At the beginning of “Tár” there is a shot of a Wikipedia entry being edited by an invisible hand. whose hand? That question turns out to be plot-related, but at the moment, I’m overwhelmed by the mystique of Page’s subject matter, which is also the main character in Todd Field’s cruel and elegant new film.
Her name is Lydia Tarr, and it’s a common name in the world that Field imagined, in a world that exists diagonally from ours. Adam Gopnik, plays herself humbly when interviewing Lydia, played proudly by Cate Blanchett on the Manhattan stage. Gopnik’s opening remarks, which Wikipedia provides a rundown of his style and include a bit of street buzz filigree, prove this is someone who needs no introduction.
Lydia’s résumé is a string of meritocracy glories and a glint at the top of her brow that’s almost satirely glossy. A conductor and composer, she claims Leonard Bernstein as her mentor, and her career has progressed steadily through the great orchestras of Cleveland, Boston, New York, and now the Berlin Philharmonic. is rising to She has a PhD from Harvard. She has won Emmys, Grammys, Oscars, Tony Awards and is very exclusive to the EGOT she belongs to the club. She has recorded all Mahler’s symphonies, one of which she plans to publish in a book called ‘Táron Tár’. This will definitely become a bestseller.
how did she do that? If Lydia Tarr were a real person, ‘Tarr’ might follow the path of conventional musical biopics, going from humble beginnings to hard work, lucky breaks, adversity, and triumph. . It’s a remarkable story, considering that there are very few major orchestras led by women in the real world. (Natalie Stutzmann, recently appointed music director of the Atlanta Symphony, is currently the only person in America, as was Marin Alsop, until she resigned from the Baltimore Symphony last year.)
Like the 2019 film Late Night, which cast Emma Thompson as a high-powered network television talk show host, “Tar” doesn’t break glass ceilings, it melts them with creative fiat. Lydia’s rise is not what we see. She was placed at the pinnacle of her profession so that we could witness her fall.
Following Lydia back from New York to Berlin, Field sprinkles her trail with omens and red herrings, slowly and deliberately fostering a mood of terror and paranoia.She receives an anonymous gift — a signed early version The Challenge, a novel by Vita Sackville-West — that she destroys in an airplane toilet. Strange noises at her home disturb her sleep and distract her from her work. Strange visual motifs, labyrinths and mandalas appear in strange places.
On the other hand, there are signs of domestic and professional troubles. Lydia lives with Sharon (Nina Hoss), the first violinist of the Philharmonic Orchestra, and their little daughter Petra (Mira Bogojevic). The couple’s intimacy is fringed with wariness and unspoken resentment. Sharon always looks tired. Their children are bullied at school. The orchestra’s second conductor, Alan Cordner, did not stop at his welcome. Lydia’s assistant, Francesca (Noemie Merlant), has musical ambitions of her own and looks to her boss with adoration, fear and her seething rage. A young Russian cellist, Olga (Sophie Kauer), auditions for her string section and catches Lydia’s attention with her expressive bow technique and her blue suede boots. (Cauer, a professional cellist and actor, has performed himself in the film.)
Field’s cool, psychologically charged style is reminiscent of Roman Polanski and Stanley Kubrick — he’s Kubrick’s “Eyes Wide Shut” — Record everything with ruthless detachment and fanatical control. It transitions smoothly from dry backstage comedy to something like gothic horror. I don’t know if Lydia is a monster, a victim, or both.
Does the suspense that builds through the film’s long, perfectly executed middle section stem from the fear that something terrible will happen to her, or from the premonition that she will do something terrible? Both results are plausible. Early on, her understated betrayal and nonchalant gaslighting for Sharon, her silent humiliation of her benefactor and rival conductor (Mark Strong), and her chilling relationship with Petra’s bullies. witness a confrontation. That scene, in which Lydia introduces herself as “Petra’s dad” and threatens a small child in perfect German, is both thrilling and terrifying. Her charisma is overwhelming, her power is unbridled and she has absolute confidence.
That would all change, a process the field observes with almost unbearable objectivity. If he withholds schadenfreude, he also withholds compassion. “Tár” unfolds in a tenuous cultural space whose aesthetic perfection seems less ideal than everyday expectations, but it is also rooted in the cluttered and controversial zone of contemporary discourse. Field leaves no doubt that Lydia is a fine musician, able to match Mahler’s genius with her own and inspire others to extend the peak of her company’s greatness. No. Blanchett is completely convincing in this regard, showing Lydia’s arrogance, sadism, and predatory manipulation of young women like Francesca and Olga.
At one point, Sharon describes all of Lydia’s relationships as “transactional,” except for one with her daughter. It’s a precise, albeit somewhat abstract, term for the chaotic and destructive patterns of behavior that Lydia’s position has allowed her to do: “Tár” is also used in the #MeToo parable of justice to cancel Nor is it a rant about her cultural excesses. (It’s so committed to its non-committal stance that it wanders raggedly, sacrificing a dramatic ending for an extra ending.)
Towards the end, Leonard Bernstein appears in a shaky black-and-white video recording of one of his youth concerts, explaining that music is about “how it makes you feel.” According to him, music takes you on an emotional journey that cannot be easily summarized. Sometimes those feelings are so complex and special that they don’t even have a name. Mahler’s 5th Symphony, Edward Elgar Cello Concerto In E minor and Hildur Gudnadottir’s original score, it comes close to that condition.
About Lydia, about the meaning of her work and the consequences of her actions, whether she should be respected or cursed, whether artists should be judged by their work or by the way they live. Encourage them to think seriously about what they should do. In a variety of contexts, Lydia herself, like many of us, has argued on both sides of the question, and searching movies for coherent arguments misses the point and categorically falls short. and misunderstands the stunning coup d’état that Field and Blanchett have caused. off. I don’t care about Lydia Tarr because she’s an artist. We care about her because she is art.
tar
R-rated. violent cacophony. Running time: 2 hours 38 minutes. at the theater.