Tár: A Problematic Artist’s Monologue

Preview:

After a 16-year break, Todd Fields made a film about Lydia Tar (played by Kate Blanchett), a troubled genius star artist in the 21st century who dramatically destroyed herself in a series of controversial events before reaching the highest achievement of her career. While Fields deliberately avoids taking a clear stance, he exposes vivid moments of Tar’s issues and leaves it to the audience to judge for themselves.

What’s Wrong with Lydia Tar?

The opening scene of the film is a montage of Tar's work and life, followed by an off-screen sound from Adam Gopnik, a famous columnist for The New Yorker (he’s actually playing himself haha), introducing Tar. Before it cuts to the interview and Gopnik poses questions to Tar. We can learn that Tar is the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, well-known and has won numerous awards, achieving a rare EGOT grand slam. Everything we know in the beginning tells us that Tar is a successful person and lives a pretty decent life. Why is everything so great about Tar? Because this is not some kind of inspirational film, and there goes Tar’s downfall.

If the film were a thorough depiction of Tar’s dramatic downfall, I wouldn’t enjoy it so much. Under Gopnik’s lens, the story is fascinating in a way that is puzzling, which perfectly displayed the controversial perspective of a renowned artist. Gopnik merely told the story in Tar’s perspective, which led the audience to only know what Tar knew, questioning why other people treated Tar that way while oddly empathizing with Tar as if she should not deserve it. See, that’s exactly the problem of authority; anyone who gets involved down there is suffering, but the people on the top care about their own business, and other people aside can only see what’s happening on top. It’s too crowded down here, and everybody wants to climb up. Gopnik doesn’t judge Tar’s behaviour; he simply shows. We see a young conductor who was once Tar’s friend madly email to Tar and plead for her reply. We see Tar having nightmares and being sensitive to sounds, but we don’t see how Tar pushes the young conductor to suicide until their emails are finally revealed after the young conductor’s death.

Say, what could another director have done differently? For instance, what if the protagonist were white, straight, or male? Would that do any better? When Tar was challenged by a student that who was not interested in Bach because of Bach’s identity, Tar responded with an excellent performance of Bach and claimed that music had nothing to do with the musician’s identity. The question is, however, if we talk about music without identity, it might sound fair as there might be only one way to interpret it.

By presenting Tar’s controversial method of reading music, Gopnik points out that the corruption of power under the patriarchy is not necessarily related to gender, but the fact that the definition of success is controlled by a unitary system is problematic. This phenomenon is particularly prominent in the sacred and solemn music hall since this is where you would appreciate the symphony of humanity, which can also be a satire.

Deluded in the Name of Enthusiastic

The thing is, we never see a private moment where Tar confesses herself. She always believed that she was right about her life decision, as she does not hesitate in her sense of music. She felt that she was called by a great power, and she was devoted to it, so no matter what she did, she could excuse herself from her mistakes. She never thought she could be treading on others’ feelings, but only took them as stepping stones to success.

There is a scene about Tar's study floor, covered with her collection of master vinyl records. She flicks them with her toes, barefoot, as if she is standing on the shoulders of these giants. She doesn’t take her behaviour as disrespectful; instead, she thinks she is the one who makes music respectful.

The image of Tar was more like a predator, as her interactions with others are always goal-oriented and ambitious. She knew how the ladder of music achievement was composed and how it gave her power. She could manipulate the rules to play superficial fairness. Therefore, she could ignore the interests of the team and set up an unnecessary audition to promote the young violinist Olga or hold a vote with a firm result to expel Sebastian, who only gave her a different opinion.

Not only Olga, but Tar's interactions with other young women are more or less ambiguous. Even her assistant Francesca, who was inadvertently teased by Tar in the car, makes people wonder if there is a secret past between them.

In the final scene of the film, when Tar enters a massage parlour and faces a room full of young female technicians kneeling in three layers around her, it was as if she bumped into an orchestra where she didn’t belong. Standing in front of this analogous and overwhelming scenario, Tar realized that she was always an intruder, and she felt sick for it, so she rushed out of the massage parlour and vomited on the street.

So, Should We Take an Artist’s Morality into Account?

Tar insisted that we should appreciate music without considering the artist’s past, and the way how artists produce music has nothing to do with their personal life. Is that true? We never know. We do sometimes attempt to connect an artist’s work with what they have suffered or experienced, but there are cases in which the artist is simply a happy person with a happy life. We may or may not like an artist’s life, so we may or may not listen to them. We don’t have to push it, no hard feelings.

The thing is, humanity is a kaleidoscope; we cannot tell what’s in there through one single look, and we should not require others to use it the same way as we did because that will only ruin it. I think the real question is, should there be only one sacred way to interpret art? The answer is definitely no from what we have learned from Tar. Art can be solemn, but it can also be casual. After all, it is something to free the spirit of a human, not to ground it.