Tár
Tár is a 2022 psychological drama film written and directed by Todd Field. Cate Blanchett stars as Lydia Tár, a world-renowned conductor facing accusations of misconduct. The supporting cast includes Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Sophie Kauer, Julian Glover, Allan Corduner, and Mark Strong. Tár premiered at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in September 2022, where Blanchett won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress. It had a limited theatrical release in the United States on October 7, 2022, before a wide release on October 28 through Focus Features.[7]
"Tar (film)" redirects here. For the 2012 film originally titled Tar, see The Color of Time.Tár
Todd Field
- Todd Field
- Alexandra Milchan
- Scott Lambert
- Standard Film Company
- EMJAG Productions
- Focus Features (United States)
- Universal Pictures (international)
- September 1, 2022 (Venice)
- October 7, 2022 (United States)
- March 2, 2023 (Germany)
158 minutes
- United States
- Germany
English
$25 million[4]
Tár received critical acclaim, especially for Blanchett's performance and Field's screenplay and direction. It became the fourth film in history to be named the best of the year by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, the London Film Critics' Circle as well as the National Society of Film Critics.[8] It was named the year's best film by more critics than any other film released in 2022.[9][10] At the 95th Academy Awards, Tár was nominated for six awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. Blanchett won Best Actress at the BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Critics' Choice Movie Awards and was nominated at the Academy Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
Plot[edit]
Lydia Tár is chief conductor of an orchestra in Berlin.[11] She relies on Francesca, her personal assistant, to handle her schedule. While being interviewed by Adam Gopnik at The New Yorker Festival, Lydia promotes her upcoming live recording of Mahler's Fifth Symphony and book Tár on Tár. She meets with Eliot Kaplan, an investment banker and amateur conductor who co-founded the Accordion Foundation with Lydia to support aspiring female conductors. They discuss technique, replacing Lydia's assistant conductor Sebastian, and filling a vacant cello position in Berlin.
As a guest lecturer, Lydia holds a masterclass at Juilliard. She challenges a student named Max who dismisses composer J. S. Bach as being a white heterosexual man, encouraging students to focus on the music and as opposed to immutable aspects of identity. Lydia anonymously receives a first edition of Vita Sackville-West's 1923 novel Challenge. She tears out the title page, with a damning dedication written in Romani and embellished with a handdrawn kené pattern, then throws it and the book away.
Lydia flies back to Berlin, where she lives with her wife Sharon (who is concertmaster of the orchestra) and their adopted daughter Petra. Before a blind audition for the cello position, Lydia spots a young Russian candidate, Olga Metkina, in the bathroom. Lydia changes her scorecard to ensure Olga a spot in the orchestra and grants her a soloist position in the companion piece, Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto. Lydia's attraction to Olga causes her relationships with Francesca and Sharon to grow strained.
Krista Taylor is a promising young musician who has been blacklisted after getting on the bad side of her former mentor, Lydia. After sending desperate emails to Francesca, Krista kills herself and Krista's parents plan to sue. Lydia instructs Francesca to delete the emails and retain a lawyer. Lydia informs Sebastian of his replacement. Incensed, he indicates the orchestra is aware of her favoritism and that it suggests abusive behavior. Due to Sebastian's accusations, Lydia decides to not promote Francesca to assistant conductor.
Lydia is haunted by an increasing sensitivity to sound, vivid surreal nightmares, daytime hallucinations, chronic pain, and enigmatic patterned scribbles resembling those Krista once made. While jogging in the park, Lydia hears a screaming woman in the distance. While trying to complete a composition "For Petra", she is disturbed by the sound of a medical device next door, where her neighbor is caring for her dying mother. A manipulatively edited cellphone video of Lydia's Juilliard class goes viral and an article accusing her of sexual predation appears in the New York Post. Lydia urgently tries to reach Francesca only to learn that she has not only resigned from her position but is now working with Krista's lawyers on their deposition. Furious, Lydia breaks into Francesca's home only to find that it's completely empty and abandoned minus the proofs to Lydia's book Tár on Tár which Francesca renamed Rat on Rat. Lydia, accompanied by Olga, returns to New York City to attend the deposition in the lawsuit of Krista's parents and to promote her book; they are met by protestors. During the deposition, the plaintiffs ask Lydia about incriminating emails between Lydia and Krista which Francesca provided.
In Berlin, Lydia is removed as conductor due to the controversy. Furious over the allegations and Lydia's lack of communication, Sharon bars her from seeing their daughter. Lydia retreats to her old studio and grows increasingly depressed and deranged. She sneaks into the live recording she was supposed to conduct and tackles her replacement, Eliot. Advised to lie low by her management agency, she returns to her modest childhood home on Staten Island, where certificates of achievement bearing her birth name, Linda Tarr, hang on the wall. She tears up watching an old VHS of Young People's Concerts in which Leonard Bernstein discusses the meaning of music. Her brother Tony arrives and admonishes her for forgetting her roots.
Sometime later, Lydia finds work conducting in the Philippines. Seeking a massage, the hotel concierge sends her to a brothel fronting as a massage parlor; the young women sit in a semicircle with numbers on their robes. Number 5 looks directly at Lydia, and Lydia rushes outside to vomit. She conducts the score for the video game series Monster Hunter in front of an audience of cosplayers.
Release[edit]
Tár had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on September 1, 2022,[27] and had its first North American screening at the 49th Telluride Film Festival on September 3, 2022.[28] It had a limited theatrical release on October 7, 2022, then expanded to wide release on October 28.[29][7]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Tár grossed $6.8 million in the United States and Canada, and $22.4 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $29.2 million.[6][5]
In the United States and Canada, it made $158,620 from four theaters in its opening weekend. The $39,655 per-screen average was the second highest of 2022 for a limited release. In its second weekend the film made $330,030 from 36 theaters. In its third weekend it made $500,035 from 141 theaters, and there was speculation in the trades that Tár was an example that there was still a place for "adult-minded fare".[33][34][35] However, once Tár expanded to 1,087 theaters in its fourth weekend, leaving the limited specialty house run for the multiplex, it made only $1.02 million, finishing 10th.[36] In its second week of wide release, it made $729,605 (marking a drop of 30%).[37]
Some commentators attributed the poor U.S. domestic box office performance to the film's subject matter alienating a general audience,[38] while others noted a larger trend in U.S. domestic art houses, 40% of which had permanently shuttered during the COVID-19 pandemic, struggling to regain their core 40–70 year-old audience, an audience more prone to health concerns and still hesitant to return to the cinema.[39][40] The New York Times argued that the $25 million production budget of the film[41] "plus marketing costs" was not justified, as Tár, and similar highbrow films from established filmmakers like Paul Thomas Anderson's Licorice Pizza, Guillermo del Toro's Nightmare Alley, and Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans, "failed to find an audience big enough to justify their costs".[42] However, Tár performed stronger than expected overseas, taking in 78% of its overall box-office.[43]
Home media[edit]
The film was released for VOD on November 15, 2022, followed by a Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K UHD release on December 20.[44] By March 9, 2023, according to Samba TV, the film had been streamed on Peacock in 458,000 households in the US since the Oscar nomination announcement on January 24. JustWatch also reported it to be, by February 21, the third most-streamed Best Picture nominee in Canada.[45][46]
