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Writer/director Todd Field
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Field with Cate Blanchett
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TÁR A USA (158 mi)
2022 ‘Scope d: Todd Field
Appearing as a crooner in Woody’s Allen’s Radio Days (1987),
starring with Ashley Judd in Victor Nuñez’s RUBY IN PARADISE (1993), while
playing the blindfolded pianist in Stanley Kubrick’s EYES WIDE SHUT (1999),
Field stopped acting and turned to directing in the early 90’s, receiving his
Master of Fine Arts from the AFI Conservatory.
Only the third film by this director, premiering at the Sundance
Festival with In the
Bedroom (2001), separated by five years from Little
Children (2006), which initially screened at the Telluride Festival, and the
next is now 16 years later, each exploring spectacular human failings, moving
in scope from the intimately personal first film, a potent study of guilt and grief,
an ode to the futility of vengeance, to a tragic Madame Bovary variation with community-wide ramifications in the
next, both adapted from previously existing sources, and finally enlarging the
canvas to an epic scale in a full-blown, behind-the-scenes exploration of one of
the premiere classical music conductors in the world, where one wonders if there
is that much difference between conducting and directing? Written with Cate Blanchett in mind, winner
of the Best Actress award when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival, this
larger than life story is the classical music equivalent of Daniel Plainview in There
Will Be Blood (2007), as it revolves around a massive character study of Blanchett
as Lydia Tàr, the esteemed, first-ever, female orchestra leader of the Berlin
Philharmonic, fearlessly told through the artist’s perspective, intoxicated by
the seemingly unlimited reach of her own power, ultimately undone by a fever
dream of arrogance and ethical lapses, never making it easy on viewers,
structured a bit like a symphony, with its long phrases and short outbursts, where
the choice musical selections capture the emotional landscape of her character,
becoming one of the more complex films of the year. Offering razor sharp insights, one of the
most visceral and gripping moments is a long and detailed bravado opening scene
with a captivated New York audience that immediately lures audiences into a
sophisticated and intelligent discussion of classical music through one of
those up close and personal onstage interviews at a New Yorker festival Q & A with The New Yorker’s staff writer Adam Gopnik, where it’s easy to
admire her expertise and passion. Instantly
elevating her personal appeal from listing all of her many accolades that have
been carefully prepared, she is a musical prodigy, composer, patron of the arts
with a doctorate from Harvard, founder of a scholarship program for young girls
studying at the conservatory, and author of an upcoming book Tár on Tár, also a rare EGOT winner (an
Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar, and a Tony), the conductor of one of the world’s most
distinguished orchestras, having recorded live performances on Deutsche
Grammophon of the entire Mahler symphonic output except Symphony No. 5, which
is scheduled in the near future, mentored by Leonard Bernstein, and like him
she exhibits a talent for articulating the dramatic power of music, yet what
distinguishes this scene is the clarity and eloquence of her answers, easily
comprehensible, not over anyone’s heads, breaking it down in a way that makes
it easier to appreciate a conductor’s role in affecting results, TÁR - "You Cannot Start
Without Me" Official Clip - YouTube (48 seconds). Near the end of the film there’s a video of
Bernstein suggesting music can express what words cannot, which seems to be the
core motivation for Lydia’s work. Taking
a somewhat literary approach, making a cerebral film offering plenty of
thought-provoking ideas, seamlessly shifting between English, French, and
German, it relies upon long takes and a precisely measured control, strangely
opening with the end credits, showing gratitude, perhaps, for those often
receiving little credit, referred to as Acknowledgements (needing a magnifying
glass to read), which mysteriously excludes the principle actors (their credits
are shown at the end). A live camera
phone from an unknown viewer finds the director asleep on a plane to New York wearing
a blindfold, eliciting sarcastic comments written on social media, establishing
she is a public figure subject to her own share of ridicule, describing herself
as “a U-Haul lesbian,” yet she scoffs at the idea that women conductors need a
special gender-specific title like maestra, “They don’t call astronauts
astronettes.” When we see her hold her
own in a public forum, however, she is clearly a beloved figure, recognized not
only for her musical talents but for her intellectual acumen.
There are common threads running through Todd Field’s
filmography, which not only illustrates his prodigious strengths as a
screenwriter (Oscar nominated in each of his films), but also the centrality of
extraordinary female figures, Sissy Spacek and Marisa Tomei from In the
Bedroom, and Kate Winslet from Little
Children, all awarded Oscar nominations, with
the two films earning eight Academy Award nominations between them, where this
film is not expected to be any different, featuring exemplary dialogue and
fully realized characters, with Blanchett providing a towering performance that
may arguably be the best in her career, focusing on her strong, confident, and
controlling nature, talking over people, always having the last word, having indisputably
reached the upper echelon of her profession, before stripping away at the
façade and revealing a precipitous fall from grace, which may leave many
viewers more than a little ambivalent about just how they feel, engaging in
scandalous behavior normally associated with men. Blanchett has in the past advocated for both
Woody Allen and Roman Polanski, both saddled with glaringly public sex abuse
allegations, which may add yet another layer of difficulty to the subject
matter, becoming a monumental film of ominous implications, with a jagged
puzzle piece editing scheme concocted by Michael Haneke’s editor Monika Willi,
full of mysterious clues and no easy answers.
Offering some beautiful glimpses of Berlin, including the concert hall
of rehearsals, something of an architectural marvel of modernism, yet above all
this exposes the personal intrigues and ties between women, as Cate Blanchett
gives life to an out of the ordinary woman who tends to challenge the
conventions of conformism, making us appreciate her first and then making her
ethically unbearable and hateful, evoking parallels between the narcissism and
hypocrisy of Hollywood in Joseph L Mankiewicz’s ALL ABOUT EVE (1950), with the
psychological intrigues that arise in the relationship between various
generations of artists or aspiring artists.
Lydia Tár, as the orchestra conductor, assumes the Bette Davis role, the
famous Broadway diva, surrounded by Anne Baxter as her youngest admirer
aspiring to replace her, emulated by Francesca (Noémie Merlant), Tár’s tireless
personal assistant who tends to her every whim while continually enduring being
underestimated and ignored, yet would like to fill the assistant conductor
position, joined by her life partner of ten years, Sharon (Nina Hoss), the
stabilizing force in her life who is also the first violinist in the orchestra. Together they live in Berlin and share an
adopted Syrian daughter, Petra (Mila Bogojevic), in a spacious and luxury chic industrial
apartment that always appears darkened and impersonal, yet one of the most
intimate scenes shows them dancing together to the music of Count Basie,
calming the nerves after a blisteringly intense day. Tár has lunch with one of her sycophantic
benefactors, Elliot Kaplan (Mark Strong), a wealthy man who she clearly does
not respect, yet he funds her scholarship program, exerting a sense of ease and
comfort in her role as they discuss the internal politics and interpersonal
relationships of the orchestra, with plenty of gossip and social innuendos,
always appearing so sure of herself, wielding a significant amount of
responsibility and power, yet we also begin to see how easily dismissive she is
about the opinions of others. This is
followed by a tour de force Julliard guest lecture exquisitely filmed by cinematographer
Florian Hoffmeister in an unbroken ten-minute single take, expressing a fluidity
of movement with Lydia circling around the classroom, while also capturing the
immediacy of the moment, accentuating every uncomfortable word and gesture as
the maestro openly challenges and humiliates a pansexual student, Max (Zethphan
Smith-Gneist), identifying with the acronym BIPOC (The BIPOC Project, Black,
Indigenous, and people of color), as he openly resists the music of Bach,
claiming he was a white European misogynist, making it impossible to identify
with him. Lydia takes the bait and turns
the argument back around on him, pointing out the absurdity of his position,
hoping to distinguish between the artist and the man, as his genius has
overcome any and all limitations, carving out an illustrious identity that will
survive into eternity, repudiating his sentiment with the utter simplicity of
an introductory Bach Prelude, Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C
major, BWV 846 ... - YouTube (5:18), yet her abrasive manner grows mockingly
excessive and ruthlessly dismissive, becoming an exaggerated performance for
the students, taking perverse pleasure in squeezing him like a bug, describing
him as “an epicenic dissident” before informing him “The architect of your soul
appears to be social media,” causing him to flee the classroom, calling her a “fucking
bitch.”
Despite the success of Lydia’s argument, the entire history
of classical music has always been a monolithic representation of almost exclusively
one race and one gender, and one need only recall that Wagner was an
anti-Semite, while both Britten and Tchaikovsky had more than a passing
interest in young boys, so this remains something of an open question in the
modern world, subject to continual reevaluation. The film even examines the forced
denazification of acclaimed German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler, as he
remained in Germany during the war as the head of the Berlin Philharmonic,
though he never joined the Nazi party and had publicly opposed Hitler’s regime,
also Austrian conductor Herbert von Karajan, who did join the Party and was a
Nazi favorite, waiting in the wings to replace him while helping to promote the
Nazi war propaganda, which so irritated Furtwängler that he refused to call him
by his name. One would be hard-pressed
to name a single female conductor who has ever achieved anything like their international
prominence, so this film innovatingly projects a post-feminist world that
currently doesn’t exist, with Lydia having the distinct ability to distinguish
out of tune instruments or off-note sounds in the orchestra, while also acutely
sensitized to unrecognizable sounds around her, which play a significant role
in the film, using sound in much the same way Antonioni experimented with
photography in BLOW-UP (1966). Blanchett’s
performance is easily her most exhilarating since Todd Haynes’ masterfully
understated 2015
Top Ten List #6 Carol, also starring Blanchett as a lesbian, or the boozy
Manhattan socialite in Woody Allen’s 2013 Top
Ten List #7 Blue Jasmine, essentially seen as a maestro moving between
lecterns, rehearsals, scores, and auditions, actually conducting the Dresden
Orchestra, seen several times rehearsing the Mahler 5th, a commanding piece,
all-consuming and haunting, providing insight into Mahler’s personal and
professional control over his wife Alma when writing the piece, demonstrating a
tour de force in the art of interpretation, snapping at her orchestra to
finally get “the Visconti” out of their heads, alluding to the film music for
his 1971 film DEATH IN VENICE, where Adagietto
excerpts were prominently featured, becoming an iconic association. Ironically 1971 was also the same year opera
diva Maria Callas taught master classes at Julliard, where one wonders if she
was equally operatic in her classrooms. The
film questions what constitutes accountability in our world today, examining the
power dynamics of her role, as power is essential for how she has built herself
up into her position, a seemingly self-made artist, the embodiment of success,
who views her work superseding any gender, suggesting one must sublimate their
identity in the pursuit of their art, believing it’s not useful to look into
who the artist is, or their past, gender, race, sexuality, behavior, or even
their morals. Yet this position
conveniently covers up the fact it’s advantageous for her that people don’t see
who she really is, becoming an exposé of modern artistic arrogance, where a
manipulative person with an inflated view of power abuses that power to protect
their image, doing questionable things, following the same trajectory that many
men have traveled before, like having affairs with young students and musicians
she’s particularly attracted to while rewarding them with special positions
within the orchestra. It’s apparent the
orchestra knows this is what she’s doing, and that it’s a longstanding pattern
of behavior, yet they keep silent out of fear of reprisals, as they could lose
their positions. At home, Lydia runs her
home life as she does her orchestra, handling each issue as it presents itself,
making sure her wife takes her medicine, while also taking care of her
daughter’s problems. She seems to be
having difficulty writing an original piano piece entitled For Petra, but at least according to Sharon, her daughter is the
only real relationship she has in her life.
One of the most chilling scenes comes early, with Lydia delivering her
daughter to school, pointing out another girl in a red coat who’s apparently
been bullying her. Lydia approaches the
child, changing the entire focus of the film by speaking to her in precise
German, adding a certain urgency, quickly informing her “I am Petra’s father,”
before issuing a veiled threat indicating there would be consequences. Not exactly sure what that means, or why she
shifted genders, but the imminent danger associated with the threat is
astonishingly real, exposing a darker side of her that is carefully concealed,
a stark contrast to how extremely image conscious she is, carefully controlling
her public image, shrugging off any negative allegations, and may actually be
editing her own Wikipedia page, though at one point she claims this is a
sabotage against her character. Her
biggest nightmare may be for the hideousness of her character to come to light,
as we get a glimpse of that through the texting from her assistant Francesca,
adding her own revelatory comments on social media, revealing that Lydia’s not
totally in control of her image, even though she believes that she is.
Lydia is a distinctively outré gay woman who prefers a
masculine style of dress in her everyday life, a dominating presence both at
work and at home, yet is surprisingly at ease when discussing the history of
women conductors, those who paved the way, acutely aware of the scant history
of women in classical music, where the largesse of her ego is thoroughly on
display. Blanchett has the ability to
make her cruelty so charismatic, yet she would love to overlook her own
personal indiscretions, as much of her power comes from taking advantage of
people’s affections, making promises, offering career enhancements, as she does
for an aspiring young cellist who catches her eye, Olga Metkina (played by
British/German cellist Sophie Kauer), a prodigious Russian talent inspired by
Jacqueline du Pré, Jacqueline
du Pre & Daniel Barenboim - Elgar Cello Concerto YouTube (32:38), becoming
an object of desire, exerting an incredible fascination on the maestro from the
very first second, taking her under her wing, offering special favors, allowing
her the Elgar solo even before she’s admitted to the orchestra, as the secrets
of her past start to spill into her present.
When things go wrong it’s represented by inexplicable or unwanted
sounds, like hearing a woman’s cries while jogging in the park, or the ticking
of a metronome at night, activities that are never explained, yet offer clues
into her psychological deterioration.
The film is essentially a treatise on power, as she ultimately chooses
power over art, which may be why the film opens with the end credits, revealing
the names of all the people working behind the scenes who normally receive
little recognition. Such a prominent
public figure can produce an all-consuming ego and sense of pride that can be self-centered
and narcissistic, to the point of becoming cruel to those around her, leading
to abuses in power in a world that doesn’t want to accept those practices
anymore. Slowly stripping her of her
charisma, showing us a darker side, a selfish and cruel person who can also be
fragile and insecure, Lydia has no qualms about disposing of people and their
feelings, behaving like a dictator with her subordinates, routinely calling
anyone robots if they dare disagree, displaying a surprising ease in bending
the rules for her own benefit. “It’s not
a democracy,” she tells her daughter in one of the key scenes, as there is only
one conductor, creating a parallel between the microcosm of the orchestra and
power in contemporary society. In the
#MeToo era, all it takes is a misplaced word, an incorrect action, or an
exposed abuse to lose one’s hold on power, with recent reminders like Metropolitan
Opera conductor James Levine or Spanish opera singer and conductor Plácido
Domingo, where it’s amazing how once glorious careers fade with changing views
on sexual harassment, where Lydia becomes a mirror image, offering a
fascinating and at times repulsive set of contradictions, as she can be
charismatic and funny, but also ruthless and cruel, mocking her students while
manifesting a cold exterior, exhibiting acute intellect while at the same time
showing a cynical and inhumane side, openly disinterested in what her closest
collaborators may think, simply dismissing them, where no one is immune to her abuse. Much of the film is told in code, leaving
little hints that must be extrapolated to be understood, like brief flashbacks,
suggesting Lydia sabotaged and ruined the once promising career of Krista
(Sylvia Flote, seen only in the beginning, blink and you’ll miss her),
apparently coming too close, with subliminal sexual images suggesting she’s
penetrated her private domain, sending obsessive and threatening email messages
to Lydia, who quickly turns on her, calling her a rat and dismissing her from
the orchestra, while sending emails to prospective employers that she’s not
trustworthy and would have a corrosive impact overall. In abuse cases with public figures, we don’t
often have all the specific details, but just the allegations, so we never know
what truly happened. The same happens
here, as in this instance, it’s not even clear if Lydia knows what she’s doing
is wrong, as she may believe these are perks that come with the privilege of
her position of power, instilling her with a near delusional sense of
entitlement, with Lydia wondering where Twitter was when Schopenhauer threw
some random old woman down a flight of stairs.
Yet seemingly overnight her image is tarnished, implicated in a very
public suicide, with her career suddenly derailed and her chaotic life left in
shambles, with angry protests following her wherever she goes, where the rapid
fall from grace is quite literally stunning, as is the restrained manner of Field masterfully directing
that descent, evoking chilling questions about what’s real and what’s imagined.
A film about art and obsession, Mahler’s 5th Symphony provides a link
between this film and the inner decay underlying Visconti’s DEATH IN VENICE, slowly
unraveling into a full-blown psychological thriller, centered around Lydia’s professional
and emotional decay, as the music by Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir becomes
more foreboding, creating a web-like trap where the walls are closing in on
her, regressing into nameless ambiguity, coming full circle in an utter and
complete transformation, with no possibility of redemption, ending with distinctly
out-of-character electronic music at the end, at the opposite end of the
spectrum from the classical symphonies that once defined her career. A film that invites reflection.
Cate Blanchett and Todd
Field's Closet Picks! - YouTube
picks from the Criterion closet (5:25)
