Film Review: "Tár" (2022).

From the writer and director of In the Bedroom and Little Children comes Tár. This psychological drama film written and directed by Todd Field. Lydia Tár is widely revered as an icon in the music world until her life begins to unravel in a singularly modern way. The result is an examination of power, and its impact and durability in today’s society.

In April 2021, it was announced that Cate Blanchett would star in and executive-produce a new film written and to be directed by Field. The film would mark Field's return to the director's chair after a sixteen year absence. Field wrote the script during a twelve-week sprint in the early lockdown stage of the COVID pandemic. Field wrote the film specifically for Blanchett and would not have made the film without her. They had previously planned to work on a different film that Field could not acquire financing for. Back in September 2020, Field was driving while on the phone with Blanchett's agent, Hylda Queally, who'd just delivered the devastating news that her client was booked for the next three years and wouldn't be able to star in his movie. And then Field crashed his car. According to Field, because Queally felt sad for him crashing his car that, she agreed that if Field wasn't in too bad a physical condition, she could get home and send Blanchett the script, and she would read it. The rattling sound that can be heard in Tár's Porsche as she drives was recorded from Field's own car, never fixed properly after the accident. By late June, Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, Mark Strong, Sydney Lemmon, and Sophie Kauer rounded out the film's cast. Blanchett had to re-learn the piano, learned how to speak German, and learned how to conduct an orchestra for the film. To bring Tár's cultured, counterfeit speaking voice into being, Blanchett listened to recordings of Susan Sontag. British-German professional cellist, Sophie Kauer, had no prior acting experience and auditioned at the encouragement of a friend whilst she was studying at the Royal Academy of Music. She learned to act by watching Youtube tutorials hosted by Michael Caine. At the same time, principal photography commenced and wrapped in mid December. Filming took place in Berlin, Germany and New York City, New York. Scenes of the Orchestra playing are completely 100% real. Blanchett was actually conducting the Dresden Orchestra. The entire scene of Lydia teaching students at Juilliard is filmed in one unbroken take. In September, Hildur Guðnadóttir was hired to compose the film's score. Hildur was involved in the project after Field's persistence on the importance of the film's music and went into a three-fold process on the music production: tempo-mapping the film and characters, writing the music that Tár had written in film, and creating the actual score. The original score was recorded at the Abbey Road Studios in London, England. John Mauceri served as consultant to Field's script, specifically helping inform the tenor and accuracy of Tár's comments on classical music and musicians. A concept album was released featuring Guðnadóttir's score with the London Contemporary Orchestra conducted by Robert Ames, as well as a rehearsal of Gustav Mahler's fifth symphony with Blanchett conducting the Dresden Philharmonic. Kauer is also heard on the album playing Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto, backed by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Natalie Murray Beale. The album is a listening experience of what Field referring the film as "the messiness of the work involved in preparing classical music for performance", which involves a combination of audio glimpses from real-life recording sessions, sequences from fictional rehearsals, music listened to by the film's characters, and completed versions of the music on which Lydia Tár had worked on. Guðnadóttir's new music created for the film, serves as the central to both the film as well as the album. The album's introductory cue is a voice memo she sang to provide the main melody titled For Petra, which is the music featured in the final session.

It’s a fascinating drama, packed with attitude and ideas, and Blanchett is absolutely enthralling as Tár. She is as fully-formed a character as Charles Foster Kane, a great and terrible figure that will not be easy to ever forget. Lydia herself is so compellingly constructed, a perfect synthesis of hypocrisy and denial, that Blanchett's intensity never cost the film much of its nuance.

What thrills me about the film is that it's a completely uncompromising film. No discernible effort has been made to dumb anything down. Every shot is sumptuously composed, with the production and costume design providing insight into the character’s emotional state. A precise, layered and brave character study that reverberates with harmonious talent, from its masterful conductor and protagonist. The film is a drama about a world-famous classical music conductor and how she is brought low by a sordid sex scandal. It is a serious and worthwhile film, whatever the balance of its various merits and defects. Exceptionally well-made and worthy of all the awards. Cinematography looks great, the score is beautiful, fantastic use of sound design, and the central performance is mind-blowing. The film keeps us guessing. It’s a tense thriller, an engrossing character study, and a thoughtful study of cancel culture. The film is a slippery, sly piece of work, whose bold combination of world building, social critique and psychological investigation needs to be experienced, absorbed, pondered over, and even then will defy description. It can move at a fast clip, overwhelming you with detail, only to slow for a moment or two, allowing you to marvel more fully at this strange public figure and her internal hive of neuroses. It’s basically everything you are certain will bore you to death, but it doesn’t here. It’s riveting. The film is one hundred and fifty-seven minutes long and doesn’t drag for a single second. Ultimately, the film must be seen, experienced, to be believed. Much like its central character, Tár is thorny and difficult yet uncompromising and dazzling in its superiority.

Simon says Tár receives: