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

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.