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| Cate Blanchett on the Red Carpet for Tàr Photo courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia ASAC - Giorgio Zuchiatti |
(Venice, Italy) One of my fantasy careers has always been to be the conductor of a symphony orchestra, so I was looking forward to Tàr, despite its two hour and 38 minute running time at the end of a very long day. But I didn't expect to see a genuine masterpiece. It has been 16 years since director Todd Field brought a film to the screen, and it was well worth the wait. Even though I was exhausted, I was riveted by the story that Field had written specifically for Cate Blanchett, whose performance was the work of genius.
That Tàr is produced by Focus Features is an added bonus. Focus Features has a special place in my heart — I was one of a handful of American expat bloggers they asked to recommend five favorite films set in Italy as part of the publicity they did back in 2010 for the release of The American starring George Clooney.
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| The Adriatic Sea from the top of the Palazzo del Cinema terrace - Photo: Cat Bauer |
The Venice Film Festival got off to a rocky start. The new system to make reservations for screenings kept crashing -- starting at 7AM Central European Time on a Sunday morning(!). It took hours to crack into the system (“your wait is more than an hour”). If you were lucky enough to finally get in, and arrive at the moment when you could finally book your seat, the system would freeze and then spit you back out, forcing you to endure the entire process again, watching helplessly as a tiny cyber figure walked determinedly across the scene as the minutes ticked by. Journalists from all over the world in different time zones were trapped for hours in a seat reservation nightmare, forcing us to change our Sunday plans.
La Biennale apologized and finally fixed the system, which seemed to run relatively smoothly the rest of the week. Making reservations online is better than The Time Before The Pandemic, when we had to physically wait in a queue. But if you wanted to get a seat to the most desirable films that started at 8:30AM, you had to reserve as soon as the system became available -- which was bumped up even earlier, to 6:45AM. If you had to get up that early to reserve, and be over to the Lido by 8:15, you were not overly enthusiastic about watching a late-night movie.
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| Tàr film delegation photo call Photo courtesy of La Biennale di Venezia ASAC - Giorgio Zuchiatti |
All that said, on opening day, I had had less than five hours sleep, but instead of nodding off during Tàr, I was so compelled by the film, I came out of the theater later that evening feeling exhilarated.
There is an early scene in Tàr when Lydia is teaching at Julliard that crackles with electricity and controversy — it is beautifully constructed and sets the standard for the entire film. Todd Field later said in an interview that it took him three and a half months to write just that one scene and another three and a half months to work on it together with Cate Blanchett. That depth of dedication and effort radiates from the screen and is astonishing to watch.
The review I agree with the most was written by Owen Gleiberman of Variety. I had the good fortune to chat with Owen years ago when we happened to stand next to each other while waiting to enter a screening — back when we did have to physically queue to see a film — and he’s the real deal. (Even though reserving online may be more convenient, it does remove the simple pleasure of human communication while physically waiting on line.) An excerpt from Variety:
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| Focus Features |
Tár’ Review: Cate Blanchett Acts With Ferocious Force in Todd Field’s Masterful Drama About a Celebrity Conductor
The actor creates a study in power, passion, and entitlement in a movie so real it's immersive.
… But “Tár,” the first film he has made in 16 years, takes Todd Field to a new level. The movie is breathtaking — in its drama, its high-crafted innovation, its vision. It’s a ruthless but intimate tale of art, lust, obsession, and power. It’s set in the contemporary classical-music world, and if that sounds a bit high-toned (it is, in a good way), the movie leads us through that world in a manner that’s so rigorously precise and authentic and detailed that it generates the immersion of a thriller. The characters in “Tár” feel as real as life. (They’re acted to richly drawn perfection down to the smallest role.) You believe, at every moment, in the reality you’re seeing, and it’s extraordinary how that raises the stakes.
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| Venice Film Festival - Photo: Cat Bauer |
As we approach the end of the 79th Venice International Film Festival, no other film I saw matched the excellence of Tàr, though I really enjoyed The Banshees of Inisherin, a black comedy set on an imaginary island off the Irish coast, written and directed by the celebrated playwright Martin McDonagh, whose Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri in 2017 was critically acclaimed and won a bunch of awards. After having been married to a first-generation Irishman, I loved that trademark Irish dark humor. Judging by the laughter at the screening, so did the rest of the press and industry audience. It has a limited release date in the United Kingdom of October 21. Hopefully the film will eventually show up on a streaming service so that folks in the States can watch it.
Tàr, on the other hand, will be theatrically released in the U.S. on October 7, 2022. I strongly recommend that you invest in a night out and go to the movies to watch it in the company of other human beings. The readers of this blog will appreciate the cultured world it is set in and find comfort knowing that Todd Field has come out of his house to make a forceful movie with so many layers. As the planet grows ever more cyber and divided, the ritual of sharing an emotional experience with fellow human beings grows ever more precious.
Cat Bauer
I was riveted by the story that Field had written specifically for Cate Blanchett, whose performance was the work of genius.
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