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Oct 6, 2022 · ‘Tár’ Review: A Maestro Faces the Music. Cate Blanchett stars as a world-famous conductor heading for a fall in Todd Field’s chilly, timely backstage drama. Share full article. The writer and...
- Todd Field
- A.O. Scott
- 158 min
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Oct 7, 2022 · Lydia Tár’s world—conjured with incredible agility and grace and mystery by Field in his first feature film in 16 years—is one in which the near-impossible escape is attempted via music. Specifically classical music, and more specifically classical music that aspires to sublimity.
Led by the soaring melody of Cate Blanchett's note-perfect performance, Tár riffs brilliantly on the discordant side of fame-fueled power. Read Critics Reviews. Tár can be tough to follow,...
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- Todd Field
- R
- Cate Blanchett
Oct 8, 2022 · Movie Review. ‘Tár’: Cate Blanchett’s Staggering Work of Complicated Genius. As the renowned composer Lydia Tár — intensely charismatic and deeply flawed — the actress brings the full force of...
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- Cate Blanchett towers over the competition.
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- Verdict
By Siddhant Adlakha
Posted: Oct 7, 2022 4:00 pm
TÁR will release in select theaters on Oct. 7 before expanding wide on Oct. 28.
The dense, meticulously constructed TÁR is writer-director Todd Field’s first feature in 16 years (his last film, Little Children, secured him an Oscar nod for Best Adapted Screenplay). A chronicle of power, talent, and ego, it stars the impeccable Cate Blanchett in the role of a lifetime: Lydia Tár, a fictitious world-famous composer and conductor, a woman so richly sketched that you’d be forgiven for confusing her for a real-life figure. In that vein, TÁR often plays like an innovative biopic, one that bides its time before revealing fascinating layers to its character and story. It’s a lengthy film, and by no means an easy one, and while its protracted first act seems puzzlingly languid, it paves the way for an enveloping drama you can get lost in for ages. Even at 2 hours and 37 minutes long, it leaves you grasping for more.
Plenty of new films are touted as being of the “MeToo era,” with their stories of abusers and survivors. Just as many are the opposite, built upon fears of “cancel culture.” TÁR is among the rare few that earns its keep as both, but without ever feeling reactionary. It’s an examination of power structures that’s as unblinking in its depiction of abuse as it is nuanced in its portrait of flawed, selfish humanity (and ultimately, of artistic genius), a film that wholly rejects the notion of separating the art from the artist if it leads to a deeper, more soulful understanding.
TÁR begins with a New Yorker symposium hosted by real-life journalist Adam Gopnik, whose rundown of Lydia’s achievements prior to their interview — appearing in the form of introductory voiceover — affords Field enough time to construct a montage of her professional life behind the scenes, from the way she selects her fitted suits, to how she lays out old orchestral records on her apartment floor, as if she were drawing a roadmap to some secret musical treasure. When their conversation finally begins, it plays out at length on a fancy Manhattan stage, not only for the sake of inserting Lydia into real-world music history — she was a protégé to the late Leonard Bernstein, and a mentor to Joker and Chernobyl composer Hildur Guðnadóttir, who scored this very film — but in order to open up a detailed dialogue on composing and musical interpretation.
Jasmine - Blue Jasmine
Katherine Hepburn - The Aviator
Jude - I'm Not There
Queen Elizabeth I - Elizabeth
Carol Aird - Carol
Galadriel - The Lord Of The Rings
It's moving, and thrilling, but it complicates our own journey through the story. We should know better than to trust her, or even like her. But watching her perform — Lydia’s performance, as well as Blanchett’s — is an enrapturing experience. It’s hard not to revere what she creates.
With all these pieces in play, Field slowly unfurls a tale of backstage politics, and of stories about Lydia’s past slowly coming to light as she navigates her marriage and her professional life, and the sense of entitlement that rocks both these boats simultaneously. Field’s quieter moments are approached cautiously and deftly, and yet, unflinchingly, via still and lengthy takes that allow his performers to breathe complex life into every frame. However, his story is punctuated by moments of stark realization and of fearsome intensity, during which his camera charges into piercing closeups, forcing its way past Blanchett’s cold and manipulative (but ultimately alluring) exterior, and exposing the insecurities that feed Lydia’s egotism, and her very sense of being.
Todd Field’s first feature in 16 years, TÁR is a richly detailed portrait of power and creative genius, led by Cate Blanchett’s towering performance as a world-famous composer whose private and professional life enters the public spotlight. A pressing film that feels distinctly of-the-now.
- Siddhant Adlakha
Sep 1, 2022 · Cate Blanchett plays a celebrated composer-conductor whose reputation is suddenly shattered by revelations of her personal life in Todd Field's caustic dissection of power dynamics.
Full Review | Jul 24, 2023. Tár is a fantastic directorial return for Todd Field, well worth the wait and one of the strongest films on the Awards circuit. Blanchett has rightly earned rave ...
