TÁR, the cancel culture conversation piece of the year starring Cate Blanchett and Nina Hoss and directed by Todd Field

Also the hot Halloween costume of the year, judging by my social feeds.

I know you hate Todd Field, but I thought Little Children and In the Bedroom were both pretty good at the time. Haven't seen them since they came out though.

In the Bedroom merely ruined a Christmas Day movie fest; Little Children is among the 10 worst movies I've seen this century

That is a strong reaction. In retrospect I don't think the pedophile stuff in Little Children was that believable or was handled that well, and maybe it was meant to express some sort of homophobia.

It is such a weird and memorable film though, with a forbidden romance between two suburban married people in the foreground. I will have to see it again.

I liked both of those films, I'm left with one indelible image from each - the father lying in bed after he has had his revenge, and the pervert son reading the posthumous note from his mother (which I understand someone could see as bathetic).

so no one actually talked about TÁR on the TÁR thread? saw it yesterday and it's still marinating but i loved it. blanchett is amazing, but her wife and her assistant are also both great. i saw they auditioned cellists for the role of olga but presumably all the other orchestra members are actual non-acting musicians, some of whom give great acting micro-performances too.

i feel like the vague balance in perspective (or lack of perspective, as some might think of it) will be frustrating to some viewers - you get the impression of lydia as not being a very nice or good person but the movie also doesn't seem to be against her, or for her, but just presenting her

and for a movie with a very dry sense of humor, that final scene is a genuine LOL moment

i have seen neither of the other two todd field movies (sounded too melodramatic for me) so i just think of him as the eyes wide shut jazz pianist

also re: "cancel culture conversation piece" - the part of the movie that is explicitly about cancel culture (as i understand it) is pretty minimal. there are more parallels to #MeToo than cancel culture, and really the movie is broadly about power dynamics

I've procrastinated because of the length and b/c Field and Blanchett don't inspire me (Blanchett in particular I'm cold and colder on) but I'll probably go in the next few days. Thanks for the push.

Yeah NA otm… the cancel culture stuff seemed to me like a plot device invoked only as much as it needed to be in order to talk about power and complicity, not something the film was interested in discussing in & of itself. Framing it like a movie “about” cancel culture reminds me of people who felt The Irishman was making some kind of statement about the American labor movement.

I generally like Blanchett, I don’t think her performance was the stunning tour de force that some are describing it as but its a good one that holds together a very good film imo

It is good indeed, her performance and the film, and the fact that you have to spend time piecing together context (but never in a way that makes you lose sight of the story's relentless flow -- it's all centered around Blanchett's character and needs to be in this case) is a big key to it. (In a weird but real way, Rose Green's Saint Maud from the other year serves as a similar model, in that Morfydd Clark is relentlessly the center of her own drama, with a [much MUCH different] final scene to end it all. So clearly the sign is to cast actresses who have played Galadriel in such roles.)

I will give it sound edit credit alone. There's a particular moment that I won't bother to signal or describe but if you're in a good sound system setup it will knock you flat, a pure thrill, where the imperious intention also serves as a telling point.

saw this last night and broadly enjoyed it a lot, tho its a tiny try-hard a couple of time maybe: like horror moments where you want to say turn yr lights on at this point and 2moro mend yr fridge you are not short of cash

the cancel-culture element felt minor and fairly add-on: ilike three-quarters of the way thru the project todd field thought oh wait i'll have to deal with this side of things also and then also decided to skimp it -- it doesn't depict the protesters with much interest (or tbf really even try to: mobs and social media remain very derailing for cinema as a subject)

i genuinely enjoyed the movie's heel-turn at the end, from the start i'd been snorting with amusement at small cartoonish elements of character where the set up was TOO MUCH ALREADY and subverting the intensity, and not just of blanchett's highly controlled and increasingly absurd performance and long-hair hair-work -- the cosplay audience (which was very lovingly done and kind of redeemed the skimped anti-mob element earlier) also made me want to go back and see the degree to which comedy was the intended mode all along even though the horror moments seems out of step with this?

for a soon-to-be-professional cellist i tht sophie krauer is an excellent actor (the strad magazine ran a piece arguing basically "of course all great virtuosos are also a kind of actor" which seems to be pushing it but )

at one point during an early rehearsal i had a great sad wave of nostalgia for when i was a part of such orchestras (i mean not the berlin phil lol, basically not very good school and college orchestras, but the physical setting of being among all these ppl with their beloved instruments gave me a pang, the noises and of such a room, the smell of polished wood and rosin and so on -- myself i haven't been there for 40-odd years and i finally gave sold my bass to a friend's nephew last year 😔😢)

also i larfed non-stop at once particularly nonsensical joek = when sophie krauer as cellist was dressed up nice for a proper performance in the SEINFELD PUFFY SHIRT, this was someon's choice for her look

Often LOL funny, sometimes excruciating. I can't imagine any actress except maybe the young Judy Davis in the role, which didn't mean Blanchett didn't figure in the excruciating parts. Todd Goddamn Field is sharper about his milieu than Ruben Östlund is about his.

I thought the film was fantastic, and had been waiting for an essay like this one to come along:

It didn’t occur to me until I left a showing of “Tár” that the movie does all sorts of things that I’d normally find intolerable in a narrative about a powerful person accused of sexual misconduct. The camera stays glued to Lydia, using long takes and few establishing shots, and rarely straying from her point of view. The victims are barely fleshed out or else absent altogether, their accusations only referred to in passing, their testimonies unheard. We catch only the first lines of Krista’s desperately confused e-mails. One of the few characters to challenge Lydia directly—a “bipoc pangender”-identifying Juilliard student who struggles to connect with Bach because of his “misogynistic life”—is not given the time to make a full or coherent argument for a more inclusive canon. But making the forces that threaten Lydia’s stature as muted to the viewer as they are to her turns out to be a highly effective way of conveying the insidiousness of power. Lydia does not have to contend with other people’s humanity—nor offer hers to them. The film immerses viewers in Lydia’s world of extreme control, which is to say, extreme isolation.

…

I did not feel that such immersion was intended to evoke empathy for Lydia, at least not unquestioningly. Roger Ebert famously likened movies to “a machine that generates empathy.” “Tár” generates something more like empathy horror. A crowd at the Venice Film Festival reportedly cheered as Lydia dressed down the Juilliard student, identifying with her exhaustion in the face of cultural sensitivities, and perhaps instinctively siding with a person whose greatness the film has gone to great lengths to establish. I wonder how the audience felt once it became clear how far she’d gone to silence others. The film itself is masterfully made, aggressively sleek, confident and clever. I delighted at its niche cultural references, thought I saw Cate Blanchett commune with the divine, and even, somehow, cried. But through all it reveals about the cost of artistic greatness and the ruse of prestige, “Tár” casts even its own achievements as untrustworthy.

…

I still value the sanctity of the artist-audience exchange, but it worries me when conversations about artists’ misdeeds end up centering on it. When an artist is revealed to have abused someone, we ask, “Can we still like their art? Is it still O.K. to?” These questions treat every individual’s response to art as a morality test. They confuse optics with ethics, muddying a useful distinction between reacting to a work of art—an act that, after all, is something visceral and involuntary, like laughter—and materially supporting it. Discussions around accountability and practical consequences for abusers get sidelined in favor of abstract exercises around taste and identity. Justice appears to have been served merely because a legacy has been tainted. I do not mean to suggest that art works can be divorced from social context, only that our reactions to them are not, in themselves, public statements, acts of harm, or good deeds.

Lydia also monitors her own and others’ reactions to art, albeit for virtues of a different kind. “You’ve got to sublimate yourself, your ego, and, yes, your identity,” she says to her students, with disdain, imagining that they are constricted by arbitrary rules of their own making, whereas she approaches music from a neutral place of surrender. Her exhortation is ironic, though, given how much she has invested in her own persona–her identity, you could say–and the career she's built on it. She may deride the idea that a student would attend Juilliard for its “brand,” but the school’s brand helps to uphold her own. “Tár” is less interested in explaining the relationship between genius and cruelty than in showing how both collaborate with power—as derived from the brands, the institutions, and all their virtuous pretense—to create a shield against accountability.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/what-tar-knows-about-the-artist-as-abuser/amp

Pretty much on the same page with Alfred here minus the Blanchett hate. Finally Todd Field made something that wasn't terrible.

a “bipoc pangender”-identifying Juilliard student who struggles to connect with Bach because of his “misogynistic life”

the rest of this better be really good because this is fucking embarrassing

did a fake SJW sockpuppet account from 4chan write that character because it sounds about that level of writing/understanding

Field's direction of that character to constantly be pumping his anxiety-ridden leg throughout the scene does him no favors, either

the rest of this better be really good because this is fucking embarrassing

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Friday, November 25, 2022 7:55 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I implore you to actually read the essay and or watch the film

they won't

I read the piece (having read a couple of more negative/ambivalent ones previously) and will probably watch the film eventually but if this minor character sounding like something out of a bari weiss column is justified thematically somehow I'll be impressed

Oh Nina Hoss is really really good in this too btw

yeah I said as much in the detrius thread

I do love the tossed-off gag about Marlon Brando's imported alligators (presumably during the filming of Apocalypse Now making the river permanently un-swimmable by locals.

I read the piece (having read a couple of more negative/ambivalent ones previously) and will probably watch the film eventually but if this minor character sounding like something out of a bari weiss column is justified thematically somehow I'll be impressed

― your original display name is still visible (Left), Friday, November 25, 2022 9:24 PM (thirty-one minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

life is…so much more complex than you make it seem

To that end, that's precisely what makes this very much officially an anti-"cancel culture" movie, no matter how much grey area Field and Blanchett build into the apparatus ... They practically double underline the idea that "there's more to every story" etc.

I’m sorry no offense but there simply must be more to life than reading a few second-rate synopses of a genuinely challenging work of art and developing a whole point of view based on little more than that

I agree!

Also, to pull things down into the gutter, a quote from J3ffr3y W311s' allergic reaction to the movie:

All kinds of exposition is deliberately left out of Tar, and it’s triggering. I’m sorry but Tar takes forever to get going (at least 45 minutes if not longer), and once it does it’s too elliptical, too fleeting, too oblique, too teasing and (I guess) too smart for its own good. It made me feel dumb, and I really hate that.

Anything that both makes him understand that he is, in fact, a stupid person AND makes him say he felt "triggered" ... chef's kiss.

Also, the very idea that I'm actually wrestling with a Todd Fucking Field movie means I too am getting my just desserts

i had the opposite reaction as tavi g. both tár's partner (nina hoss) and her assistant francesca (noemie merlant) were wet blankets--jealous, petty, all anxious concerned expressions and worried furrowed brows--while lydia is fabulous and ebullient. her deep connection to music gives her terrestrial presences a delightful levity. even her slam poetry-inflected boomer rant in the "pangender BIPOC" scene is, against all odds, kind of a banger. the scene where she threatens the kid in german--so good! she also wears great outfits throughout

framing one's whole reaction to the movie around the assumption that lydia is an "abuser" misses the fact that the movie is (imho quite intentionally) highly ambiguous about whether she was abusive at all. it leaves out key details of her relationships with krista and francesca, and the scene where olga vulgarly slurps her food cuts against the assumption that their relationship is an abuse of power; if anything olga is the one using tar. it's (not that subtly) making a "meta" point about cancel culture in turning the audience against lydia without actually showing us anything incriminating

Tár also made Hoss and Merlant into wet blankets, to be clear: she ground them down.

yes. and flops, one of the central points of that essay, and at least in my opinion one of the strengths of the film, is that the film allows us to render a fairly firm judgment despite deliberately leaving key pieces of information uncorroborated, at least literally speaking. I suppose field could have shown us scenes of krista prior to her death, or her parents confronting lydia in court, but would this really have added anything to the film? has anyone come across a review that genuinely seems to think lydia is innocent?

whoops that was supposed to be spoiler tag, I’m getting old

How Todd Fucking Field made a movie about a guilty person and asked, "How can we still have fun?" is the most surprising thing about Tár .

i don't think the BIPOC scene is at all well handled content-wise* but you come out of it (well i came out of it) already knowing that LT was a bully who absolutely shouldn't be teaching even if her antagonist was basically delivered as a twerp pulling studenty stunts. i fully disliked lydia from then on and was hoping for the comeuppance she deserved.

*bcz there's several real issues to it, and they're delivered as no more than hurried cartoons (actually on both sides, tho lydia's has far the better delivery mainly bcz cate). of course the entire movie is a very controlled cartoon and that's good -- but it's mainly a different kind of cartoon

as observed above this entire strand to me feels like minor business sellotaped in at the last minute, like field belatedly felt it "had to be there" but didn't then put the work in to ensure it wasn't basically a red herring (while also helping himself over-painlessly to a plot point or two plus some handy arc machinery). my guess is that he felt the (to repeat: belated) work needed fleshing out this conflict and the real issues attached, wd overset the tone and content of the rest of the film (and i think he's right).

That trembling knee is the equivalent of Captain Queeg and the steel ball.

i mean he's called queeg

Knowing that the movie had a "cancel culture" angle, I spent the first half waiting for something to come of the Juilliard scene (which is fairly early). I kept thinking, "Look at Tar, oblivious to what's about to happen." But when it does come, it seems relatively inconsequential on its own, or at least it has a slightly different import than one might have predicted from the original scene: It's leaked to support the accusations against Tar in the context of Krista's suicide, as an example of her imperiousness and abuse of power. The Bach/BIPOC stuff is superficially salacious, but it's not really the point.

In fact, while I was anticipating the consequences of the Juilliard scene, the movie was quietly demonstrating how all of Tar's relationships and interactions are suffused with perverse power dynamics, but this becomes apparent only through accretion because the movie withholds other people's perspectives. In some ways, I feel like the Juilliard scene is almost intentionally heavy-handed, to show that her character's real abuses are more insidious.

I guess I'm saying that it is kind of a red herring! But not completely unrelated to the broader revelations.

Another comparison to Östlund: https://boxd.it/3tcs3V

Maybe people genuinely, genuinely think this guy is the shit. But... I very much doubt this movie has a second and third life in the discourse cycle. It's disposable. TÁR was a little calculated for me but it's a high masterpiece next to Triangle of Sadness and I'm glad I saw them on consecutive days to be able to further appreciate what the Todd Field has to offer.

yes. and flops, one of the central points of that essay, and at least in my opinion one of the strengths of the film, is that the film allows us to render a fairly firm judgment despite deliberately leaving key pieces of information uncorroborated, at least literally speaking. I suppose field could have shown us scenes of krista prior to her death, or her parents confronting lydia in court, but would this really have added anything to the film? has anyone come across a review that genuinely seems to think lydia is innocent?

― k3vin k., Saturday, November 26, 2022 7:46 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ya idk i disagree. i felt see that the film is trying really hard to do the opposite, to keep the judgment ambiguous. from an interview with todd fields

The film is an examination of a downfall, recognition, and even potential rebuild of an artist abusing power that they’ve gained over time. How difficult was it to create a balance on this issue without tilting your hand to one side or the other when making it? And do you think the audience should remain neutral when looking at Lydia and her actions?

TF: I think the audience has to do what the audience wants to do. We built this thing for a very particular purpose. We built this thing so that there was the ability to ask questions about her behavior and to have a real stake in your feelings about it, whether you judged her one way or the other, or maybe you changed your mind about her, or…

When Monika Willi and I were editing, we were out in the middle of nowhere working seven-day weeks, and when we would watch the film down, at different points, we would always turn to each other and say the same thing. It was, “How did you feel about her today?” And sometimes those feelings would be very contradictory from the previous viewing. So, it wasn’t like… We really tried to approach it, if I can be so bold as to say, in a humble way, which is that we weren’t trying to draw any lines about… We weren’t looking for outcome, we weren’t looking to do equational narrative. We were looking for as much possibility of interpretation as possible. Not to be intentionally vague or obscure or anything like that, just that all of it was available, and there’s no wrong answer, you know?

the real controversy is not about whether lydia tár is abusive, a bad person, cancel-worthy, etc., but whether she is a real person

I really don’t think that quote contradicts anything that I or others have been saying! but I will concede that the film takes on a hot-button topic in an unconventional, decidedly non-didactic way, and that it is not gonna please everyone!

I finally watched this and I loved it so goddamn much.

the real controversy is not about whether lydia tár is abusive, a bad person, cancel-worthy, etc., but whether she is a real person

― flopson, Saturday, November 26, 2022 2:14 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I felt like the first moment of this movie, Adam Gopnik’s introduction, made it very clear that this was an entirely fantastical character. It felt similar to a buildup in a horror movie. Do people really believe a person like this could exist? Should they have gone even further and had her conduct the first symphony from space or something?

i knew it was fiction going in but the friend i watched it with who went in completely blind asked me "wait, so is she not a real person?" after we saw it. it's also become a bit of a meme https://www.thecut.com/2022/10/lydia-tar-is-not-real.html

xp k3v- one of the things i like about it is that a reaction like mine (fawning over tar) and mark s's (rooting for her downfall) are both possible. as you said "the film allows us to render a fairly firm judgment despite deliberately leaving key pieces of information uncorroborated", but imo the same limited information also allows you to not

I had no idea that the last moment was anything other than a fantasy (not knowing what she was conducting or why the audience looked that way), until reading up on it afterwards.

The scene where she tries to follow the cellist home also felt unreal, so now I want to see the whole movie again from the point of view that she wasn't falling into some hallucinatory madness.

Also would like to watch this as a double feature with Black Swan.

asking "do people really believe a person like this could exist?" but pointing crossly towards adam gopnik

I loved this. odd reactions as expected up above from those who didn't actually watch the film. the film does a good job making it clear that she was an abuser without having to get explicit (ie: there is no doubt that she should not have done whatever it is she did to Krista, even though it's also somewhat apparent Krista was not a stable person). The surreal elements were well done, and really recalled Eyes Wide Shut to me, and I'd honestly forgotten who Todd Field was!

i knew it was fiction going in but the friend i watched it with who went in completely blind asked me "wait, so is she not a real person?" after we saw it. it's also become a bit of a meme https://www.thecut.com/2022/10/lydia-tar-is-not-real.html

― flopson, Saturday, November 26, 2022 5:45 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

I know that Lydia Tar is fictional, but she doesn't do anything that hasn't been done in real life by 1) a male conductor or 2) a male film director. (With the likely exception of a conductor tackling the second, in front of an audience.)

The Juilliard student is a strawman (strawperson?), but his dialogue is rooted in discourse I've seen elsewhere, challenging the canon and who decides what is canonical. I didn't see Whiplash, but in that I understand the cruel teacher is supposed to be the hero for expecting no less than 115% from the student?

Hmm: https://slate.com/culture/2022/12/tar-cate-blanchett-movie-ending-explained-analyzed.html

Maybe?

That sounds like a more interesting movie than the one I'd been reading about until now. Might need to rent it from Amazon.

that's how I watched it last month

that's the first piece i've seen that grapples with that aspect of the movie in even a remotely satisfactory way.

Honestly, I buy it and I never would’ve thought Todd Field capable of even a modestly successful stylistic flourish until tecently

Enjoyed that essay. Definitely agree that a lot of the elements identified feel like they intentionally don't add up or can't be resolved in the mode of a realistic what-you-see-is-what-happened-to-the-characters narrative.

i hadn't noticed the shots with lydia lurking in the background when i watched this but yikes--they're scary!

https://compote.slate.com/images/03911a57-319b-4a5a-8f71-1c02d2e3858f.gif?crop=538%2C358%2Cx0%2Cy0&width=1600

Honestly, I buy it and I never would’ve thought Todd Field capable of even a modestly successful stylistic flourish until tecently

― عباس کیارستمی (Eric H.), Thursday, December 8, 2022 9:14 PM (twenty-eight minutes

Hence my rechristening him.

"it's mostly supernatural" also neatly accounts for Mark Strong's astounding hair

strong's agent his written "terrible syrups whenever possible" into all his contracts for years

also relevant:

Leonard Bernstein getting frustrated. pic.twitter.com/QVZ20t6qUL

— composers doing normal shit (@NormalComposers) December 9, 2022

i don't really buy the supernatural element as a full-on "explanation" of the last chunk of the movie but i appreciate it as another wrinkle. it definitely did not occur to me at all.

didn't occur to me while watching the movie, that is

theres certainly more going on than what initially meets the eye, but "supernatural" is not a word i would introduce into the conversation

how about "weird"

this film is much weirder than it initially seems, and weirder than most people realize, I think

especially if you add, "and it's by the guy who made In the Bedroom."

i mean it's repulsion if deneuve was playing a lady that could impress adam fkn gopnik, the more that was going on was only not initially meeting the eye if u like dozed off

i read it more as funny than spooky bcz the various horror interludes were very extra w/o being very effective (as horror), but i very much enjoyed the ending (seems like he's better at funny, and cate is v funny too)

this film is much weirder than it initially seems, and weirder than most people realize, I think

this was my feeling after seeing it (not that I have it figured out), and I was frustrated trying to find reviews that had a handle on it.

i read it more as funny than spooky bcz the various horror interludes were very extra w/o being very effective (as horror), but i very much enjoyed the ending (seems like he's better at funny, and cate is v funny too)

agree with this too! though was expecting something more...cathartic, as it approached the end but the way it did go was really funny/weird/interesting.

the rather oblique reference to Apocalypse Now (I think...) in the final section is really suggestive too.

Yeah, I love how thrown-away that line was

i think i’m TÁR-pilled. great movie

— b-boy bouiebaisse (@jbouie) December 10, 2022

the smarts are liking this movie

https://thefilmstage.com/the-tar-cinematic-universe-will-expand-with-new-short-film-by-todd-field/

Jár pic.twitter.com/McXnTh1IRq

— Joe Whitt (@joeobligations) December 19, 2022

wtf at that Slate piece
I felt the film could easily have been written for a male lead by the way, I can imagine a production meeting with someone saying “hey, hey, but what if Cate Blanchett??!??”

oh https://www.avclub.com/cate-blanchett-says-tar-role-originally-meant-for-a-man-1849872103

Been thinking about this quite a bit after watching it last night. The whole cast was stellar but Blanchett was knocking it out of the park. Definitely read as a sort of surrealist comedy/horror film to me; the Slate piece was striving a bit more to connect all the dots than is necessary, but all those dots are very much there. lots of ari aster vibes without the easy sadism.

tons of visual echoes: the black dog in the passageway followed by her child on all fours followed by the piano. All challenges she won't be able to overcome. If you were looking for a mini-trend piece, you could do worse than one about post-COVID imposter syndrome media, beginning here and looping in Fleischman is In Trouble.

i appreciate how entirely open to interpretation this movie is and how much it forces the viewer to work to meet it. I got in an argument a couple of nights back with a buddy who, after extolling his love for White Lotus and Triangle of Sadness and having to listen to me go on about how facile and hypocritical those pieces are, accused me of not liking satire. What i don't like is EASY satire.

Having known a few Tár-types, the verisimilitude of the hyper-erudite patter was uncanny. i am gonna have to be careful who i talk to about this irl.

Confused by that Blanchett comment bc I heard an interview with Todd Field in which he said he wrote the movie with Blanchett in mind and wouldn't have made it if she hadn't said yes.

my partner, who is a Bernstein nerd, immediately tracked Tar's beat pattern as his.

feel like a big key to the character is her rough and tumble roots. strivers know that the system must be gamed and even when we know the rules are shifting and can hear the trap closing, we are certain we'll dodge yet again. the cry in the woods while running, the metronome speeding. as a fellow sound-sensitive genius with a shoulder problem who gets up in the middle of the night to listen to the walls to see where that noise is coming from, i felt very targeted.

xpost

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2022/12/todd-field-interview-tar-theories-lyrida-egot-awards-insider

Vanity Fair: Let’s start with Lydia Tár because, when you look at social media, everyone is talking about her almost like she’s a real person. Everyone loves to analyze her. How did this character first take shape for you?

Todd Field: She kind of appeared about 10 years ago to me. I understand, in a fashion, why people do think that she’s real because she’s very real to me and has been for a long time. I wasn’t sure that I would ever be able to sort of share her with anyone because everything that I’ve been adapting for however many years has been based on underlying material, where the characters have been imagined by others. But here she is.

Vanity Fair: I was reading over the screenplay and I noticed this opening note that you put in there: “Based on the script’s page count, it would be reasonable to assume that the total running time for Tár would be well under two hours. However, this will not be a reasonable film.” And then you go on to say, “if you are mad enough to greenlight this film, be prepared for one whose necessary length represents these practical accommodations.” It sounds like you really led with the fact that you needed to have the freedom to make the story you wanted to tell. Was that ever met with any resistance?

Todd Field: Strangely, no. And I didn’t receive one script note. And as that note says, “if you’re mad enough to greenlight this film”—I’m still sort of scratching my head that, [chairman of Focus Features] Peter Kujawski and [president of production and acquisitions] Kiska Higgs were mad enough to greenlight this film and ultimately [Universal Filmed Entertainment Group chairman] Donna Langley and [NBCUniversal vice chairman] Jimmy Horowitz because who on earth would ever greenlight this film? [Laughs.]

Vanity Fair: You wrote the script for Cate Blanchett. Did it require you to chase her down in any way to get her to sign on, and would you have made this if she passed?

Todd Field: No, I wouldn’t have made it if she passed. I tried to be respectful and transparent with the studio, but the one thing that I lied about when I handed it in was immediately Kiska Higgs and Peter Kujawski said, “you must have someone in mind for this role?” And I said, “No, I have no idea.” Because I was terrified that somebody might make a call or whatever and spook her, you know? So I kind of didn’t do anything for about a month. And then my wife kind of kicked me under the table and said, “you need to quit being so sheepish. You need to call her.” And I did, and she said yes immediately. That was surprising because I think it’s a very dangerous character. I don’t think it wasn’t a sure thing. There was all kinds of reasons why she may have said no, but that speaks to who she is as an artist that she said yes.

my partner, who is a Bernstein nerd, immediately tracked Tar's beat pattern as his

Probably my favorite moment in the whole movie is when she greets by name the composer coming thru her alarm clock radio

Funniest movie moment of 2022. #Tar pic.twitter.com/jvB61ht8j4

— Ken Jones (@KenJones81) November 19, 2022

Even funnier when they include a credit for that song in the closing credits reel

lol, i was literally typing that as an xpost!

Still blows me away that Todd Field wrote himself the most original American script of the year.

And that he directed a well-directed movie

somehow never saw either in the bedroom or little children so i came into this with zero expectations on the director front. this is exemplary work but i'm hearing that's not par for his course?

itt: too much hyperbole, not enough critical analysis of the SEINFELD PUFFY SHIRT

I overstate -- In the Bedroom is a reasonably well-directed take on reprehensible material

Ugh, that word again, I don't even know what it means!

not to put too fine a point on it but as I haven't seen this comment made elsewhere: a film about a woman who ensnares people in her own "transactional" machinations of growth and then chokes them out when they prove threatening that engenders a la brea-sized quagmire of provocative discourse might be giving away its endgame in the title.

^^^^^^^^^ !!!

Are you saying it’s the pits?

i'm calling it an attraction!

incidentally, i watched Corsage tonight and that's a good follow up to Tar. Both films about what a woman is worth, how she can work within the system, how much rope she needs to weigh anchor

I think In the Bedroom is very good.

Tár : when a movie character has this much sauce, that’s the filmmakers telling you that they are unambiguously cool & that you are supposed to root for them

Just one of many 2022 highlights we celebrate in the sletter today https://t.co/wqoelSmGdk pic.twitter.com/Hu9Kc6M1Sv

— Blackbird Spyplane (@BLKBRD_Spyplane) December 27, 2022

that misread iirc is the whole angle of richard brody’s piece about it (the man does not know how to watch a movie)

I don't think In the Bedroom is remotely terrible, just "determined" in that late 20thh century American fiction way.

I mean, it was adapted from a story by Andre Dubus.

well, yeah

House of Sand and Fog was probably the darkest book I've ever read, and the film had the same kind of feel as In the Bedroom.

And I didn't realize that the story on which In the Bedroom was based was written by Andre Dubus II, not Andre Dubus III. :O

the man does not know how to watch a movie

Brody is maddeningly idiosyncratic but I would never accuse him of not knowing how to watch a movie

he occasionally sees something i don't in a film and sometimes its helpful but equally often i want to hunt him for sport

When I seen Richard Brody’s byline, my heart sinks. (Occasionally he’ll write something that’s in the realm of right on.)

“See”

Yikes

I haven’t seen this movie yet, will probably wind up being a rental unless it opens back up again.

reopening Friday here (arthouse, vs previous multiplex run), so cross your fingers

I haven’t seen this movie yet, will probably wind up being a rental unless it opens back up again.

Amazon wants $20 to purchase it at the moment; when it's rentable (that is, $6 or less) I'll definitely check it out.

I haven’t seen this movie yet, will probably wind up being a rental unless it opens back up again.

― The Triumphant Return of Bernard & Stubbs (Raymond Cummings),

Do your best to watch it soon. I paid $20 on Amazon in early November.

I think this movie works as a comedy as much as anything. I didn’t feel anything about Tar’s fall since I felt she was a glib phony all through the movie, all her ideas were trite or received. I felt like her character had no actual passion for music and just liked conducting for the controls and access to high quality poon. Anyways, I was the only person in the theater who laughed at the supposed shocking climax, and the postscript joke reveal was *chef’s kiss*.

i don't know that I'd call it a comedy, but those scenes are funny

Olga chowing down like she hadn’t eaten in a week (although actually maybe she hadn’t) was hilarious too.

CB can do better

Do we know who suggested Monster Hunter? It’s so perfect yet I can’t imagine Todd Field knows about the Monster Hunter phenomenon.

And what did Kaname Fujioka think of the film?

I think this movie works as a comedy as much as anything.

i was the only person in the theatre laughing when i saw it so i think we're in the minority here. i had the same experience with phantom thread

Yes! I had audience members turning around watching PT, I was laughing so.

zadie smith weighs in
https://archive.ph/z0Ztj

Laugh during any and every movie, I say

Twitter doing what it does best:

Emily in Paris is a confusing show. What's her deal? Why is everyone in love with her? Why isn't the clear sexual tension between her and the handsome French woman she works for getting resolved?

— Lydia Tár (@LydiaTarReal) December 27, 2022

lol

Thanks for the Zadie Smith piece, insightful and interesting although we got different things from the film.

that's a great essay. curious if there was anything in particular she said that you took issue with, or if she just was elucidating things you hadn't yet considered (this was my feeling, in some respects)

i thought her suggestions about generational divide and of Tar as Gen-X exemplar were ideas i hadn't much thought about beyond her reflexive hunt for youth

I was. I adore those little creatures. https://t.co/XSasH9fRIT

— Lydia Tár (@LydiaTarReal) December 27, 2022

that Lydia Tar account is a good follow

If you see the whole movie as a comedy that solves the supposed riddle of the “totally different tone” of the postscript some have written about (it is not at all a shift in tone).

the shoes in the bathroom moment is one of the funniest things I've ever seen

didn't read the zadie smith piece but "lydia tár is gen x", tho true, strikes me as a boring thesis (like all other generational analysis)

one great comedic scene was when tár is commiserating with her older composer friend julian glover about cancel culture, but then he goes too far bemoans the denazification of classical musical and she calls him out on it

Saw this today. (I think it might have screened here a couple of months ago, but I didn't know a thing about it and skipped it.) It wasn't quite as involving as I'd hoped it would be, but I thought it was impressive (didn't care much for In the Bedroom at the time). I'm not sure it needed to take quite so long to get to where it was going, but I'm also glad such a film can get made and released in the Marvel moment, so I'm fine with that. My two favourite moments were at opposite ends of the spectrum: the Leonard Bernstein clip, and Lydia's reaction, and then the Spinal Tap ending.

I really loved that zadie smith essay

one great comedic scene was when tár is commiserating with her older composer friend julian glover about cancel culture, but then he goes too far bemoans the denazification of classical musical and she calls him out on it

"he never signed his letters heil hitler, even the ones to hitler"

scorsese is a gamer

Martin Scorsese: The ‘Clouds Lifted’ for Cinema’s Future When I Saw ‘TÁR’ https://t.co/3UVNBruC5E pic.twitter.com/uBNeD4apOd

— IndieWire (@IndieWire) January 5, 2023

Wait till he watches Barbie next year

— Nandini's Gay Best Friend in PS1 (scenes deleted) (@SilamSiva) January 5, 2023

This is now available for rent on Amazon, so I'm thinking I'll check it out this weekend.

hit me up to get on my plex ring and watch it tonight!

Cate Blanchett ... said that “Todd is the type of director you go on a hike with, and he’d warn you that you almost definitely encounter a bear, and there’s a strong possibility that you might lose a limb or part of your face, and you find yourself really excited. Bears? Fuck yeah!”

In her interview with Adam Gopnik.

gopnik? fuck no

Meaning Cate was interviewing him as herself while he was playing another character in a film called Rat

Watched it yesterday and liked it with reservations.

The first couple scenes almost threw me off. I think it's only with the Julliard scene that Lydia really appeared to me as a character. She felt real enough to me as a high achiever who had to harden and become isolated in exchange for success (in the classic Faustian pact), especially as a woman in a traditionally male role. I guess a lot of the irony in the film comes from seeing her exposed and vulnerable even as she makes very big human blunders. It comes from seeing her struggle to reconcile her ideals about music, all the while behaving in a nasty, insensitive, or cruel manner, or just being generally unbearable. There's a couple of key scenes like when she speaks to the child, where it's so inappropriate, and yet maybe you still can't entirely condemn her for her dog-eat-dog approach, unless you want to become the assistant and others who have made a definitive opinion on her and are craving not unegoistacally for her downfall, for the pleasure of seeing someone fall.

I thought it was unsatisfactory to see the central unpleasant climatic part so hurried, it feels like all the tension collapses in one big crash, with Lydia unraveling from one scene to the next, her partner turning against her quite abruptly, some events and the roles of the assistant and Olga left mostly implicit, and I found the epilogue entirely dispensable. As far as I'm concerned, the film could have ended with her pushing the rival off the podium and being forcibly removed. Maybe more minor points, but some of the erudition was distracting, Cate Blanchett sometimes stretched credibility by appearing so... "out of it" (was clearly intentional though). On the positive side, definitely the Stalker-like scene in the Berlin squat, and some of the humor (the German neighbor, CB and her German antiques and the musicians making faces).

Overall rather intriguing and through-provoking.

Oh and obviously you see from miles away what's going to happen, no suspense and all inevitability there, CB is going blindly into it.

loved this movie. i disagree that the epilogue was dispensable -- the ending was one of my favorite moments. i like that the movie was a tragedy in the classic sense. her idealistic, even romantic commitment to music as a way of preserving and transforming historical memory really was valuable. it wasn't just stodginess or conservatism. but she was a poor spokesperson for her ideals becuase of her personal failings, her narrownesss and egotism in her personal life which is actually really different from the way she seemed to approach music.

I think I get the point of the epilogue: "Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt", there's an afterlife where she manages to continue her job outside of the spotlight, a way out from a suffocating milieu. A favorite moment though ?

I read the screenplay over the weekend, and it's a good way to revisit the film. Field is so specific with status details that a reader learns details that flew by (plus the suggestion of several moments from a redhead's POV, the suggestion of Krista).

As I mentioned above, I loved the ending just for its humour; it really did make me think of Spinal Tap playing that military base.

the ending is genuinely and generously funny and invites you to go back and note what else was probably actually p funny when it originally struck you as merely odd (the seinfeld puffy shirt)

onstage tackle is kinda just another thing that happens (seemed tres kubrick to me in the way it always does when people get into clumsy+desperate fights at the end of 3hr movies filmed in glacial longshot, but am i only thinking of barry lyndon?) fishbowl scene in epilogue otoh structurally necessary bc it's when she sees herself + the mechanism she is part of, stripped of obfuscatory questions about aesthetics, and even of the illusion of her own independence, since her existential heroism turns out to slot so neatly into the consumer-role of the most direct and open exploitation.

monster hunter scene a perfect vision of personal hell (the timing of the assistant popping up w headphones tho: you cannot start without me!) and her self-possessed dignity as she burns in it is also perfect.

krista's lil ghost-cameos v effective. slatepitch about it-was-a-dream theory valuably excavates those five or six frames of krista lurking in the background of tar's apartment which i 100% missed, but gets distracted Figuring Out Plot and doesn't bother praising the lovely irony of this section wherein tar's convo w julian glover about schopenhauer ("it was unclear that this private and personal failing had anything to do w his work") is followed immediately by a montage of tar's own work being literally, physically, audibly haunted by her own private and personal failings-- including the bit where not only does the (real or imagined) siren she keeps hearing inspire her own (blocked) composition but also its extreme distance inspires her (unblocked) interpretive decision to move the trumpeter back into the booth for her mahler recording-- an idea mark strong of course keeps when he records it himself.

(+ since as slate piece also points out this sequence of her at work is implied to be happening at more or less the time of the suicide, it's possible tho unnecessary to believe the inspirational siren is not only real but actually krista's)

(or maybe not cuz i forget who's in which city.)

might need to revive the ILX classic term "challenging opinion" for the "ACTUALLY TAR is a comedy" crew

banned for telling the truth

in our time

Dude it genuinely is funny. The tackle is funnier than it is shocking.

oh i also rly love the last line-- def wouldn't prefer any other line in the movie in its place. brothers and sisters of the 5th fleet.

But then I find diarrhea funny so take that for what it’s worth.

when yr seated watching tar and the siren's not so far

just because a movie is funny doesn't mean it's a comedy

i don't really know what my argument is here except that i don't really feel like this movie has one clear-cut genre so calling it a comedy feels reductive

think treesh is otm that it is a classical tragedy (tho we may differ on her Flaw). it's v funny tho yes.

No interest in seeing this movie but always lots of interest in reading Zadie Smith essays, so thanks for that one, it was good

stuff in the smith essay about identity and individualism and ~freedom~ v good+insightful and hits central questions of the movie, with all of its ironies about being (earnestly) ordered by an egotist to "sublimate yourself", or being (literally) elected to something as socially constructed as celebrity and still (correctly) believing "it's not a democracy", but unsure "x vs millennials" is actually the main historical application of these questions, or that they will disappear when everyone has forgotten who thurston moore is

A lot of the recent trajectory of reactionary centrism, which tends to skew towards Gen X and younger boomers, can be seen in this chart. pic.twitter.com/eV1XF7KUYr

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) December 30, 2022

Oh and obviously you see from miles away what's going to happen, no suspense and all inevitability there, CB is going blindly into it.

I mean, if you saw her history and her name coming -- which is as much of a dramatic revelation as the present-moment plot -- then kudos.

the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward monster hunter

YOU DIED

a world of npcs

https://i.imgur.com/qMMPcb9.gif

think treesh is otm that it is a classical tragedy (tho we may differ on her Flaw). it's v funny tho yes.

Saw this today, without much prior knowledge. I think I thought Julian Glover was dead, because I kept watching his scenes and going, gosh this man is like a very old Julian Glover. Also he was giving a very 'natural' performance, as if he was another non-actor from the classical world. A long way from Quatermass and the Pit, anyway. Or is it??!@@

Enjoyed how much there was abt the business mechanics of the classical world - meetings, assistants, patronage, publicity, charity boards etc. Also v good on the hierarchies of eminence and status and charisma that are coded into terms like 'soloist', 'first violin' etc.

I don't recall Varese ever being debated in an American movie before.

Absolutely loved it, incredible film

However, I do sort of wish the last 20 minutes...didn't exist

Todd Field profile in The New Yorker. On In the Bedroom:

The film débuted at Sundance, in 2001, and was acquired by Miramax. Field was devastated, because Miramax meant Harvey Weinstein, who was notorious for recutting movies into shreds. “I was weeping in the bathroom,” Field said. “I called up Tom Cruise and said, ‘Something terrible has happened.’ He basically said, ‘This is how you’re going to play it. It’s going to take you six months, and you’ll beat him, but you have to do exactly what I’m going to tell you to do, step by step.’ ” The plan: let Weinstein cut it to ribbons, wait for it to test poorly, then pull out the raves from Sundance and suggest that he release it the exact way it was when he’d bought it. Field followed Cruise’s advice, and it worked. “In the Bedroom” grossed more than twenty-five times its budget and was nominated for five Oscars, including Best Picture.

I love shit like that.

Watched this a second time and enjoyed the craft better. Yes it is a Tragedy, yes and it is very funny. I think the last 20 minutes are essential—her visceral reaction to the “fishbowl” hopefully gave her some insight into how she treated people, and the care she takes to study the video game music score and help the youth orchestra realize the composer’s intentions shows she genuinely wants to serve music and do her job well.

FWIW, Tom Cruise's cousin had a major role in that movie, so there was a rooting interest on his part

Reading that profile I couldn't remember if Field was Cruise's cousin and had wondered why Field hadn't disclosed it.

But, yeah, the slimy husband in ITB is Cruise's coz iirc.

Thomas Cruise Mapother IV

Tom Cruise picks up his mail in his depressingly dark childhood Long Island home

Saw this tonight and liked it a lot, most of what I had to say has already been covered, in depth, but also

* have to confess to being completely lost in her interview at the start
* sound design was simply incredible at times, never heard such subtle and dynamic stereo mixing
* the Vietnam fishbowl scene reminded me of Gary Glitter, sure this was an unintentional parallel.

what's the specific GG connection? Bangkok is the sex tourism destination ne plus ultra.

Also, the movie definitely assumes a lot of knowledge about the contemporary classical music scene (although some classical music snobs might argue that there are orchestras better or more prestigious than the Berlin Philharmonic). The female conductors she mentions in that opening interview I am sure are namechecked for the purposes of the film, top make clear that Tar's character is NOT meant to be a coded reference to them (especially Marin Alsop, who IS a real life lesbian protege of Leonard Bernstein).

Another example, when you see the poison pen emails she sent to sink Krista's career they are all the first names of the world's most prominent conductors.

oh christ

a) I know the country wasn't specifically named in the film and that Southeast Asia kind of looks the same to everyone who doesn't live here, but she's in is the Philippines, not Vietnam or Thailand. The characters were speaking Tagalog, plus there was the Marlon Brando reference re: the crocodiles (Apocalypse Now was shot in the Philippines), plus there was a scene with a photo of Jose Rizal on the wall (although why in the world a Filipino family would have a framed photo of him up is a mystery)

b) this was the second movie in a row I saw after Triangle of Sadness where the rich white person character(s) has to defer to Filipinos to show just how far they've fallen, and you know what, fuck that shit. stop using poor brown people to make a point in your white privilege morality plays.

giving ToS a pass for now because Filipina actress Dolly de Leon was tremendous in that role, but count me in among the folks that hated Tar's final 20 mins. There was no reason at all to set it in the Philippines or anywhere in Southeast Asia, as if working here is the punishment that canceled white people deserve. why not an orchestra playing San Diego Comic Con? prob would've had the same impact and been funnier

Sorry Roz, should have known it was Philippines rather than Vietnam as I have spent time in both, was thrown by the crocodiles thing, but of course Apocalypse Now wasn't filmed in Vietnam.

You make a good point with your b) - tbh I found the last part the weakest, did not work out it was a cosplay audience straight away as the costumes were much too good.

Re: Gary Glitter, he was convicted in the UK due to images on his computer first, then after he'd left prison he travelled to Vietman, where he was caught actually abusing children and sent to jail there.

why not an orchestra playing San Diego Comic Con? prob would've had the same impact and been funnier

Or at the second inauguration party for a Florida GOP governor.

it's a good point, would expect her to perhaps lean into it in the style of Louis CK, as I don't think she has genuine remorse for what she has done.

It's been a few months now since I watched it, but I seem to remember a seemingly throwaway line near the beginning about how Tár was on the forefront of pushing Asian composers into the canon? If so, would it potentially add at least a wrinkle to the last act?

I agree that Lydia being forced to conduct, say, the southern New Jersey youth symphony in the last reel would've been just as funny

b) this was the second movie in a row I saw after Triangle of Sadness where the rich white person character(s) has to defer to Filipinos to show just how far they've fallen, and you know what, fuck that shit. stop using poor brown people to make a point in your white privilege morality plays.

this is a good point. didn't think about it this way.

It's been a few months now since I watched it, but I seem to remember a seemingly throwaway line near the beginning about how Tár was on the forefront of pushing Asian composers into the canon? If so, would it potentially add at least a wrinkle to the last act?

substantive, fucking iPhone

Sorry, badly worded. That's sort of what I meant; if the whole movie is told from the main character's subjectivity, the ending is a counterpoint to her inflated sense of cultural largesse.

Why would the Philippines be seen as a comedown for her?

No badinage, no swanky bars and restaurants for her to lord over.

If you want to argue through the main character’s POV that it’s a comedown for her cos it’s not prestige, it’s not even in the west, then fine, make that point, but I can’t see a way past Roz’s point that the Philippines is a standin for lesser in such a particular way that the narrative is endorsing Tár’s implied POV, not critiquing it.

I need to see it again but I remember feeling like there was a weird slippage in the final section where it was clear she was in Thailand but then she was in the Philippines without any explanation.

Also: it's kinda driving me nuts that there are no crocodiles in Apocalypse Now? Right? Not in Redux or Final Cut either? Obviously this doesn't mean they weren't brought in for the movie it's just...weird. I even googled where Island of Dr Moreau was shot!

If you want to argue through the main character’s POV that it’s a comedown for her cos it’s not prestige, it’s not even in the west, then fine, make that point, but I can’t see a way past Roz’s point that the Philippines is a standin for lesser in such a particular way that the narrative is endorsing Tár’s implied POV, not critiquing it.

― can you still hit dinngers (gyac),

It's a strong point. I thought the movie critiqued her, not endorsed her, but I'll watch the last half-hour again.

Roz, did you still find the film worth a watch?

Tar's first breakthrough was through her work as an ethnomusicologist, so I think the film leads us to think she may be going back to her roots in a sense, that this may actually be a fresh start for her, only to reveal the final swerve.

Yes, I thought she was returning to that too. Made me wonder, four years doing an ethnographic project, that doesn't seem to gel with her poor background, surely?

I get what Roz and Gyac are saying, but on a second viewing the Tar character does not act like it's a comedown, or she's too good for it. She really throws herself into it! She studies the score, and tries to teach the the kids how to realize the composer's intentions.

Also: it's kinda driving me nuts that there are no crocodiles in Apocalypse Now? Right? Not in Redux or Final Cut either? Obviously this doesn't mean they weren't brought in for the movie it's just...weird. I even googled where Island of Dr Moreau was shot!

― ryan, Monday, January 23, 2023 7:57 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

I heard a podcast interview with Todd Field (probably on Marc Maron?) in which he acknowledged the river cruise scene was drawn from his own experience. And I think he also said that the crocodiles were never actually used in Apocalypse Now, though I can't find any other reference to their existence whatsoever.

isn't there a bit with laurence fishburne with crocodiles? It's been years since i saw it.

i was v confused too on first viewing because 1) i thought the crocodile ref was to dr moreau 2) i thought dr moreau was filmed in thailand (???) 3) then i recognized tagalog

roz's point well taken but i don't think tar's moment of realizing "how far she's fallen" comes when she defers to filipinos but rather when she exploits them. in triangle of sadness exploitation is just an ambient joke, and none of the privileged characters ever confront it or actually recognize themselves for what they are-- they just sulk or look bewildered when the tables are randomly turned. (the island section was far and away the best part, because of dolly de leon; and one might be inclined to say look triangle of sadness-- eventually-- confers protagonism on a filipina, something tar cannot do because it is so relentlessly confined to the journey of tar, queen of staten island; but i'd probably mutter something about that being an easier gesture for a movie that has not actually bothered having any human characters for the first couple of hours, let alone a protagonist.)

back to tar at the fishbowl the reason this is such a low point is that she hasn't fallen there, but rather been there this whole time. when the hostess points to girl #5, and an entire life of ubermensch heroism suddenly aligns into the clarity of trafficking, maybe one of the things that makes tar puke is remembering her ethnomusicology. what was she really doing, even then?

"video game music to a click track" (as tyrannical as her ticking heart) is such sufficient humiliation for this character that i agree that san diego comic-con would work as well or better as purgatory to leave her in. (+ boring maryland otm that in many ways this reads as a moment of grace.) but i don't actually think the movie takes her to the phillipines at the end to sharpen her humiliation. rather it's because leaving her transatlantic metropole and being offered a nonwhite person for sale by another nonwhite person is the starkest way this npr listener can be revealed to herself.

of course it's still all about her, yeah. and it occurs to me only now that another way to read the fishbowl, meaner and grosser, and more completely damned by roz's post i think, is that she vomits not because she's looking in a mirror but because "she used to be able to order up world-class slavic cellists for her delectation and is now reduced to buying southeast asian teenagers just like every other declasse libertarian". in such a reading yes the phillipines stand for nothing more than "more shit for tar". maybe there is an unpleasant vestige of this doing some kind of affective work even in my version where her vomit is the pins going into oedipus' eyes? idk.

Made me wonder, four years doing an ethnographic project, that doesn't seem to gel with her poor background, surely?

imagine how many scholarships this character got tho

yeah for sure

yeah, i think the presumption is that Tár was the token grantee who climbed to the top through a mix of raw talent, appropriation, perseverance, politics and Machiavellian machination. Her slow boil realization that those tactics won't work in her current age/station/cultural moment is the horror that keeps the story bubbling.

i took the ending of Tár at least in part as underlining the character's mercenary bottom line and willingness to do whatever is necessary to stay in the spotlight somewhere. the band don't start without her; which band may never have mattered as long as she still holds the baton. but the argument is not what she's seeing so much as what tools the director is using to convey the story and the point that her monster hunter concert experience is hallmarked by grimy meeting rooms and substandard accommodation and brothels is certainly worth interrogating as more than a comeuppance.

triangle of sadness is, crucially, a dopey fuckin' movie.

"video game music to a click track" (as tyrannical as her ticking heart) is such sufficient humiliation for this character that i agree that san diego comic-con would work as well or better as purgatory to leave her in. (+ boring maryland otm that in many ways this reads as a moment of grace.) but i don't actually think the movie takes her to the phillipines at the end to sharpen her humiliation. rather it's because leaving her transatlantic metropole and being offered a nonwhite person for sale by another nonwhite person is the starkest way this npr listener can be revealed to herself

Very OTM

I guess what I want clarifying when I eventually watch it again is to what degree Tár regards the Philippines sojourn as a step away from martinis + galas or, because she can't hearing the tick-tick-tick of her ambition, another Challenge to Surmount. Field has made it clear from the beginning that her appreciation of the music she conducts is part of a bolus of ambitions and lusts, thus it wouldn't matter if she were in Manhattan or Manila.

well the sequence immediately beforehand is her meeting with new representation who make it clear that she needs a full rebranding. part of that may mean courting the WOKE INTERNET CROWD and being willing to show that she's capable of stepping outside her ivory tower so that she can restart the inevitable climb-of-shame back up the ladder. i'd bet that comiccon wouldn't even have her at her current state of ill repute so the monsterhunter penance tour is a pure means to an end.

the issue with any sort of cultural read on Tar is that the film is one giant calculated provocation. so while the reading of "associating with asian otherness=punishment" is astute, there's a case to be made that's part and parcel of Field trolling the audience's presumed sensibilities and sensitivities. Valid to say it makes the film unwatchable for you of course!

There was no reason at all to set it in the Philippines or anywhere in Southeast Asia, as if working here is the punishment that canceled white people deserve.

I get what Roz and Gyac are saying, but on a second viewing the Tar character does not act like it's a comedown, or she's too good for it. She really throws herself into it! She studies the score, and tries to teach the the kids how to realize the composer's intentions.

Um, yeah that’s exactly why the ending didn’t work for me. The film is behaving as if this is a punishment for her, even if the character herself isn’t choosing to see it that way (whether because she sees it as a challenge or she’s genuinely embracing it is besides the point). It was also a choice not to name the country she’s in despite all the indicators mentioned above - like yeah, it might as well have been Vietnam or Thailand or Bali, clearly the joke is on her if she’s playing anywhere that’s not Berlin or NYC, or even Tokyo or Beijing. again, they could have made that same point elsewhere without reinforcing stereotypes like “unnamed Southeast Asian country is a bastion for sex trafficking”.

and again, I’m saying this after having also just watched Triangle of Sadness, and was struck by the role Filipinos played in relation to the wealthy, white characters in both. And the Philippines popped up recently again in that terrible-looking Gerard Butler action movie Plane, which I haven’t seen but it seems he plays an American pilot who saves people from a bunch of Filipino terrorists. meh.

I’m not Filipino but I am Southeast Asian, and it’s not often I see people who look like me in Western films so it stands out to me whenever they do appear. It hasn’t been a great run lately, is all I’m saying. (ToS, as I’ve mentioned is saved by Dolly de Leon’s performance, and yes I agree with dlh that she does end up a protagonist of sorts. Might have been better if the film had been from her POV from the start though.)

Roz, did you still find the film worth a watch?

Sure, I was more or less with it up to the part where she punched her rival out. I don’t have any desire to rewatch it though, not just because of the ending but because I’m very tired of these films that are just Variations on a Theme (Rich White People Flop Era).

Finally watched this this weekend, I liked it OK, Field's writing is so on-the-nose that it's often distracting — I didn't believe anything about the dialogue on either side of the initial confrontation with the student, which haunts the film and obv comes back to bite her as you know it will. It felt like David Brooks trying to imagine both sides of such an argument or something. I enjoyed Blanchett having a good time tearing into the part, as she was clearly invited to do. But Lydia to me felt more like an accumulation of character traits and backstory than a fully formed character. The reveal about her family origins at the end felt tacked on — it didn't really illuminate anything about her nor even feel particularly connected to what we already knew of her.

I did like the way it was told, that it didn't spell a lot of things out. But even so it all felt very obvious and unsubtle.

I liked this movie more than The Square but it did feel like the same movie.

Roz otm re: the ending. Last night I was talking about this film with a friend and we agreed that conducting Monster Hunter for enthusiastic cosplayers was much more interesting work than conducting friggin Mahler (personally!)

In general I felt the "classical music technobabble" was really well done. There was only one thing that rang false, and that was Lydia's hesitation, and subsequent recollection, in recalling "Daniel Barenboim with the BBC Orchestra" (in response to the cellist talking about Du Pre playing Elgar on Youtube). I mean maybe I'm skewed in my Elgar love but "Du Pre / Elgar / Barenboim / BBC Orchestra" is one of the most famous performances of all time, I don't think Lydia would require a beat-and-a-half to recall the details. Considering that was the only moment that kinda "seemed wrong" to me in all the technobabble, I was generally impressed.

Rich White People Flop Era

TBH, there's a wealth of material out there to cull from on this theme

This sounds like Haneke's Hidden without anything like the Algerian migrant.

xp fgti, yeah it was convincing that she was a great conductor and teacher. this is what makes the movie work -- it would have been easy to have her be a fraud who got her comeuppance, but i think she was a genuine artist who *also* used her position to exploit people.

Sure, I was more or less with it up to the part where she punched her rival out. I don’t have any desire to rewatch it though, not just because of the ending but because I’m very tired of these films that are just Variations on a Theme (Rich White People Flop Era).

― Roz, Monday, January 23, 2023 12:59 PM

Your post was fantastic, and, like I wrote, has forced me to re-watch the thing.

h/t to fact checking cuz
https://chicagoreader.com/columns-opinion/on-culture/whos-getting-tarred

Oof. As a fan of Alsop that gives me yet more food for thought on this film. I didn’t catch in the film that Tar said specifically Alsop didn’t face any discrimination, I thought she said she was a trailblazer or something.

have to disagree with this I'm afraid

But “power corrupts” is a cliche and a false one. It shifts responsibility from the doer to the position. 

I'll add as a connecting thought to Roz's excellent posts that if you want to see a good 2022 film fully centering a Filipino experience that has a great time playing around with storytelling, memory, what is or isn't reality, meta touches etc, catch Leonor Will Never Die. Easily one of my favorites from last year; it's way glib and inaccurate to say it's in the Everything Everywhere vein but there's a certain feeling at play. (And to agree with Roz further: had Dolly de Leon's character been a little more central to Triangle of Sadness throughout, I might be more fond of said film.)

https://chicagoreader.com/columns-opinion/on-culture/whos-getting-tarred

As someone who really dislikes Marin Alsop, this rules.

holy shit this category is STACKED pic.twitter.com/VfNzs1jKUE

— zach silberberg (@zachsilberberg) January 25, 2023

Top Gun snubbed yet again

US bias at play: no Banshees of Inisherin (based on the thread on here)

h/t to fact checking cuz
https://chicagoreader.com/columns-opinion/on-culture/whos-getting-tarred

― POLIZISTEN VERSINKEN IM SCHLAMM (forksclovetofu), Thursday, January 26, 2023 11:35 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I just find this so feebly argued and given the wealth of interesting writing about this film out there…yeah I dunno. camaraderie otm

saw this

thought the first hour was superb, character of Tar herself was great fun

but then as the plot proper kicks in she is so callous and monstrous as to be unbelievable. like, you build up sympathy for her in the first hour, despite her obvious flaws, but then she squanders it all in about five minutes of unrelenting cruelty. yeah I get that she's particularly monstrous to her natural prey, other conductors, but it just doesn't feel real, the extent of it. add in the various thudding do-you-see moments that really start creeping in during the second half (a few admittedly amped up for laughs, but the stuff with the neighbours for example feeling particularly tacked-on) and you see why I went from thinking 'this will ensure nobody watches Whiplash ever again' in the first half to 'this is Whiplash in nicer suits' in the second

still, did enjoy all the scenes where people talked about conducting, and the accordion bit

tl;dr: main character becomes so horrible, to the point of irrealism, that you can't root for her at all and the tension is thus frittered

wait...you rooted for her? Even briefly? Hm.

you have to be able to root for a lead for the movie to be interesting?

No?

you build up sympathy for her in the first hour

what now?

i think perhaps imago misunderstood this film

"Root" sounds like a football thing. I don't root for any characters -- I observe them.

i agree with you alfred, question was posed to imago

ah sorry

wait...you rooted for her? Even briefly? Hm.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 30, 2023 7:31 PM (fourteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

For a while it was exhilarating to see a woman do bad-boss shit that men have been getting away with for generations. But it went far enough that her downfall looked like laser-guided karma.

I read this as a "charming murderer gets away with it, but also improves her station" movie. She started off stuck in a super boring and excruciating New Yorker conference, surrounded by simultaneously disloyal and pandering, calculating sycophants, and ends up playing to a crowd who couldn't be more genuinely thrilled to be there.

But I also imagined Blanchett saying everything in an Adam Sandler voice.

i loved this so much

wait...you rooted for her? Even briefly? Hm.

― Malevolent Arugula (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, January 30, 2023 7:31 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

i mean... she's a very charismatic and charming character?

yeah. her arrogance isn't even repellant at first -- not until we see how it leads her to harm others. she believes in herself and is passionate abotu what she does -- both attractive qualities.

She repelled me from the start but it didn't affect my response.

charismatic, sure. charming? nah. she's good at performing being lydia tar for people who are into that kind of thing.

i don't think she is totally a phoney. she really does believe in music.

She's not a phony.

i don't really know what that means but she is obviously performing a persona and charming isn't a word i would use for it

but there are lots of interesting people who perform a version of themselves who would be cool to see at a talk or whatever, she definitely fits that category

i don't think there is a true self -- a staten island self -- behind the persona of lydia tar. i think that is who she is.

she is a narcissist, that's for sure.

Lots of great posts on here, hope I'm not repeating any I haven't seen but must vent for a minute:
the scenes of her running alone and hearing a scream, hearing echoing footsteps in the hall, who's in the stall, bad dreams, who set the metronome with the note, who left the red Magik Marker word in thee old book in the giant airliner bathroom, who took the book from her self, running alone some more, taking pills, freaks out in the low place where her new crush has disappeared, falls on her face, takes more pills, loses apartment, has punch-out: all these increasingly melodramatic Movie Moments come to seem more and more standard, generic, filler, especially the things that happen to her in isolation
-- and ultimately, even the better, developmental sequences with her wife, assistant, other music professionals, also her brother---also come to naught, are wasted, like the music we hear so little of, because Todd Field has painted himself into a corner here:
if he takes her through the usual stages of scandal (and she's of course mentioned "Jimmy Levine" etc., of course acknowledging the degree of familiarity), he risks, at an increasingly late moment, after alll of the above and much more, exhausting the story and the audience with the dull gloss of anticlimax, also generic, though no doubt Blanchette would fight like hell for the opposite effect, yaaay---
So instead, we get this gimmick final sequence, meant to be open to various interpretations.
I for one like the inferable humor of her going upstream like Apocalypse Marlon's character against the current of history, incl. personal, seeking some kind of redemption via reapplying self and a lifetime of skills and the gifts she was born with under and as a [white American[ star, dammit!.
The puke scene interpration that she realizes she's now like a generic white foreign sex tourist seems very plausible.
Levels aside, I like the costumes and the video game orchestration musice a bit---but this whole Asian flying carpet switcheroo seems like Fields' escape and playing for time and possible degree of self-delusion as much as hers.

who took the book from her *shelf*

Sorry for all typos (the suicide and fateful emails do make it plausible that she's already in the middle of something, already wired wired for increasingly evident overkill, though this becomes ruthless villainy also in Oscar-bait tarted up generic Movie Moments.)

RE: the puking outside the brothel, I looked up another detail on Wikipedia, which I'm sure Lydia Tar would agree is the final authority, and saw this:

"She is sent to a high-end brothel, where she is directed to select an escort from the "fishbowl," where numerous young women in numbered robes are seated in a chamber-orchestra-like arrangement. One woman looks up into Lydia's eyes, her robe the number 5, the same number as the important symphony Lydia couldn't conduct and her position the same as Olga's, and Lydia rushes outside to vomit."

I think we're meant to be critical of her character pretty early on but by the time she's dining in a fancy restaurant while facing a framed photo of herself with a giant "TAR" autograph it's pretty clear.

dow largely on point in all that

I don't think you need to be able to root for a main character - Macbeth the classic protagonist where there's simply no saving grace (I'm teaching it atm, he really is just a shit, and a stupid one to boot, Shakespeare making a cartoon villain for new King Jim, the first true act of poet laureation) - but even in Macbeth you can find drama, pathos and humour in the other characters (the Lady Macduff and son scene! oh god!) This film is JUST Tar herself. Every scene has her in it. And so, the fact she has a certain edgy charisma for the first half is what gives this film its dramatic pivot-point. But the scene with Francesca where she finds out what happened to Krista...she's SO callous - like, overwhelmingly so, that all that drama is gone. And then there's an endless parade of her being evil coupled with a bunch of 'lessons' she mostly chooses not to heed and as I say any moral tension is ruined, there's only spectacle of downfall

Critical of a character doesn't mean we hate her - of course we're meant to be critical from the off, but she's at least complex and yes charismatic - part of us is rooting for her as she clearly cares about her art (and her daughter) (later this is framed as her regarding her daughter selfishly, as part of her art)

Plenty of funny moments throughout mind you. Maybe it really is a comedy

(but a comedy where you're constantly assailed by cruel behaviour to the point of confusion)

having a good chat off-board with an occasional poster who's also a composer/music teacher and definitely making the case that the Juilliard scene is way, way more monstrous than a lay audience might suspect - he knows & is a fan of Anna Thorsvaldsdottir, which makes Tar's dismissiveness seem less tough love than pure bullying ignorance and the sort of pointless, hackneyed reactionary grandstanding that in his direct experience pervades the classical masterclass scene. in that sense he was always viewing her as a pure monster and was able to enjoy the film's later stages more, as there was no surprise in any extent of her cruelty (although he somewhat agrees about the orientalism of the closing stretch)

am also realising how much Tar reminds me of the liberal media owner family in Succession haha

that is interesting. i guess knowing what the classical music world is like gives some context. i saw her as defending the universality of bach's music against a more narrow view of art that says it only expresses a particular time, place, and subjectivity. but you're right, she does not do a good job facilitating that debate, especially because she doesn't give her students a chance to really talk through their ideas.

also since tar is a composer too, thorsvaldsdottir is a professional rival in a way that bach is not. so she would have personal reasons for being dismissive of her music.

defending the universality of bach's music against a more narrow view of art that says it only expresses a particular time, place, and subjectivity

well of course she is doing that too, which is ofc something most people would happily agree with! hence why it comes off as sincere defence of art. but yeah, what's disquieting is that in order to defend one artist she has to trash another, even if they are rivals lol (although her own composer chops clearly get a bit of a kicking during the let's-give-her-a-kicking section of the film given the cellist amending her work on first pass)

she can't compose. another looming anxiety: what's the point of being a self-created solipsistic ubermensch if you still need mahler?

but yes at least mahler is safely dead-- imago otm about one of the things underneath her attitude at julliard which even before it gets directly culture-war comes across as physical-level irritation not just with thorsvaldsdottir but with some general quality of contemporary composers, which knowing less than nothing about them i assumed was their contemporaneity lol

v much a second-hand otm! you thought *I* was otm lol

questions of is tar "good"? do we "like" tar? not rly my bag but did find her magnetic fwiw, in a malcolm mcdowell in clockwork orange kind of way

Yeah she’s not teaching in that scene at Julliard she’s browbeating. Bernstein is her hero but she doesn’t have his charm.

But she does have his gay.

but yes at least mahler is safely dead-- imago otm about one of the things underneath her attitude at julliard which even before it gets directly culture-war comes across as physical-level irritation not just with thorsvaldsdottir but with some general quality of contemporary composers, which knowing less than nothing about them i assumed was their contemporaneity lol

I dunno, if I were in that classroom I'd be quietly yaaassing the guest tutor, whatever that says about me

that makes sense xp. very ugh this kind of thing vibes from her from the top of the julliard scene-- the kind of reaction a teacher (which she isn't) might suppress, or at least express differently, in the interest of helping to develop a student-- which would involve being able to temporarily sublimate themselves into the student's identity--

similar irony to the way the orchestra (including her own consenting-equal partner) is a formal collective that elected her as its leader, but she keeps making peremptory art-tyrant decisions in the position (+ using it to procure), but they're always couched in the official language of collaboration, but she tells her daughter "it's not a democracy", but it is, but it isn't

i saw her as defending the universality of bach's music against a more narrow view of art that says it only expresses a particular time, place, and subjectivity.

Her official text is that the canonical works should be appreciated without reference to the composer's biography and can be interpreted in myriad ways. But the subtext is that these students need to accommodate the existing canon and the power structure upholding it, if they hope to have a career.

Also, a character does not necessarily have to be "likeable" to be compelling enough to keep following them through the story. (I found seeing Tar experience consequences for her actions just reward for sitting through the film.) A female character being unlikeable should not be a reason to nope out of a story. But enough people will do that to make creators think twice about whether a character is likable.

Talking to her child's bully, threatening. "If you tell anyone about this---" like a molester! Later, asks her kid how's the bully doing? Hasn't been coming to school...

The audience I saw the film with found that scene...hilarious. Not sure why.

my general take on this old argument is that the character doesn't have to be likable but the ACTOR has to offer a foothold for the viewer, even if that's just "christ what an asshole"

Macbeth for instance is a generally difficult character to give a shit about but if you give him to the right actor (mifune leaps to mind), he becomes a maelstrom of conflict and cowardice and malice on two legs and a stand-in for every series of bad decisions you've ever made

True! He's maybe the original Breaking Bad ahole, in drame, not realife.
xxpost As with the conducting student, she's already becoming the maestro ov overkill--maybe that's what happened with Christa, who was trying to get back in touch/stalking or "stalking" her, as Tar saw it, anyway.

has anyone made an AvaTÁR joke yet?

That's gotta be her next move, could totally see her doing battle there! I was already wanting to see her jump onto the screen, jogging across the animated field ov dreams, past swirling critters in Elizabethan finery---she hears a scream---

xp

probability that there is at least one AvaTÁR joke in the Oscars speeches = 100%
― “Cheeky cheeky!” she trills, nearly demolishing a roadside post (forksclovetofu), Thursday, December 22, 2022 4:20 AM

i need to rewatch this film to be sure but the extent of Tar's genuine culpability seems entirely up in the air? until her break with reality, I don't remember her actually DOING anything actionable on camera, excepting threatening a kid who is threatening her kid and who among us wouldn't etc etc. the film does a lot with "it's the implication" to the extent that her guilt feels ironclad but being a dick isn't a fireable offense is it? tho, tbh, i think even entertaining this line of thinking falls under the heading of useless discourse and plays into the provocation of the tar pit

I would say her guilt is 100% established, the emails she deletes show how she sabotaged Krista's career, leading to her suicide, we see the pattern of behavior spelled out with her lies, manipulation & threats throughout the film.

alright i'm taking the bait i guess

she's given christa/krista a lot of terrible references but we don't actually know whether she deserves them or not, do we?

Tar is a mercenary at work within the art world but i've known/worked with several women in that position and many of a certain generation approach the job with an attitude that you HAVE to be that way to be taken seriously.

I think the fact that she's deleting all her e-mails (and frantically trying to get her assistant to do the same) means that she's either guilty or at the very least thinks she's guilty

She's gone out of her way to victimise this one individual who is already not doing well, she isn't a rival to be competed with, she's using her power to destroy someone. There were a lot of emails being deleted there!

Also don't think these were just bad job references, she was going out of her way to contact people who were thinking of working with Krista.

are we talking about culpability from the viewer's perspective or from the perspective of the public in the world of TAR?

xp or that she thinks the weather has changed enough that her identity will not save her in the current cultural environment

or that she simply doesn't want to get involved in a bad situation that she wasn't really responsible for; those emails weren't (again to the best of my memory) conversations so much as they were one-way demands for better treatment

yeah, the questions of what the viewer brings to the table and how people are artificially reacting within the playpen of the film seems to color a lot of perspective both in and out.

I know i keep beating this horse but there's no clearcut answers here because the director is intentionally gaming these systems.

think we need a screenshot of the emails, cannot find one right now

the director is "intentionally gaming these systems" because in actual cases of people taking advantage of power dynamics (e.g. #metoo) there is rarely physical proof of the abuses - it's based on testimony and hearsay and reputation. tar isn't going to get nailed by the emails, she's going to get nailed by the people whom she has harmed deciding to speak out

xp i can do that, hang on.

didn't she get nailed by her assistant leaking the emails? or is that just implied?

i.e. he is not gaming the system, he's reflecting the ambiguity that always exists in these cases

lol no one remembers what happened in this movie apparently

I know some of the discourse is "this is how successful people/women need to act, it's a very competitive world" but think even if true, this doesn't lessen the guilt, but expands it to the whole culture.

http://i.imgur.com/Ar7TxEV.jpg

he's reflecting the ambiguity that always exists in these cases

http://i.imgur.com/zFFkafP.jpg
this is clearly a cry for help to Francesca but beyond that is this a person who you would write a placement recommendation for?

can't see the images for some reason

there are two sets of emails shown - Tar's career sabotage emails and Krista's desperate emails - I've been talking about the former.

http://i.imgur.com/Ar7TxEV.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/zFFkafP.jpg

Here's the "sabotage" emails, which really just boil down to her saying that Krista is "strange and troubled". it's vague stuff and pretty shitty but they're responses for a recommendation, which she can't give.
https://i.imgur.com/B6BirX6.png
http://i.imgur.com/B6BirX6.png

you can see at the bottom some which are not references but just speculative non-recommendations

i need to rewatch this film to be sure but the extent of Tar's genuine culpability seems entirely up in the air? until her break with reality, I don't remember her actually DOING anything actionable on camera, excepting threatening a kid who is threatening her kid and who among us wouldn't etc etc. the film does a lot with "it's the implication" to the extent that her guilt feels ironclad but being a dick isn't a fireable offense is it? tho, tbh, i think even entertaining this line of thinking falls under the heading of useless discourse and plays into the provocation of the tar pit

― POLIZISTEN VERSINKEN IM SCHLAMM (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 3:34 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

her conduct wrt krista was pretty well spelled out even if it wasn’t shown explicitly on camera — the emails, her dreams, and then the evidence of patterns of abuse with the way it seemed like she was similarly grooming her assistant, her relationship with the cellist…even the fact that the first violin was her wife — and was extremely firable, no? lydia certainly seemed to think so, which is why she went to such lengths to keep the details of the relationship and its aftermath under wraps. and it is imo exactly this method of character study that the film does so well and lends the film its heft and tension, although it seems like for some the lack of overwhelming moral clarity of not like, having lydia break the fourth wall and tell the camera “I’m bad btw” that some, um, very literal-minded viewers seem to have struggled with

v much a second-hand otm! you thought *I* was otm lol

"you would just like to point out that I have been otm in this thread"

xp i dunno man, those all look like responses to requests for recommendation to me but i think we're approaching this from different angles and degrees of necessity for clarity. Those email sequences appear for fractions of seconds on the screen!

the emails, her dreams, and then the evidence of patterns of abuse with the way it seemed like she was similarly grooming her assistant, her relationship with the cellist…even the fact that the first violin was her wife — and was extremely firable, no?

i'm not struggling with the film, my responses to it or what its intentions and implications are. but it's fun to play with the puzzle a bit.

yeah, the questions of what the viewer brings to the table and how people are artificially reacting within the playpen of the film seems to color a lot of perspective both in and out.

I know i keep beating this horse but there's no clearcut answers here because the director is intentionally gaming these systems.

― POLIZISTEN VERSINKEN IM SCHLAMM (forksclovetofu), Tuesday, January 31, 2023 4:16 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

for sure, there is a lot about how this is done — even having the main character be a gay woman — that is subversive/mischievous/clever (depending on one’s perspective and expectations). but think the way the film forces a viewer to sit with these contradictions — how it doesn’t prove her culpability beyond a reasonable doubt, the way it chooses its protagonist to subvert our expectations of what an otherwise-easily demonizable abuser looks like, that gives it part of its power

Yes

I think Todd Field was trying to create a scenario where it's clear that "Lydia is bad" but it's not clear as to "how bad she is".

The most concrete example of Lydia's "badness" in the film comes in the form of that Juilliard lecture. It's the only real moment we see "how Lydia is shitty to younger people" on actual, concrete display. We also see this very real shitty moment transformed by somebody in the class from "something bad that happened" into "something worse that didn't happen", via the video supercut. I thought this was important when we begin to examine Lydia's purported sexual misconduct.

I didn't see, int he film, any actual concrete evidence that Lydia had any sexual relationship with either Francesca or Krista at all. We don't hear any survivor testimony, we don't see anything revealed in the deposition aside from the revelation that Francesca colluded and Lydia lied, It's implied that it's likely the case? but the viewer has to make a leap of assumption to conclude that it is the case. I thought this was a deliberate choice by Todd Field.

I read the script and noticed that there was a line removed from the final film. Francesca and Lydia are discussing Krista, and Francesca expresses surprise that Krista has gone off the rails as she has, saying, "she seemed so fine when the three of us took that trip to (someplace that sounded like a Caribbean destination spot)". I noticed when I read that line that it effectively confirmed that Lydia DID had an inappropriate relationship with both Francesca and Krista, and that it was never so concretely defined in the finished film, and that it seemed as if Field was deliberately removing concrete evidence of the extent of Lydia's guilt for a reason.

I think the reason is pretty plain, too. Field wanted to create a film where we as an audience were being put in a similar position as the individuals surrounding Lydia in the film. We had impressions but no real evidence, and we are forced to draw some conclusions, and so we do so... and find ourselves assuming that Lydia has, at the very least, "behaved inappropriately", and find ourselves also speculating beyond that.

@ k3vin, I agree. I believe that if this movie were to be written with Lydia's character being "a man" it effectively then becomes a movie about "maleness". That Lydia was "a woman" was not a comment on womanhood, there is no "women can be abusers, too!" thesis. Lydia being "a woman" made the movie more specifically about What It Was Actually About, freed from any tether to the well-trodden (both in reality and in fiction) narratives about abusive men. Lydia being "not male" removed a gel from the spotlight to examine a different thing, here.

Lydia's gender even itself seems to be obfuscated at several points. The most obvious example is when Lydia describes herself as Petra's "Vater"; also, Lydia's expressed desire to make her all-female mentorship programme "all-gender"; claiming to Gopnik that neither she nor Marin Alsop faced any gender-specific hardships; and so forth. Lydia was written as a woman (a gay woman) not to make the film about "women", but to make it "not about men" (or heterosexuals, at that.)

Hmm:

John Waters could have made Tar a masterpiece. The movie wants to badly to be camp but is straitjacketed by all the highbrow signifiers

— David Adjmi (@dadjmi) February 2, 2023

John Waters could make any movie into a masterpiece … so what?

(Any movie except A Dirty Shame, that is)

yeah that's silly
"this delicious filet mignon would make a better steak sandwich, zero stars"

forks otm

Francesca and Lydia are discussing Krista, and Francesca expresses surprise that Krista has gone off the rails as she has, saying, "she seemed so fine when the three of us took that trip to (someplace that sounded like a Caribbean destination spot)".

there is a version of this line in the film. i thought the destination was wherever in south america she was doing ethnomusicology but that could have been a leap by me.

good posts from fgti btw, calmly and clearly going into better detail than i am

Yep, fgti gets my vote in this thread

at a TÁR talk at the Academy Museum and Cate Blanchett just said that her favorite music of all time is Einstürzende Neubauten

— Michael Idov 🌻 (@michaelidov) February 14, 2023

Wow, kudos to Cate for it turns out underplaying Lydia Tar

We are all Tar babies now.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/16/arts/dance/goecke-dog-feces-critic.html

wow you just can't do or say anything these days

she can't compose. another looming anxiety: what's the point of being a self-created solipsistic ubermensch if you still need mahler?

― difficult listening hour, Tuesday, January 31, 2023 9:46 AM (three weeks ago) bookmarkflaglink

you say this of the woman who wrote "apartment for sale"???

lol perhaps a sign of creative rebirth

Having watched it again, I thought of Otto Preminger, whose best films insist on an open-endedness; the viewer feels, after Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Bonjour Tristesse, etc. have ended, as if they've seen prosecution and defense present cases to a jury. After this second viewing I don't know how I'm supposed to respond to her. She's talented, can speak about her craft in a self-regarding upper-middlebrow manner to Adam Gopnik types, and who may or may not have driven a young woman to kill herself.

Is it possible you’re not ”supposed to” think of his character in a particular way?

This character, not his character (sorry)

the zadie smith piece repeatedly calls her an "art monster," which definitely jibes with all three of alfred's observations

Good points Alfred. I still don’t know if TÁR is exactly one for the ages but it’s hard to think of many other firmly mainstream American movies lately that have been this comfortable in ambiguities, ironies, and in general treating audiences like sentient beings.

About that ending: I'll acknowledge I can be wrong, but I concluded that based on her manner Lydia doesn't regard playing before her new Filipino clients as a step down. She's as cheerlessly, ruthlessly intense as if in front of Julliard kids.

She’s definitely putting in the work … arguably returning to the most pure form of her work (no tossing around Deutsche Grammophon vinyl covers for inspiration)

As a filipino I have the final say on TÁR's ending and the racist undertones are v much the point. This white girl got her start doing ethnomusicography w/ indigenous Peruvians, got caught doing sex crimes in Europe, and will now start over again in another "lesser than" country

— carol grant (@carolaverygrant) March 7, 2023

trying desperately to underhand this person’s point

i'm just trying to understand what underhand means

this first tweet reads like she's being critical of the film, but the following tweets make it clear that she is not. she should've reworded that, imo.

lol I had thought the first tweet did support the film

it kinda reads to me like she's accusing the film of being intentionally racist

"Lesser than" and far away is far above Staten Island for her, though.

it kinda reads to me like she's accusing the film of being intentionally racist

― avatár the way of watár (voodoo chili), Tuesday, March 7, 2023 6:50 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

hmm!

it’s so funny to me, I really hope it wins best picture tumblr is gonna have a rough time

pretty sure i adored this. lotta great posts itt really grappling with the text, dlh in particular killing it

i went in knowing as little as possible but honestly spoilers for this movie don’t really tell you much about what it’s doing. i found every horror/dream sequence really powerful, especially the bed on fire and the obliquely-lenses visions of her partners in the dark, and i gradually grew aware that lydia is haunted not by any specific character but by the viewer, no matter who that is, even if it’s a phone, bc the viewer is no longer someone she can manipulate

obliquely-lensed* lol whatever

i kept reading sentences about “the scene with the shoes in the bathroom stall” and i was like what in the possible fuck could that mean, but y’all: the scene with the shoes in the bathroom stall

alt universe michael mann movie where hypercompetency cannot save you from the habits and patterns that are so ingrained in you you’re nearly oblivious to their continual enacting

the composing scenes were excruciating, great mini movie about how it is impossible to write bc there are noises and they may not be diegetic at all, in fact they may emanate from the past, been there!!!

The "they may not be diegetic at all" is what got me the my second visit

haunted not by any specific character but by the viewer, no matter who that is, even if it’s a phone, bc the viewer is no longer someone she can manipulate

first line of the movie is tar to (presumably) her ethnographic subjects: “just— yeah— just ignore the microphone”

i’m hiding from her

why

because she told me to put my things in order, and they already are

Kavanah. I think many in our audience may have other associations with that word.

Carvana

“Haunted by the viewer”: I love this, Brad

yeah that is extremely otm: all her “every grain of sand” style sudden turns to stare past you like she felt you breathing— the looooong lingering early shot establishing your POV as krista’s— “god is always watching”— the impossibly edited video filmed from multiple angles by no one— “we all know the things you do”— her sealed tailored world where no one’s judgment or way of seeing can define her but her own, yet other judgments are still out there somewhere, lurking— objective, death-bringing time itself as the ultimate, unappealable frame of reference

“we put flowers on her grave every march 8” “her birthday?” “…no, international women’s day”

An artist besieged by an audience -- Henry James may have been the first to devote several short stories to the subject -- to the point where the audience vanishes and the paranoia-warped brain keeps humming is a subject I wish more movies depicted in the social media era.

🧵Films and books referenced in TÁR (2022) directed by Todd Field

1. The parallels in TÁR and The Meetings of Anna (1978) dir. by Chantal Akerman pic.twitter.com/81RLrDVfyr

— Rina (@bbblanchett) March 21, 2023

alt universe michael mann movie where hypercompetency cannot save you from the habits and patterns that are so ingrained in you you’re nearly oblivious to their continual enacting

This is kind of fascinating to think about. In Mann movies, the protagonist's hypercompetency often means *consciously* dooming the safety and comfort of domesticity, here it's kind of un(sub?)conscious. I think the main difference is ... arrogance? Mann people, they know they are the best, and there is pride involved, but maybe not so much arrogance. Tar, I get the feeling she is not prideful, per se - she is not above where she ends up - but certainly arrogant. I need to think about this more, as I do with many aspects of this film.

I rechristen this great film Lady Mann.

A dissent:

https://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2023/03/tar-vitriol.html

not a good one imo

Good luck figuring out the interlude where Lydia, who winds up in the Philippines when her life falls apart, visits a masseuse recommended by the desk clerk at her hotel and finds herself in a brothel.

yes good luck figuring that out

With TÁR (and maybe TÁR alone these days) I enjoy the bad takes as much as I don’t fully trust the good ones

Field is an awful director. His notion of editing is to cut, for example, from Lydia reading the increasingly desperate emails from the young conductor whose career she’s short-circuited (emails that she asks her assistant to delete) to a shot of her assaulting a punching bag at the gym; or from a scene where she trips and smashes into the pavement because she thinks she’s being pursued to a shot of her pounding dough in her kitchen.

What makes this awful?

Invited to give a master class at Juilliard, she asks a young Black man (Zethphan D. Smith-Gneist) about Bach and gets him to admit that he’s not interested in some old white guy who sired so many children he must have been a misogynist. Her hyper-educated cooled-out responses are so high-flown insulated that you can’t imagine he could possibly understand half of what she says; still, he laughs at her jokes but she makes him so nervous that he can’t control his restless leg. But he stands his ground about Bach. So she gets him to sit next to her at the piano and plays some, and she seems to be softening up his biases. But then she humiliates him in front of the class and he storms out, muttering, “Fucking bitch,” as he marches past her. The scene is mildly amusing but it isn’t drama; it’s more like an idea for a dramatic scene.

What?

OK, maybe "enjoy" isn't the right word here

"stare at, fascinatedly, as someone runs into a wall they made themselves, repeatedly"

todd field was finally (indirectly) asked about heather from the blair witch project's screams .......... pic.twitter.com/nQQTosaxoo

— troy (@joker_misato) April 18, 2023

Wait, what?!

If the Muppets were still doing a weekly variety show we 100% would have had a Miss Piggy parody of TÁR call PÍG where she karate kicks the conductor

— Ben Crew (@BenjaminCrew1) June 8, 2023

finally saw this - top tier comical ending for a ‘serious oscar movie’

Todd Field did his Daniel Plainview movie. How you feel? Results may vary!

There is no right reaction to this movie, it contains multitudes. As funny as you want, as serious as you want.

PS I’m in Berlin this past week and this movie keeps popping onto my head. I even went to the Philharmonic twice!

This movie was very funny in parts. I think it's hard to believe Olga didn't know how Tar messed her face up, which makes all the scenes afterwards with the two of them in vry funny. Tar telling the kid "she was going to get them" or whatever. Lots of great laughs in this

who'll bear the pall?

i'll-- we'll bear the pall.

furiously hitting the punching bag to the rhythm of eine kleine nachtmusik

I can't help but wonder if, during his six years spent learning how to mimic Bernstein conducting one single snippet of music, Bradley Cooper happened to catch Cate Blanchett besting him while not even breaking a sweat

Yeah she was very convincing. Cooper was not conducting, he was swatting at flying elves.

Would watch Blanchett as Bernstein.

Really, I'm Right Here

he was swatting at flying elves

I appreciate this deep cut.