Tár Takes on the Devastating Spectacle of ‘Cancellation’

Todd Field’s new film, Tár, opens with a scene that should feel inherently uncinematic: an onstage Q&A. The conversation, between Lydia Tár (played by Cate Blanchett) and Adam Gopnik (gamely playing himself), is the kind of hoity-toity event that’d be a coveted ticket for a certain highbrow milieu. Tár is the preeminent conductor of her generation. She leads the Berlin Philharmonic and has a list of accomplishments that Gopnik could rattle off for at least an hour. (Among other things, she has an EGOT!) But why start her story in staid territory, via a back-and-forth on classical music that mostly feels like a big pat on the back for a fictional character the viewer has just met?

For two reasons, both of which underline why Field’s movie is such a biting accomplishment. The first is to see Blanchett in her element, keeping an audience hanging on every word as her character ruminates on the difficulties of her vocation and the legacy of legends such as Leonard Bernstein. The second is to establish the tone of Tár’s tightly wound world, in which she’s shuttled from place to place in luxury while everyone orbits around her, eager for just a puff of her genius to waft their way. Over the course of 158 minutes, cracks start to emerge in that hermetic universe until it finally comes apart. Field charts Tár’s decline with devastating relish.

Tár’s “cancellation” (which is simply the easiest way to describe what happens to her reputation in the film) has its specifics, but Field seems most interested in the elemental process of watching someone with such power and poise veer out of control. The unraveling of Tár begins with just a few whispers before spiraling in unpredictable directions. Field isn’t exactly rooting for her downfall, and neither was I; instead, he’s depicting the way such scandals inspire rubbernecking from all walks of life.

In the first act, Tár is prideful. A protégé of Bernstein’s, she’s a professed believer in his mantra that classical music should be accessible to the people, not remote or academic. But an early scene sees her lecturing a group of students with withering superiority. She takes particular delight in ripping apart an aspiring conductor who dares to question Bach’s place in the pantheon. Tár has intellectual heft, and watching her deploy it is breathtaking. Blanchett pours equal parts charisma and intimidation into her career-best performance. 

by David Sims, The Atlantic | Read more:
Image: Tár/YouTube