Last week’s Tár-focused newsletter generated a ton of interesting discussion and commentáry (both in the comments and people responding to me via text / email / tweet / what have you) and because I don’t want the regular newsletter to become bogged down by discussion of this film, but because there is so much to say about it and a lot of great questions that I can answer, here’s a bonus edition responding to your questions and comments.
A Very Good Comment
Listener JS wrote such an outrageously good comment that I wanted to be sure everyone read it:
I agree it’s bizarre that this film even exists. From the first scene to that mind-blowingly nuts final twist of the knife it was, moment for moment, the strangest thing I’ve seen since probably Lost Highway (well, at least since Magnolia). And this is coming from someone for whom Discreet Charms of the Bourgeoisie is a top-ten film.
Leaving aside the odd stew of classical music industry memes for a moment, as a visual narrative there were a number of things I enjoyed. For one, how the film thrusts you into new scenes, settings and situations with zero prelude or context. It forces the viewer to roll up their sleeves and connect disparate narrative threads themselves, threads that another director would neatly tie off for the viewer. In that sense it has high expectations for its audiences’ intellect, and it rewards the attentive (and the repeat) viewer. How often can you say that about a film these days? I also enjoyed some of the small character development details, such as those silent sequences of Lydia running by herself on the streets of Berlin. And those momentary auditory hallucinations that just came and went unexplained added an intriguing element of psychological suspense.
With respect to verisimilitude, like you, a lot of it initially struck me as parodic (the dialogue in the restaurant scene with the Gil Kaplan stand-in, and her subsequent on-stage assault of him, comes to mind). But on reflection it came to feel more like the narrative analogue of what in the visual arts is called hyperrealism. That is, not a faithful accounting of reality but an amplification of certain aspects of reality in order to expose a deeper truth—in this case, a certain vein of sociopathic opportunism that, at least to those of us on the outside looking in, certainly appears to exist at the highest levels of the classical music industry.
None of this really contradicts what you write. I do have a few nagging questions about your review, though. For one, is it really so impossible to go from ivy league ethnomusicologist to conductor? Google turns up one or two people who seem to have done just that (I had never heard of them, however). Also, even more picayune, regarding the size of Lydia’s office: is the music director’s office in the Berliner Philharmonie really as dark and cramped as you suggest? Small details, of course, but I am genuinely curious if Kirill Petrenko et. al. really work out of broom closets.
So many great points here and so much I’d like to respond to:
Love the shouts-out to Lost Highway and Discreet Charms (a musicalization of which Stephen Sondheim was working on during the last ten years of his life.)
I totally agree with you about the bracing nature of the film w/r/t throwing the audience into its scenes with no context and letting you figure out the rest.
For those who don’t know, there is indeed a character based on Gilbert Kaplan. Who’s he? Gilbert Kaplan was the multi-millionaire publisher of Institutional Investor magazine who developed an obsession with Mahler’s second symphony (“the two”?) to the point where he trained with several major-league conductors and hired out huge professional orchestras to perform and record it under his baton. You’ll see from that clip that he had no idea what he was doing.
Now, more about the portrayal of this character, Elliott, in the film. We first see him in a lunch scene with Lydia Tár. They’re discussing a recent performance of his, and he’s bemoaning the fact that he can’t get the same magic that Tár gets from an orchestra. She urges him to read the “score sheets” that the orchestra will have filled out following the gig.
Look, I understand narratively WHY this was mentioned here — it introduced the idea of the constant judgment faced by professional musicians, which is indeed a very true aspect of the life, and something that I’m glad to see portrayed on screen.
But you know who would NOT have comment / score cards filled out? The guy hiring the orchestra to do his bidding.Is it so impossible to go from Ivy League ethnomusicologist to conductor? Well, anything is possible, and if we’re talking about a conductor of a youth orchestra or community orchestra or something, then it’s certainly possible. Actually, I have a friend who did a bunch of ethnomusicological research in South Africa and became a very successful children’s choir conductor. But to become a conductor at the level of Lydia Tár as portrayed in this film? Extremely unlikely unto the point of impossibility. There’s just so much groundwork that you have to be laying in your early 20s — degrees, competitions, management deals, staff conducting. Taking five years away from all that (not to mention all the extra time for academic coursework and dissertation writing) makes it unrealistic.
As to the office size, please note a crucial detail: I was talking about assistant conductors’ offices. Music directors have lavish suites (although in Cincinnati, Louis’ office was also windowless!) When Riccardo Muti came in as the music director of the Chicago Symphony, there was tons of gossip floating around town about how much money they made him spend on reconfiguring his office. I imagine it’s quite nice!
An Actual Headline
How can one respond to this (from The Cut) other than by following this link?
Well, Listener Eric had a great response via text:
https://www.pbs.org/video/tar-qelmzt/
I just found this interview where Cate Blanchett explains some of the backstory behind her character and mentions some scenes that were filmed but not used in the film.
She talks about how Tár’s parents were deaf, and how that affected her relationship to sound, and the guilt she suffers for having had an extraordinary ear. None of which is in the film. Interesting . . .
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Well played, sir . . . 😉