In the wake of the MeToo movement, a number of renowned and
respected celebrity figures were exposed in the public eye for being physical,
psychological and/or sexual abusers.While the movement continues to send shockwaves throughout the entertainment
worlds, one area which didn’t seem to get as much coverage in mainstream media
was the world of classical music and operas.Characters such as conductors James Levine, Daniele Gatti and Charles
Dutoit come to mind as far as distinguished indefatigable figures in the
orchestral conducting world who were outed from the industry which enabled them
to get away with it for so long.Moreover, where is the line drawn between creative genius and cruel
abuses that are perpetrated by someone in a position of power?
In actor-writer-director Todd Field’s Tár, the
filmmaker’s first picture in sixteen years following the powerful debut dramas In
the Bedroom and Little Children, Field’s film addresses this very
gulf between art and abuse.Cate
Blanchett in her first film with the director plays renowned composer-conductor
Lydia Tár, the first chief female conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic.Tár is maybe the world’s most powerful person
in the classical music field, having released several albums and performing
throughout the globe.When she isn’t dressing
down students in her music classes, she is fending off accusations from a
former pupil who claims she was groomed by Tár into a relationship that
exchanged career advancements for sexual favors.Soon however, as Tár takes on a new Russian
pupil named Olga (Sophie Kauer) and her past track record comes back to haunt
her.
Like Field’s previous features, the film is sleek, minimalist,
drawn out and near silent with next to no music and understated diegetic sound
effects.But as with In the Bedroom,
it is a slow dialogue-heavy travelogue with a central character who gradually
begins to come undone as their past and present sins slowly catch up with them.
Mostly a one-woman show in a
transcendent performance by Cate Blanchett in debatably a career-best
performance, Tár initially begins as a study of the creative process of
music before segueing into a psychological drama about the point where longstanding
systemic abuses in the music world begin to foster themselves it its most
dedicated participants.Moreover, it begs
the question of whether or not great art can still be consumed if it is
produced by a terrible person. Aided by ornate widescreen cinematography by Terence Davies
collaborator Florian Hoffmeister, Tár is impeccably composed.With dynamic compositions of the auditoriums,
Berlin cityscapes and Tár’s swanky apartment, the world of Tár is almost
as classy as the seamster netherworld depicted in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Phantom Thread.Some of the film’s most
striking visuals involve the fictitious Berlin orchestra shot in the Dresden
Philharmonie, scoping about the architecture and cleanliness of the
auditorium.Furthering the film’s atonal
minimalist sonic expressiveness is Hildur Guðnadóttir’s subtle evocative score
which seems to fluctuate between soft ambient sounds and orchestral rumblings
in the concert halls.
A searing slow burn that forces you to question the gulf
between art and the artist, the point where the victim becomes a victimizer and
carries on that running thread of systemic abuse that continues to either be
overlooked or covered up by the industries wanting us to enjoy their commercial
offerings. A portrait of the artist
which neither condones her prickly self-serving behaviors nor does it diminish
the power of her creations, Tár asks the viewer to reckon with the point
where intelligence and skill turns towards unacceptable conduct. As a viewer who watched (and continues to
watch) MeToo unfold throughout the world, Tár forces us to ask ourselves
what to do with the conundrum between enjoying art and detesting the artist. While it doesn’t provide all the answers, Tár
is another masterpiece from Todd Field that dares to ask the questions.
