Welcome to Literally Me, a column about how and what we say when we relate to a film character. After a long hiatus, this feature is back. I’m hoping there will be more instalments within the year, and if there aren’t, you can punch me in the face. We are going to talk about a movie that wouldn’t fit in the criterion of a Literally Me movie, defined in the previous edition as movies that “depict uncertain men in uncertain ways. Men are often dominant on the screen, but it can be easy to misunderstand them when they’re misunderstood. Either because we don’t see the forest beneath the trees or we choose not to care about their problems. I’d be taking the former path.” Tar doesn’t have a male protagonist, but is confronted with issues usually faced by men. Masculinity is not the main issue here, but identity politics and the successor ideology, which Tar’s depiction has split some critics, but earned praise from some who wouldn’t be sympathetic with others talking about the topic. So this column will be about cinematic alienation.
There is a scene from the film Tar that went viral on social media, with the responses being split to a fault. Directed by Todd Field, it’s shot in a long, unbroken take, where we see a nervous student named Max demonstrating his compositions for Lydia Tar (played by Cate Blanchett), a very accomplished conductor doing a guest lecture at the Julliard School. Tar sees that Max does not take an interest in Bach, because as a “BIPOC pangender man”, his multiple marital affairs don’t provide him with the desired need to appreciate his music. She takes down these comments, saying that a “narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring conformity” and Max storms out, insulting her.
Some progressives were offended that she humiliated Max, believing that it was not fine for her to downplay the worst elements of Bach. These people are mistaken in thinking that she was needlessly cruel since it is her role as a teacher to ensure that her pupils pursue their careers as artists with an open mind, which Max refuses to possess. Meanwhile, many conservatives applauded Tar’s actions as a firm rejection of identity politics, affirming her role as an authority figure and shattering the small ego of her student. Unfortunately, they miss one critical detail of this character. As a public figure, she’s far from a perfect collection of convictions.
Tar is a multilayered character study that puts itself in the epicentre of numerous modern calamities ranging from cancel culture to the nature of genius, without sermonizing specifically on one or more topics. During an interview with The New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik, Tar is introduced through multiple accomplishments. Among them is being the first female conductor at the Berlin Philharmonic and one of the few people to earn an EGOT (Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award). This is mainly due to a tough work ethic that attracts a lot of people within her orbit, from lucrative financiers to aspiring students. Her next goal is to complete Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, finishing all eight sets, which would allow a new precedent in her field. During her personal life, she cares for her family, which includes her wife Sharon (Nina Hoss), a concertmaster at the Philharmonic and their daughter Petra and will do everything to protect her. But the film slowly reveals the unravelling of her ego, on which she once held a firm grip.
The predicaments to Tar’s image are simultaneously extrinsic and intrinsic. The external peril facing Lydia Tar is the loss of her artistic legacy, protecting it at every possible cost. These include accusations of having unwanted sexual relationships with the female musicians who had enrolled on the Fellowship that she co-founded with Eliot Kaplan (Mark Strong), an investment banker. One of whom is Francesca (Noemie Merlant), her personal assistant who, as long as she can withstand her boss’s brutal nature, is destined for the role of assistant conductor. Another woman is Krista Taylor, a prominent accordion artist who committed suicide after she was blacklisted from joining various orchestras, following an affair. Eliot Kaplan (Mark Strong) also plays an important role, representing the commercial backwater that was partly responsible for Tar’s career. But he is also a conductor that doesn’t meet her high standards but could take over her position if ever there’s a chance that she is absent. She cannot afford to budge her place to someone either younger or less talented than her.
Much of these ideas are informed through our current social polarization, which The New Yorker film critic Richard Brody describes as ‘regressive’ in his review, while Michelle Goldberg claims in a headline “Finally, a great movie about cancel culture.” While this is a very limited perspective to take, it does show how prickly topics can be really delicate to depict. When they are pushed towards a partisan bent, it will lead to simple-minded and forgettable art. Here, Field satirizes the snobbery of liberal cultural elites presiding in inner city areas, and both the film’s fictional and non-fictional interactions with The New Yorker, a well-established and high-brow magazine, prove that it wants to refrain from taking any preconceived stance, thus portraying her in situations that neither cast her as a hero nor a villain.
Contemporary films centring around an angry mob are usually sympathetic to their protagonists. For instance, Thomas Vinteberg’s The Hunt, centres on a kindergarten teacher being shunned by a small town over an accusation he was inappropriate with one of the children. It takes his side quite simply, because any evidence that would show any possibility of his wrongdoing, no matter how scarce it is, is overwhelmed by the irrational collective rage that he faces.
Todd Field is no stranger to depicting such controversial subjects. One of the characters in his previous film, Little Children, is a convicted pedophile moving into a suburban neighbourhood, much to the parents' anger. Social media plays a crucial role in Lydia’s relationship with the public. Likewise in Tar, we’re shown that the damage to the character’s reputation is through a heavily edited video of the lecture, that would mislead the people around her, not the viewer. But they are exposed to her fears and vulnerabilities being manifested in part, by how she can destroy other people. And in response, the scenario is manipulated to make a crude point about power.
Todd Field is more interested in exploring the beautiful and ugly traits of her creativity, rather than reconciling them. Through Field’s aural outlook and attention to detail, Tar’s intrinsic nature is illustrated by her experiencing a series of transitions, which are also known as liminal spaces. But in an interview with W Magazine, Cate Blanchett says that Lydia sufferers from misophonia, which is an acute sensitivity to sound that is experienced by conductors anticipating an unusual sound. For example, when she experiences an unusual sound, it smashes cuts with Tar doing a practice recital to achieve her desired perfection. When Lydia travels through a tunnel or takes a jog, there’s either an intense urge that she is processing or a weakness that emerges.
Her emotional decline and rigid personality are shown through unbroken takes and smash cuts. These smash cuts hit you in the same way a truck strikes a pedestrian, revealing a logarithmic sequence of events, rather than a linear one. The blocking of certain scenes will give an indication of her powers, where compositions become closer when she is in control, whether it’s dismissing a colleague or being intimate with someone with a close connection. The shots are wider when she’s haunted by guilt and is alone.
This enables a vast and isolated puzzle that is often associated with the works of Stanley Kubrick, whom Field is associated with from a significant appearance in his final film Eyes Wide Shut. In that film, Tom Cruise’s character develops a sexual jealousy of his wife and travels to unfamiliar locations that would affirm the feeling. Recently, the concept of liminal spaces has become an Internet phenomenon, evoking not just that eerieness, but a familiarity with the past that brings a lot of emotional weight. In Tar, these moments denote something in-between two or more events that are fully embedded in her emotional state. The ideal path is for Lydia to complete the final set of Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, hence cementing her status as one of the greatest conductors in the modern era. Tar can’t do it alone, whether it’s with Sharon or her younger mistresses that she puts under her professional wing. Otherwise, it reveals her ability to be corrupt and corrode the lives of everyone else, and the field of classical music.
Lydia Tar is moulded as the antihero, which we see in film and TV from the likes of Tony Soprano and Walter White. Those characters share a goal in wanting to be their ideal self, in a sea of fateful conflict; Tony Soprano wants to think that he is still a good person inside whilst cultivating an environment that fosters violence and extra-marital lust; Walter White justifies his journey as a drug kingpin to initially pay off his medical treatment for terminal lung cancer and providing for his family. Yet they all delude themselves into thinking it’s still virtuous. But Lydia has a lot in common with Don Draper, the ad executive from Mad Men. Both are at the top of their areas and commit to stricter rules of ethics. But each committed adultery and has a tragic backstory that makes their own identities feel astroturfed.
In an essay called The Decay of Lying, Oscar Wilde proposed the mantra that ‘life imitates art because “personal experience is a most vicious and limited circle.” Wilde argues that “imitation is the sincerest form of insult” as it is part of human nature. While gender plays a passive role in the film, it’s rare to actually see an antiheroine who has a lot of ambition and uses it to hide her emptiness. A protege of Leonid Bernstein, Lydia lives in classical music since she was a child growing up in a middle-class neighbourhood. By leaving behind her roots and changing her name, she wanted to become the best and has already achieved that by gaining achievements that many others in her field haven’t. It’s the kind of story that is enticing to anybody, especially to those in the world of art, where the loss of control in maintaining that established height is cathartic and profound to the viewer.
Some critics have claimed that had Lydia Tar been a straight male, the film would have been perceived differently. That could make sense, with scandals seen in the world of classical music where accusations have ranged from sexual harassment to racism, typically faced by men. As a self-proclaimed “uhaul lesbian”, Lydia Tar flips the idea that a woman can’t abuse her privileges simply through the assumptions of their inheritable attributes. Her character brings such a triumphant performance for Cate Blanchett, that many people think she’s based on a real person. Most have pointed to Marin Alsop, a lesbian conductor who was the first of her kind to win the MacArthur Fellowship. Alsop strongly dismissed the film, because it chose to depict her as an abuser. In response, Blanchett says that “power is genderless,” adding that it could be applied more broadly, whether it’s a “master architect or a banking corporation.”
Tar inspires many conversations and the scene where she and Max has a standoff exemplifies the film’s true meaning. Its meta-virality where each character is reduced to culture war pawns enhances that point further. The damage Tar faces is accelerated with her standoff against the student and it demonstrates the choices they make. Zethphan Smith-Gneist, who plays Max, states in an interview that these characters convey two sides of a coin with stances so delicately played out. Part of the reason why that is a fascinating cinematic moment is that it encapsulates an argument quite succinctly that removing it out of context and ultimately painting one person as morally bankrupt for engaging in it, destroys any clear truths. While she doesn’t demonstrate fairness most of the time, Lydia brings passionate knowledge about classical music as usual, while the student represents a new generation that would vouch for her title as one of the greatest conductors of all time, but is interested in reducing the status quo into one exhaustive principle that he refuse to step away from.
Todd Field isn’t interested in exploring whether the circumstances of Tar’s public downfall are accurate or deserved. But he’s enigmatic in the film’s approach to fame and is eager to challenge his audience, rather than spoonfeed them with simple statements. Lydia Tar is many things: a composer, an author, an intellectual, a wife and a mother. She is also a predator who sits on a very delicate throne. And yet overall, she’s human. That kind of portrayal is also the film’s greatest achievement.