Best Pictures #86: 2022 (95th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee TÁR

 by A.J.

Best Pictures #86: 2022 (95th) Academy Awards Best Picture Nominee

TÁR

“It is always the question that involves the listener, never the answer.”

Tár is a peculiar and very interesting film until it becomes a strange film for no real reason at all. If it fully committed to becoming a psychological thriller or cerebral drama or even a full blown surreal art film instead of only toying with these elements, then maybe it would be an overall more satisfying experience. As it is, Tár is two-thirds interesting and captivating character study and one third pseudo-cerebral art film that rests entirely on the shoulders of a great performance.

Cate Blanchett stars as Lydia Tár, a most distinguished and accomplished classical music conductor. In addition to being the current conductor of the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, she is also an “EGOT”, winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony award. She enjoys the power and authority her accomplishments and notoriety provide and is in the middle of preparing for an ambitious performance of Mahler’s 5th symphony when her world comes undone. The suicide of a former student and protégé brings accusations that Tár engaged in inappropriate relations with her protégés, and inflicted severe repercussions on those who did not accept her advances. We never see any explicit scenes of Tár sexually exploiting a female musician but we get glimpses at her lascivious side when she finds a way around the blind audition process to hire Olga, a young female cellist she finds attractive, played by real life cellist Sophie Kauer. Soon after, Tár holds a second sham audition to give Olga a solo, meaning they will have to spend more time alone together.

That Lydia Tár's authority and power come from success in the arts opens the film up to being part of the greater conversation and reckoning society is currently having about artists and abusive behavior. Yet writer-director Todd Field withholds any chastising or pontificating. By keeping the focus on Lydia Tár his film is not just about “cancel culture” or the Me Too movement but has sparked many different conversations on its larger themes as well as its cinematic aspects. 

Blanchett’s performance holds the film together even in its odd third act. Lydia Tár is not a pleasant or sympathetic character but she is an interesting character and that is what keeps us engaged. Supposedly Field wrote the part for Blanchett and that is just as well because I doubt it would work with anyone else. No matter the tone of the scene, Blanchett brings the material to its full potential. Her monologues and lectures about composers and music are wonderfully delivered and belie an insecurity just below the surface. Field earned an Oscar nomination for his original screenplay and this in no small part thanks to Blanchett, also Oscar nominated for her performance. 

Perhaps the most skillful thing about Blanchett’s performance, the sign that she truly is a great actress, is that as strong as her performance is, and as overwhelming as her character is, she does not overwhelm the other other performers. Nina Hoss, as Sharon, Tár’s long suffering but loyal partner is great as a counterbalance; her character feels like an average person putting up with things she shouldn’t have to. Noémie Merlant, as Francesca, Tár's long suffering and long taken for granted assistant gives a subtle performance that portrays someone reaching the end of what she can endure. 

Like any number of classical compositions, Tár begins slowly and calmly, then builds gradually, hinting at what is to come, until it finally reaches a pitched climax. The final act of the film certainly packs in more than the first two thirds, but this is also where it falls apart. Throughout the film there are strange occurrences: a metronome in a closed cabinet running on its own in the middle of the night, a book of notes disappearing, Tár hearing the unplaceable screams of a woman in a park. These seem to hint at the potential for the supernatural or, at least, the unreliability of Tár’s perception of reality. The most surreal and uncanny scene of all, even more surreal than the actual dream sequence, happens when Tár follows Olga into an out of place abandoned building. If it were to be revealed that everything after this point is a hallucination or dream, I’d believe it—though I don’t mean to say that this is my theory of the film. After this scene it felt less like I was watching a character study and more like I was watching a soft imitation of David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive or Bergman’s Hour of the Wolf. The movie's most memorable moment is so over the top I wonder if it really happened. Despite its moments of strangeness and mysterious touches, Tár does not present itself as a film set in a questionable reality, yet that is where the movie goes and these elements, instead of creating intrigue, feel like nagging loose strings that draw attention away from Blanchett’s performance.

Nominees: Todd Field, Alexandra Milchan, Scott Lambert, producers

Director: Todd Field

Screenplay: Todd Field

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Noémie Merlant, Nina Hoss, Mark Strong

Production Companies: Standard Film Company, EMJAG Productions

Distributor: Focus Features

Release Date: October 7th, 2022

Total Nominations: 6, including Best Picture

Other Nominations: Actress-Cate Blanchett; Director-Todd Field; Original Screenplay-Todd Field; Cinematography-Florian Hoffmeister; Editing-Monika Willi

Classic Movie Picks: April 2021

by Lani

I used to scour the Turner Classic Movies schedule each month for upcoming films that I couldn’t miss and post the highlights here for your reading and viewing pleasure! It’s been a few...years, but who’s counting? (All listed times are Eastern Standard, check your local listings or TCM.com for actual air times in your area. Each day's schedule begins at 6:00 a.m.; if a film airs between midnight and 6 a.m. it is listed on the previous day's programming schedule.)

After a delayed start, it is finally award season in Hollywood, which means it's time for TCM's "31 Days of Oscar" programming. Each day in April features films which were Academy Award winners or nominees and the films are being shown from A to Z, ending with Best Foreign Language Film winner Z on May 1. Coincidentally this was the gimmick in 2017, which was the last time I blogged about 31 Days of Oscar. By the way, if you don't have cable, you can stream films on the TCM app, but they don't stay available for very long after the air date, or usually find the films to stream or rent through other platforms. Here are my top picks for the month:

4/3, 9:45 PM - Carol (2015) 

I was happy to see that TCM has included several movies from the 2000s in this year’s 31 Days line-up. The canon of classic films is not a fixed list; it should always be re-evaluated and refreshed as new art is made. Carol was nominated for 10 Academy Awards, but notably not Best Picture. Director Todd Haynes combines the lush elegance of a Douglas Sirk melodrama with contemporary storytelling in this romantic drama about a shopgirl and a housewife drawn to each other, but restricted by 1950s conventions. 

4/7, 10:15AM - Gaslight (1944)

“Gaslighting” has become a ubiquitous buzzword in the last few years. But how many people have actually seen the film that gave us that term? Technically, “gaslighting” means when someone lies to you so that you begin to doubt your own sanity and then you can be committed to an asylum and your tormentor can steal your aunt’s jewels. Ingrid Bergman won Best Actress for her performance as a woman driven mad. The film received seven nominations in total, including Best Picture, which it lost to Going My Way. Keep an eye out for a young Angela Lansbury in her first film role as Bergman’s maid, she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination.

4/10, 3PM - Hope and Glory (1987)

The title may sound generic, but this charming and warm story of British civilian life during WWII will stick with you. Told through the eyes of a young boy, the film is based on writer-director John Boorman’s own experiences during the London blitz. The film received five Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, but did not win any awards; in fact it lost in almost every category to that year’s big winner, The Last Emperor. 

4/18, 8PM - Nebraska (2013)

Omaha-born Alexander Payne is one of my favorite contemporary filmmakers. His films - including Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways - depict familiar, everyday people with biting dark humor. Nebraska is no exception as the story of a cantankerous elderly man and his adult son on a road trip to collect sweepstakes winnings. While several of Payne’s films have earned Oscar nominations, 2013’s Nebraska received the most with six. Surprisingly, it did not win in any category, though lead actor Bruce Dern and Phedon Papamichael’s black and white cinematography were certainly top contenders that year. 

4/23, 10:30PM - The Red Shoes (1948)

This film about a dancer torn between a devotion to her art and a desire for a conventional life was the 10th collaboration of the celebrated filmmaking team of director Michael Powell and producer Emeric Pressburger. It was nominated in Best picture and four additional categories, winning much-deserved awards for the art direction and the score. It is visually dazzling, particularly the ballet sequences starring real-life ballerina Moira Shearer. Anton Walbrook, a favorite character actor for Powell & Pressburger is also particularly good as Lermontov, the impresario who gives Shearer’s character her big break. 

4/28, 1:15AM - The Third Man (1949)

If you’ve never seen this one, set the DVR, get the app, whatever you need to do - just watch it. This atmospheric post-WWII noir follows an American investigating a friend’s suspicious death in Vienna. Though Orson Welles gets all the memorable lines, this is really a Joseph Cotten film. Cotten came to Hollywood with Welles as a member of Welles’ Mercury Theatre Company and after a large supporting role in 1941’s Citizen Kane, Cotten transitioned into a successful, decades-long movie career (including a role 1944’s Gaslight). The film received nominations for direction and editing, but the striking cinematography garnered the film’s only win.