TÁR

tàr is so unlikable the whole time. god i wanna know what pretentious asshole todd phillips made this about todd field is a straight up genius. how do you make a movie like this? how do you write this dialogue? how does cate blanchett so perfectly inhabit a character like this? todd field is like an expert in the world of these characters and writes with strong and insightful and educated opinions while also crafting a top-tier drama and maximalizing on the potential of cinema to tell a story god i’m so fucking enamored with this movie this is a comedy, shot like a drama. everything that happens is pretty funny. it’s not really about cancel culture. that’s a really show reading. it just uses that as a vehicle to show the downfall of Lydia/Linda. She absolutely merits the consequences she receives and the movie agrees— she’s constantly haunted and like the opening text convo asks, the movie questions whether or not Lydia has a conscience or she killed that as she ascended the ladder of success Were introduced to Lydia proudly telling the New Yorker that she in fact IS just a timekeeper, she IS just a vehicle for the intent of the actual creator, that she DOESN’T bring any creativity to her conducting. then the next sequence is her beating Mark Strong for his lack of originality, calling him a robot. In the end, she tackles him, screaming that he’s using her score There’s massive themes throughout of Tár’s identity crisis: she seems to hate being described as a woman conductor, refusing to be called a Maestra, calling herself Petra’s ‘father’, trying to turn her pro-women foundation into a general conducting foundation, and ofc the argument at Berkeley where she basically says “don’t reduce me to my identity”. and yet we learn at the end that her whole persona is constructed: everybody she interacts with she interacts with falsely, especially her wife “Tár” is a carefully constructed facade of what Linda thinks an artist is. And yet because of her unwillingness to be vulnerable and authentic, she is unable to create anything meaningful herself. She can’t have a good relationship even with someone who loves her, because she thinks important artists get to fuck whoever they want (something she’s implied to pick up from Bernstein and Andris). She can’t create good music because she is unwilling to take off her mask i think this movie makes for a great double feature with Maestro thematically even more than aesthetically : Field says that living a facade destroys you while Cooper (wonder why?) suggests that making great art justifies destroying your family life. Also, just to note my personal bias, i think Bernstein is an outright hack conductor and i think it’s because he’s so dishonest