Tár
Last night we went to see the new Cate Blanchett movie, Tár, on its opening night in New York.
Blanchett is spectacular in this film. Luminous. Irresistible. Devastating.
The film left me thinking many thoughts.
First, the central character, orchestra conductor Lydia Tár, seems so incredibly real. And this, in turn, makes her struggle so painful.
How did the filmmaker accomplish this?
For one, real world cues.
Opening with the The New Yorker journalist Adam Gopnik - playing himself - interviewing 'the maestro' in a recognizable way serves this purpose. Curtis Institute graduate. Cleveland, Chicago, Boston, New York, Berlin Philharmonic conductor. EGOT winner. Deutsche Grammophon cover face.
Although she is not real, the world of her accomplishments is.
So there’s that.
The next thought is how open (how un-sided, non-moral, judgement-free) the film is about Tár's ambitions, and her professional and personal conflicts.
She just is. She just does.
She has done everything EXCEPT record a live-performance of Gustav Mahler's Fifth Symphony. And as the first female principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, that is what she MUST DO next. But her past achievements have compromised and complicated her, and breaking free requires breakage.
The film doesn't blink as she fights her way toward her life-goal. And then tragically, misses.
Fast cars. Love affairs. A pharmacopeia of pills. Deceptions. Bad acts of all sorts.
Memorable scenes of such bad acts include … threatening unspecified violence on a young girl on the playground at her daughter's elementary school, confronting woke-ster university undergraduates as one-dimensional and naive, and singing vulgar accordion songs loudly to frustrate neighbors who are trying to sell their apartment.
She does these rotten things, and yet we watch her get away with them without specific consequences. Though in the end, she gets it back in other, bigger ways.
Even the film's long wind-down doesn’t tell us clearly whether she wins or loses in the end.
Was it a tragedy that she eventually got cancelled on false testimony, lost custody of her child, and her arch-competitor (a lesser conductor) recorded Mahler's Fifth instead of her?
Or was it good that she got to make a new start in Asia, where a huge opportunity to make a fundamental contribution to classical music awaited?
Yes and Yes.
Two more quick thoughts.
One, it is said that Blanchett worked exceptionally hard to prepare for this role. Studying conducting and piano. Learning to speak German. Learning stunt driving. It is a long film, and she is on-screen for nearly the whole time. IMO, this deserves recognition.
Two, although the most-heard composer's names in the film are Gustav Mahler and Edward Elgar, there is a living composer whose work is heard in the interstices. Her name is Hildur Guðnadóttir. She is an Icelandic musician and composer. IRL she has an EGO (no Tony, yet) for her original scores for The Joker (movie) and Chernobyl (TV series). This film was my first exposure to "the Hildur-ness". I can't wait to hear more of her pieces for cello - in the movie, performed expressively by British cellist Sophie Kauer.
Read A.O. Scott's review or watch the trailer from Focus Features, here:
