 Venice International Film Festival, where it was awarded Best Actress. It can now be seen in theaters in the United States.
After Watching:
In her interview with Adam Gopnik, Lydia discusses the importance of controlling time. She accents the supremacy of her interpretation with a chilling “I start the clock,” and delineates the illusion of spontaneous musical conversation from the reality of her planned meter. Consequently, many of the demons punctuating her downfall are manifestations of her losing control of rhythm. The haunting home metronome, the “hack job” doctored video of the Juilliard seminar, and ultimately the click-track headset in her final performance all force Tár to relinquish her grip on time.
The final sequence in Southeast Asia is noteworthy for many reasons, and not just because the ending is absolutely bonkers. The video game behind the concert is Monster Hunter, which somewhat heavy-handedly comments on Lydia’s status as a monster, hunted. In the brothel, the girls in the “fishbowl” wait in an arrangement reminiscent of an orchestra, with the girl who captures Lydia’s gaze in approximately the same position as Olga. What’s more, that girl’s bib number is 5 (the Mahler symphony that Lydia loses in the free fall). Some critics have argued that this entire final act is just a dream, which isn’t entirely unsupported given how much it feels like she’s in the Bad Place.
For Tár, losing control of time has also allowed time to catch up with her. Her past behaviors finally yield present consequences, even though the precise details of those past actions are never made concrete to the audience. Lydia—hoist by her own petárd—is facing the music for once in her career, and yet the film neither vilifies nor exonerates her. Field shows otherworldly restraint in choosing to just tell the story and allow the choir of discussion to take place away from the big screen. This bone-dry commentary is Todd Field at his best, and the sublime execution is all thanks to Blanchett. Lauding her performance feels extraneous because she’s (obviously) always spellbinding, but TÁR reaches a new fortissimo.
P.S. I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that Hildur Guðnadóttir, who Lydia at one point mentions off-handedly, is actually the real-life composer of the film’s score.