It's been a full 16 years since actor-turned-director Todd Field had a film out. The two indie features to his name (2001's In the Bedroom and 2006's Little Children), though lauded in their time, offer little to prepare one for his latest.
Tár is a bravura portrait of a celebrity conductor-composer – the eponymous Lydia Tár, a role custom-built for Cate Blanchett – coming undone, and it has appeared much as a reveille from a swoop of its maestro's conducting wand, cutting the silence suddenly and with unquestionable clarity of purpose. (It features prominently in the Oscar nominations, with six nods, including best actress for Cate Blanchett, and so continues to reverberate throughout awards season.)
What the film's purpose is, however, has been the subject of some debate. Is Tár an attack on 'cancel culture', more or less the force that knocks its namesake from her podium? Or is it an attack on the corrosive effects of institutional power? Is Lydia the villain of the piece, or the victim?
