The film TÁR
The best sermons are ones that leave you with something to chew on, something to apply to your life or someone else’s life, to ponder, to wrestle with. Something more than just a trifle to forget as soon as it ends. The same applies to film. And while I may not rush out to watch Todd Field’s TÁR a second time, I can’t stop thinking about it. And really, what more could you ask of a work of art?
Cate Blanchett inhabits roles like few others, and her portrayal of conductor, composer and author Lydia Tár is no exception, a mesmerizing tour de force, as she employs not only her prodigious acting talents, but also skills she acquired for the role: conducting, piano playing, and speaking German. Honestly, it’s ridiculous. As Vogue writer Taylor Antrim concluded in his review of the film, “Just give her the Oscar.” I couldn’t agree more.
The film dives deeply into the world of music, and it helps to have some knowledge of the language of music when watching Tár. My non-musical wife may have enjoyed the journey, but not as much as I did, and I probably didn’t enjoy it as much as my classical musician friends will, all of whom I immediately texted when I finished watching the movie. It’s not often that the world of classical music is portrayed on film so thoughtfully and thoroughly, and I think they’ll get to experience Tár on an even deeper level than I did.
But at its core, the world of classical performing is like any other business: there is politics, jockeying for position, mind games, personality conflicts, concerns about marketing and money, and wrestling with loyalty, legacy, family, power and control – and it’s these universal qualities that allow the film to be appreciated no matter what expertise you may or may not bring to the table. That is, as long as you can handle a running time of 158 minute.
But time in film can stretch and contract just like tempo in music can ritard or accelerate (much like Tár describes in the opening scene of the film when she’s interviewed at a public gathering). What’s amazing is how much time Field spends on the slow build of Tár’s journey, as we learn about her musical expertise, her celebrity, her home life with wife Sharon and adopted daughter Petra, her struggles to tune out extraneous sounds that hamper with the more important tasks at hand… and how little time is spent on the earth-shattering changes that occur within the last half an hour of the film.
This is where Field’s expertise really shines, as he tells us just enough to draw our own conclusions, but not so much that he hits us over the head with an unambivalent outcome (the way, say, Everything Everywhere All at Once did last spring, somewhat marring an otherwise excellent movie). Other deftly-written scenes lack ambiguity but are amazingly efficient at telling us what we need to know with very little. I won’t spoil anything, but there are two brief scenes – one in a PR firm’s office, and one in Lydia’s childhood home – that both last no more than 30 seconds and illuminate so much about her life without getting bogged down in the details. Honestly, Field could have made another film – Tár 2, if you will – expanding the last twenty minutes into a 2-hour feature film. There certainly would have been enough intrigue to coax me back into the theater (and this film must be seen in a theater if you have the opportunity). Instead, he speeds up the last half an hour of the film, just as composer might for a symphony’s climax.
As it is, the film leaves me with questions, something I appreciate in a good movie. Why does Tár throw out a book she receives as a gift, a book adorned by an artistic pattern similar to one on a metronome in her home and to one her daughter makes with clay? I don’t know. I suspect there’s something I missed. Is the scream Tár heard in a park really happening or is it in her head? What exactly is she guilty of, and were the consequences of her actions just or unjust?
I don’t know. But I can’t wait to ask my friends about it after they see the movie.
Just like a good sermon.