Tár

To be a public figure is to be scrutinized for your every action. That is the nature of the beast. There is always going to be someone watching, looking for an opportunity to tear you down. It therefore becomes infinitely more important to do nothing that can even be interpreted as dishonest or self-serving lest it come back to bite you on the backside. It is magnified a hundredfold if your actions are legitimately shady because that will eventually catch up with you. We see that, and so much more, in Todd Field’s 2022 psychological drama Tár, a film about a world-renowned conductor whose selfish decisions cost her her position, her partner, her adoptive child, and her professional reputation.

Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) is the chief conductor of the Berlin orchestra. The film opens with her being interviewed for her upcoming memoir Tár on Tár as well as for her soon-to-be-released live recording of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. It becomes very clear early on that she is world-renowned and highly thought of in her respected field. On top of conducting, she also holds a masterclass at Juilliard Academy in New York City. During one of these classes, she is challenged by a student whose racial and sexual identity clashes with that of J. S. Bach, making him declare that he cannot listen to the artist’s works. Through her words and actions, she exposes the student’s argument as being incoherent, and he leaves the class, muttering profane insults at her. Unbeknownst to her, someone in that classroom is taping this altercation and will later use it for malicious means.

Lydia returns to Berlin, where she is living with her wife, Sharon (Nina Hoss), concertmaster of the orchestra, and their adopted daughter. There, she is conducting a blind audition for the cello position. But before the audition, Lydia spots a young Russian candidate, Olga (Sophie Kauer), in the bathroom. Lydia changes her scorecard to ensure Olga gets the position and then uses her position as conductor to grant Olga a soloist position in the orchestra’s companion piece, Elgar’s Cello Concerto. Lydia’s attraction to Olga, nor her obvious favoritism,  does not go unnoticed by the rest of the orchestra, including Sharon. 

While this is going on, something from Lydia’s past catches up to her. Krista Taylor, a promising young musician who was blacklisted by Lydia after getting on her bad side, has been trying to get in touch with her after being unable to find work anywhere thanks to Lydia. After her emails go unanswered, Krista kills herself, and her parents are planning on suing. Lydia instructs her assistant, Francesca (Noémie Merlant), to delete the emails and retain a lawyer, but Francesca keeps the emails anyway. When she is passed over for a coveted position as assistant conductor, Francesca disappears, turning the emails over to the plaintiffs. As the scandal mounts and protests start cropping up, Lydia finds herself being replaced as the head conductor, and her life starts to unravel. She starts seeing and hearing things and loses track of reality. Sharon leaves her, taking their daughter with her. Lydia Tár finds herself lost; her actions unraveling all that she built herself up to over her illustrious career. 

It is impossible to review this film without discussing the tremendous work Cate Blanchett is doing here. Cate is one of those actresses you associate with prestige pictures where she is a regal presence in them. And then she will suddenly show up in some throwaway films like Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Borderlands where she feels completely miscast and adds nothing to the overall production. She was the best part of The Aviator and elevated an otherwise forgettable little drama named Carol. She came on the scene in the early 1990s but only really started making waves in the early 2000s with a pair of period-piece dramas about Queen Elizabeth I. Most of the time, if her name is in the cast, it is enough to get me interested in the film because I can usually assume she will elevate it with her presence. That is definitely the case with Tár. 

While Tár is a great movie on its own, it is even better because of Blanchett. You can tell almost from moment one that she has done her homework and is not just reciting technical jargon without an understanding of what it is she is saying. Her mannerisms, her very tone of voice, sell it when she is hosting her masterclass at Juilliard and is trying to sell a concept to a very closed-off and misguided student. I won’t profess to understand all the nuances of what she is proclaiming, but I get the message by the way she is composing it, verbally and otherwise. Cate is quite simply superb throughout this film, but especially in this moment. We feel her passion, and it inspires us to pay attention to her. 

Her downward spiral is hard to watch because we can see the self-made pitfalls but are helpless to warn her about them. As she is artificially promoting Olga and putting her in a spotlight she has not earned, we see the reactions of the others in the orchestra and, more importantly, we see the look on Sharon’s face and her growing understanding of what is happening. Lydia has put her in a tough position and, when she finally has had enough and takes their daughter and leaves, we don’t begrudge her because we understand it. 

Almost as palpable is the position Lydia puts Francesco in. When Francesco first brings up Krista and the emails, Lydia is dismissive and thinking only of damage control. We never get the details of what happened between the two women, but it can safely be assumed that something romantically either happened or at least Lydia tried to make it happen. Either way, Krista got on Lydia’s bad side, and her career was ruined because of it. Lydia’s spiteful treatment of Krista and her callous response to the girl’s suicide really bothers Francesca. When Lydia passes Francesca over for the position of assistant composer, the already upset woman is pushed a little too far, and she uses whatever she has to take down her boss.

Todd Fields uses a lot of tricks to signify Lydia’s breakdown. She begins to be hyper-sensitive to sound, starting with a little rattle coming from the vent in her car. This escalates to the sounds of medical equipment coming from her neighbor’s apartment. Soon she is hallucinating, going so far as to hearing screaming and running, falling flat on her face on some concrete steps. She claims her wounds from the fall came from an assault, but not everyone is convinced. She shows her growing struggles in other ways, too. When she hears that her daughter is having troubles with another little girl at school, she approaches the girl outside and threatens her, stating that she can’t tell anyone about the threats because they won’t believe her over the adult. 

Lydia Tár’s downfall is one of her own making. She lets her personal appetites guide her choices, and the consequences are quite harsh. She loses her position as head conductor in Berlin, and her reputation is forever tarnished. A video of her class at Juilliard, heavily edited to make her look much worse than the situation actually was, has come to the attention of her colleagues, and she has basically become a pariah. When we last see her, she is in Thailand, conducting video game music for an audience of cosplayers, a far cry from where she was when we were first introduced to her. Most, if not all, of this could have been avoided had she had a bit more discipline in her personal life. 

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan, and Scott Lambert 

Best Director: Todd Field

Best Actress: Cate Blanchett

Best Original Screenplay: Todd Field

Best Cinematography: Florian Hoffmeister

Best Film Editing: Monika Willi

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Release Date: October 7, 2022

Running Time: 158 Minutes

Rated R

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, and Mark Strong

Directed By: Todd Field