After 16 years, Todd Field makes a long-awaited return to the director’s chair with Tár. Having made two under-appreciated gems of the early 2000s with In the Bedroom (2001) and Little Children (2006), he hurtles back into the cultural conversation with this challenging but dazzling film.
Tár is set in the rarefied world of Western classical music. In that arena, the conductor rules. So it provides the perfect vehicle for Field to explore how power is exercised in an essentially closed system. The result is a gripping portrait of a person motivated by power, and ultimately consumed by it.
The title refers to the main character, Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett). She’s described as a trailblazer for women in classical music. A protege of the great Leonard Bernstein, she’s an accomplished composer, and the first female director of the Berlin Philharmonic. She lives in Berlin with her wife Sharon Goodnow (Nina Hoss), the orchestra’s first violin; and their daughter Petra (Mila Bogojevic). Her work however means she’s often on the road at guest appearances, teaching dates or promotional appearances. But for all her calm and erudite exterior, Lydia’s life is chaos under the surface; a state just barely kept in check by her devoted but harried personal assistant Francesca Lentini (Noémie Merlant).
Lydia is about to embark on what she hopes will be the pinnacle of her career. Having recorded all of Gustav Mahler’s symphonies but one, she wants to tackle the remaining work – the massive 5th Symphony – in a live recording. At the same time, she’s trying to work on her own music, without much success. She also has to manage staff issues, including “massaging” her long-time assistant conductor Sebastian Brix (Allan Corduner) out and overseeing Olga Metkina (Sophie Kauer), a new cellist on probation with the orchestra. Then events from Lydia’s past start to slowly percolate to the surface. Lies are exposed. Under immense pressure – much of it of her own making – she begins to fray at the edges. Her hearing seems to be acutely heightened. And seemingly trivial but strange events start happening during the night.
You don’t need to have a lot of knowledge or appreciation for classical music to enjoy Tár, but it certainly helps. Knowing that being with the Berlin Philharmonic (or Berliner Philharmoniker, to use its official title) is essentially the pinnacle of classical music; or that Mahler’s 5th is a monumental work going for more than an hour, helps give context to the events. For a film set in an orchestra though, the film doesn’t really employ a lot of music. Field uses snippets of the Mahler 5th, a little Beethoven and rather more of Elgar’s Cello Concerto; but that’s about it. The film’s actual score by Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker) is so subtle as to be almost imperceptible at times.
Field once studied music (jazz) and it’s not too difficult to see parallels between Tár and Damien Chezelle’s Whiplash. But where Whiplash’s Fletcher (played by J. K. Simmons) was a hectoring bully, Lydia is a more nuanced creation. She’s arguably a bully, but she deftly conceals it beneath a layer of charm and intellectual rigour. Her style isn’t to yell, but to cut with incisive barbs – brilliantly illustrated in her withering take-down of a Julliard student in an early scene. Just as in Whiplash, Tár is interested in power dynamics and how they play out in an artistic setting. The arts is a powerful way to delve into the issue, because those subjected to abusive power both love what they’re doing (so are more likely to put up with it), and have limited options to go elsewhere.
Tár is a film of grand moments and small details. The climactic scene involving the Mahler performance is shockingly brilliant. But check out the opening scene, in which Lydia speaks with an interviewer (Adam Gopnik of the New Yorker, playing himself). The tiny revelations Lydia gives of her true self under the facade are telling. Indeed, the facade itself is telling. Field asks quite a lot of the audience. He relies on you to pick up on at least some of these small cues. Little is spelled out directly. And though you could still follow it through its broad brush strokes, you need to put in at least a little effort to make the most of the experience.
The film has attracted a share of debate in the puerile and unending “culture wars” in the US around whether it tackles so-called “cancel culture”. While the film directly references the James Levine scandal, I personally don’t think Field is swimming in those stormy waters. As mentioned, the film is really about power and how it’s wielded. It also posits – quite reasonably – that actions have consequences; sometimes serious ones. They include the consequences of lying – even the lies we tell ourselves.
Much of the discussion around Tár in this country has focussed on Cate Blanchett’s much-lauded performance in the title role. Well, from my perspective, all the hype is justified. Blanchett gives a really remarkable performance. It’s certainly up there with Mila Kunis’s Oscar-winning performance in the similarly-themed Black Swan and Blanchett’s own Best Actress turn in Blue Jasmine. But like a conductor, her performance needs the support of those around her. Nina Hoss (The Audition) is excellent as Sharon; while real-life cellist Sophie Kauer in her first film role is a revelation as Olga. And I thought Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire) was brilliant in a finely restrained performance as the long-suffering Francesca. Look out too for Mark Strong (1917) in a small but pivotal role.
And it would be remiss not to mention the extraordinary cinematography of Florian Hoffmeister (Official Secrets).
Tár is a triumphant return to the cinema for Field. An intensely intellectual film, it wants to engage its audience at a deeper level. So this is not an easy movie, but it is an astonishing movie.
David Edwards
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David Edwards is the editor of The Blurb and a contributor on film and television