"Tár" by Todd Field (2022)

"Schopenhauer measured a person's intelligence against their sensitivity to noise"

"Didn't he also famously throw a woman down a flight of stairs who later sued him?"

"Yes, though it's unclear that this private and personal failing is at all relevant to his work"

The very first sentence seemed so important during the movie and I did my best to memorise it. But today, with a cup of coffee and a relatively fresh mind, I noticed that the whole conversation absolutely makes sense. Not only that Schopenhauer noticed a link between person's intelligence and their sensitivity to noise but he also might have been a conflicting individual - which should not really affect his work and what he left behind. In this short but oh so meaningful dialogue, we have a story of "Tár" in a nutshell. Here she is, a music genius of her times, celebrated many times over - and than tarred (what an interesting pun) and feathered because social media generation don't forgive any human failings. Perhaps even more importantly, same character (elderly musician and her former mentor Andris) warns her that when he became really big and successful, he made sure his public life was spotless. "“I made sure all the hangers in my closet were facing the same direction.”

I knew and expected that I would love "Tár" on the strength of my admiration for Cate Blanchett. Purposely, I have been avoiding reading anything about the movie because I wanted to approach it like tabula rasa and to enjoy it without any preconceptions. It was also exciting visit to a newly renovated and recently re-opened cult cinema "The Movies" that goes all the way to 1912. and it might be Amsterdam's oldest cinema. I even thought its my first cinema this year, until this very blog reminded me that in January I have seen "Triangle of Sadness" which was also brilliant, this makes two masterpieces so far. Perhaps the only weak link was my company who has never even heard of Blanchett and most of the movie went above her head, but I just had to accept that this time there will be no interesting after-movie discussion.

Cate Blanchett was sensational. I would even say, almost intimidating. As a celebrated classical music conductor Lydia Tár she is a very intense, confident and demanding individual who leads Berlin Philharmonic and is basically a balls crusher. She is bossing everybody around her and perhaps only with her elderly mentor and her adopted daughter, there is a fleeting moment of tenderness - it takes a specific kind of artistic integrity and I would even say courage to play such unsympathetic character, Blanchett does not even tries to soften her up, she is cold, manipulative and angry most of the time. She treats her personal assistant with disdain, her wife with barely concealed annoyance, people around her are here to serve. And just when it looks that she is at the top of her professional success, it takes one wrong step to show all the previously hidden animosity people felt towards her - there were hints trough the movie, like someone's cell phone with hateful messages (but we were never told who wrote them) - when proverbial  shit hits the fan, this dominatrix finds out there is nobody to help or support her. Not even her own brother. 

Some observations:

- The dialogue is out of this world. Since we are dealing with a rarified world of classical musicians, the way they talk is beautifully tailored and everything sounds so sophisticated that I even wondered is this perhaps too off-putting for a regular cinema audience fed with action heroes, but I must say that cinema was full and everybody very quiet & appreciative (confused?) so I should not doubt them after all. 

- Lydia Tár is very clever and manipulative. She ruthlessly steers her orchestra towards her goal and works on replacing elderly conductor assistant with someone else - but when it turns out her choice is not her own long-suffering assistant Francesca, there is a shade of "All about Eve" because Francesca uses her knowledge of Lydia 's previous personal affairs to create a public scandal that engulfs and sinks her whole career.

- There is a very interesting scene where Lydia gives a masterclass at the Juilliard - some young and cocky student dares to dismiss Bach (because as non-binary-whatever-person he can't listen music made by someone who fathered 15 children) and she is dazzlingly menacing in the way she treats him. Unfortunately this backfires at her. 

- Schopenhauer's idea that intelligent people react to a noise is ever present - not only in the way Lydia is haunted by all sorts of strange noises in her apartment, but also later as strange noises and even construction work gets more and more disruptive towards the end of the movie. 

- At almost 3 hours, the movie was really a test for my bladder. And the only reason why I couldn't get up was because my seat was in the middle of the row and I could disturb everyone - I still have that old fashioned concern about people around me - perhaps the ending where everything unravels was not even necessary and the movie could have been shorter. However, it has been a long time (probably not since 2008. "Doubt") that movie excited me so much, so for me this was definitely a 100% masterpiece. Even though its overlong. I will watch it again.