Written and Directed by Todd Field
Starring Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Julian Glover
Rated R for some language and brief nudity
Runtime: 2 hours, 38 minutes
In some theaters October 7, wide release October 28

by Ryan Silberstein, Managing Editor, Red Herring

Tár is a film with a lot on its mind. The first from Todd Field in sixteen years, it emerges as a character study that considers many of the cultural conversations that have been happening over the last few years, but doesn’t aim to choose sides. In an early scene, Lydia Tár is interacting with a Juilliard student (Zethphan Smith-Gneist), telling them that music that asks questions, but requires an audience to find their own answers is much more engaging than more prescriptive art. Field is working in a similar mode, and the screenplay demonstrates that the filmmaker has a wide range of interests as it constructs a portrait of a very flawed woman. 

One of the movie’s earliest scenes shows a The New Yorker talk with Lydia, hosted by Adam Gopnik (himself). He lists off her achievements, including being one of the first female conductors to lead a major orchestra, an EGOT winner, and a mentee of Leonard Bernstein. The talk feels like a victory lap. Two major upcoming milestones for her are plugged during the talk: the release of her upcoming memoir, and her completing the recording of all of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies with the same orchestra, something no one has ever done before. Her achievements are no doubt impressive, as are her intelligence and wit. Tár is the kind of character study that involves spending a lot of time with a central figure while they talk about grand ideas and we learn about their foibles. 

During the interview, Lydia says that she never experienced any obstacles in relation to her sex in a male-dominated field. This is a perfect example of Lydia’s “reality distortion field” a term first coined by Bud Tribble (borrowed from a Star Trek episode) about working with Steve Jobs. Through a combination of confidence, charisma, bravado, hyperbole, and self-marketing, Jobs was able to seemingly bend reality to his will. We know this is likely false without ever needing to see it laid out in the film, based on Lydia’s age and being alive. The foundation she started was also created specifically to help women, pointing to another inconsistency. Watching Tár is sometimes an exercise in parsing through this field (pun not intended), as we see Lydia’s behavior and relationships over the course of the film. Is she being nice to Sebastian Brix (Allan Corduner), her assistant conductor at the Berlin Philharmonic, because she feels like she needs to? She clearly despises him, frequently calling him a “robot” behind his back. In Lydia’s world, being a robot would be the worst thing, as she prizes free thinking and self-determination above everything, at least for herself. She says she respects the opinions of others, but that rarely seems to be the case in practice.

During the talk, Gopnik asks her about the final Mahler symphony she will be recording, his fifth. She talks about Bernstein’s interpretation, and how Mahler left very little notes about how the symphony was supposed to sound beyond the musical notation. She talks about Mahler’s biography and his intent, including his new marriage to Alma Schindler. As a counterpoint, her Juilliard appearance happens right after. The conducting student at the center of it is a Gen Z “BIPOC nonbinary” who refuses to engage with Bach because the 18th century white man is problematic. Lydia goes on a tirade, chastising the student for their shallow-mindedness. She also reminds them that if Bach can be judged on his identity instead of his work, so can they. It seems that Lydia wants to have it both ways–Mahler’s personal life is important to her interpretation of his fifth symphony, but Bach’s possible anti-semitism is not.

But Todd Field doesn’t seem to want to answer this question about balancing the scales between social justice and “the canon.” He raises it because it’s a question that we are working through as a civilization, and one that there is no easy answer for. I can still enjoy the first three Mad Max movies, as well as all four Lethal Weapons, but I wouldn’t argue with someone who refuses to watch anything with Mel Gibson in it. But I might push back about Shakespeare, Bach, or Jules Verne (I am currently reading The Carpathian Castle, and there are a few passages that are quite antisemeitc) given their historical and cultural import. 

There have also been a lot of people expanding the application of “death of the author” in recent years, especially among those who love Harry Potter but are repulsed by J.K. Rowling. It is factual that Harry Potter is a resonant work with generations of people; it is also true that its creator and financial beneficiary is a raging transphobe that enables the mistreatment of the trans community. “Death of the author” isn’t a magic wand (pun intended this time) that allows you to divorce a problematic creator from creation. If anything, reports on Rowling’s most recent books are a perfect example of that. But like auteur theory and the Bechdel test, “death of the author” has morphed from an analytical tool to a pop culture buzzword used to divide “things I like” from “things I don’t like” while creating cover for those who don’t want to interact with material they find objectionable or do any moral analysis. Tár doesn’t offer any solid answers, but this moral/ethical dilemma is one of the centers of the story, and as the film goes on, it becomes evident that Lydia may have a personal stake in this conversation. 

Being a conductor is a perfect choice of career for her. So much of her world, from musical selections to her own schedule, are under her control. When she is at the podium, she says, she controls time itself. Imagine being that powerful? And what would that do to your ego, not to mention all of the awards and acclaim that comes with it? Not that we should feel bad for the famed elite, or hold them to different standards, but the level of hubris achieved by Lydia is remarkable. It also makes seeing her downfall coalesce even more interesting and satisfying. 

All of this comes together through the power of Cate Blanchett. Seeing her as Lydia Tár (there is a late film reveal about her name that I will not give away but cannot stop thinking about) is to see her back in full Galadriel mode, a “queen! Not dark, but beautiful and terrible as the dawn! Treacherous as the sea! Stronger than the foundations of the earth! All shall love me, and despair!” In the opening scenes of Tár, I was ready to preorder her memoir, as she is a fascinating character, the type of fictional creation it would be fascinating to see inserted into real life. By the end, I felt differently about her, but no less fascinated. Not only does Blanchett’s command of the screen seem effortless, but she is able to synthesize the various sides of Lydia into a meaningful whole. Her character is consistent, but also code switches easily, and not just between English, and German. The way she talks to each person in her life, and seems to prefer one-on-one interactions where possible, tells us so much about her need to control, as well as shows us how she approaches each person, from the previous Berlin Philharmonic leader Andris (Julian Glover) to Sebastian, to her partner Sharon (Nina Hoss), Olga–a Russian cellist new to the orchestra–(Sophie Kauer), to her assistant/protege Francesca (Noémie Merlant) and even her adopted daughter (Mila Bogojevic).

Control is Lydia’s core personality trait, and Field shows this more than tells us. The way she controls all of her interactions, like inviting people into her office for meetings to show power, or meeting with Andris at a restaurant where they have equal footing and are away from anyone who might contradict Lydia’s version of reality. Sebastian is the other exception, where she attempts to use his office to butter him up, before striking and retreating just as quickly. She leaves him devastated and walks away, asserting her power in his space. Lydia is also shown to be fairly germaphobic, even throwing out clothes that have been exposed to objectionable substances (since Tár acknowledges the existence of COVID, the repeated use of hand sanitizer could go either way). But her biggest problem is with noise. For someone so consumed by music and control, noise may be her biggest enemy. At one point, Andris mentions Arthur Schopenhauer’s theory linking noise intolerance with genius, which actually points back to Lydia’s own self-mythology. But there are a ton of details around this throughout the film, and as Lydia’s anxiety gets worse, so does her sensitivity. My favorite example is how bothered she is by a new rattling her previously near-silent electric car begins to make. Many films are enhanced by close viewing, but Tár definitely exposes so much of Lydia through visual information that distracted watching will severely limit its impact.

Tár often reminded me of some of Olivier Assyass’ recent work, especially Clouds of Sils Maria and Personal Shopper. Like Tár, they offer a glimpse into the world of the elite and especially in the case of Sils Maria, pull back the curtain a bit on what goes into preparing a stage performance, albeit in a different medium. One final thing that struck me about Tár was that my own cursory knowledge of classical music felt fully exposed. But as evidenced by Olga, classical music is more accessible than ever. Learning about it or how to play it has never been easier thanks to YouTube and other internet sources, which democratizes an insular world in a way that threatens the very power that Lydia clings to so tightly, and is perhaps another factor in her undoing. 

It isn’t often that a film hits me as deeply as Tár. The runtime flew by, and by the end I was torn between feeling happy that Lydia was delivered some sort of dish served cold and sad for the death of her dream. Near the end of the film, Lydia revisits a VHS tape of Leonard Bernstein talking about what music means during one of his New York Philharmonic Young People’s Concerts. In the clip, Bernstein talks about how music can make you feel:

…the most wonderful thing of all is that there's no limit to the different kinds of feelings music can make you have. And some of those feelings are so special and so deep they can't even be described in words. You see, we can't always name the things we feel. Sometimes we can; we can say we feel joy, or pleasure, peacefulness, whatever, love, hate. But every once in a while we have feelings so deep and so special that we have no words for them and that's where music is so marvelous; because music names them for us, only in notes instead of in words.

This is how I feel about movies. And the art of writing about movies is to try–sometimes in futility–to put those feelings into words. Seeing Lydia watch Bernstein moved me to tears for so many reasons. At the most basic level, it’s that telling stories, through words, images, music, whatever the medium, is one of the best things about being a human. Sometimes our thoughts and emotions are so deep that we can’t keep them inside any longer, and the only way to share them is through stories. Seeing Cate Blanchett as Lydia at the podium, leading an orchestra through music that she is deeply connected to, bringing sonic life to scribbles on a page is beautiful, as is the care and thought that goes into shaping that moment and how it ends up within the film that is Tár. In that moment, I understood why she would do whatever it takes to be up there, baton in hand.