Tár

Even though I do not subscribe to the Auteur Theory of directorial authorship in cinema, when I write about a movie I usually start with the director or writer, as the most concise way to set the table for discussing a specific picture within the larger framework of film history. In many cases, I’m also eager to view a film within the context of the director’s body of work. Such is certainly the case with Todd Field, the former actor turned writer/director whose début feature In the Bedroom (2001) was a masterful screen adaptation of the Andre Dubus short story "Killings.” Field followed that film up with Little Children (2006), a less successful but still memorable adaptation, this time of a novel by Tom Perrotta. Field has been writing and developing projects for the past sixteen years, but TÁR is his first to actually make it to the screen.

As if to stress that Field himself may not subscribe to the auteur theory, the way his latest picture begins seems to discourage the facile belief that the most collaborative of artistic mediums—filmmaking—is the creation of one genius individual.  We see first the long list of the credits that are normally only read by those who watch movie through to the last frame.  After these lengthy credits, TÁR leaps into a fascinating, non-stop, 2 ½+ hour dissection of the idea of the genius individual. Field’s film explores how our culture is wrestling with the way we elevate exceptional individuals who may be, at their core, frauds, monsters, or just destructive narcissists. It also reminds us why we heap so much attention on these people in the first place.

Lidia Tár is introduced to us at the high point of her career. We learn she’s one of the greatest living conductors and composers of classical music, that she apprenticed with Leonard Bernstein, won the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony trophies, and became the first female chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. The hefty opening sequence in which Lidia is interviewed by Adam Gopnik at the New Yorker Festival is an effective way to both provide exposition—conducting and composing are not occupations where most of us would be able to assess greatness by just watching it—and establish that this film will be, above all else, a character study about a self-determined and largely self-invented persona.

In a career high point (and, man, is that saying something) Cate Blanchett creates yet another riveting, larger-than-life character. Much like Leonardo DiCaprio did in The Wolf of Wall Street, she fully embodies the distinctive, persuasive, but ultimately hollow way that many powerful, self-invented people speak. For those who’ve obtained their power and position through the sheer force of their own driven personality, confidence can be an unwavering force.  They are able to convince even themselves that their naked self-promotion comes from a place of deep authenticity. Normally, stories that tackle the idea of “The Great Man” have straight white dudes as their hero or antihero. But it’s a far more fascinating subject when The Great Man in question is a lesbian woman. It enables the filmmaker and the audience to discard the stereotypical boxes that often obscure or simplify what lies at the heart of a narcissistic individual that trumps any other identity they may possess.

Field showcases the modern ways power is obtained, wielded, and held on to, doing so within the old-fashioned milieu of symphony orchestras and classical music. He shows us how some relationships must be maintained or nurtured and how others must be sacrificed and destroyed. TÁR illustrates the ways institutions and individuals benefit from proximity to power. The movie seems almost plotless on its surface, yet the narrative contains all the standard beats of a traditional downfall arc, and it engages with multiple topical talking points without ever devolving into heavy-handed indictments or simplistic virtue signaling. Field includes a fair amount of speechifying from Lidia Tár, but it’s the kind that causes us to examine the person speaking as much as what she says. The length of Tár’s riveting monologues, like the length of this movie, enables us to look beyond the surface details and dig into the truths underneath.

Many will take issue with some of Field’s choices, or what seem to be non-choices. But just because he neither condones nor condemns the actions of his protagonist doesn’t mean his film lacks direction or a sharp viewpoint. By telling his story almost entirely from Lydia’s perspective, with just a couple of important shifts in POV at the very beginning, we experience all that unfolds from Lydia’s privileged position. We sense that all is not well around her, but since she views herself as insulated from consequences and she’s perpetually focused on the details of her art and her personal and professional needs, she doesn’t see what we can feel coming. And even though we can make guesses about Lydia’s fate that her own lack of self-awareness prevents her from seeing, nothing in TÁR plays out as one might expect.

For a film of this length, the ending leaves a few too many loose ends to be fully satisfying, but it would be thematically incorrect for the film to end on a note of finality or closure. Part of the point is that when the kind of thing that happens to Lidia Tár occurs, it is never “the end.” Life continues; careers continue. People don’t just disappear. There are two alternate places in the final act where this film could have easily concluded. One, which I’ll call the Darren Aronofsky ending, is a moment of public violence and humiliation that would have abruptly ended the film with Tár at her lowest point. Another, which I’ll call the Scorsese ending, also sees Tár at a low moment, alone in her childhood home in a scene that both reveals key truths about her and also evokes sympathy for her. But the ending Field has chosen is far more appropriate to the character and the story he’s created as well as to the era in which it takes place. TÁR presents a nuanced portrait of a complex figure and forces us to see her life through her eyes, rather than merely observe and judge her.

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