On the red carpet at the UK premiere of Tár last month, cellist and actor Sophie Kauer, 22, who plays Olga in the film, gushed over Blanchett's performance in the film, describing the actress' particular knack for conducting. “[Cate] produces a sound that some conductors don't come close to,” Kauer told Classic FM.
Even though Lydia's fall from grace in Tár seems real, the movie is not based on a real orchestra conductor's life. However, it is easy to be tricked by Tár's marketing and demeanor that ingeniously sell it as a biopic of this fictional character.
Murray Beale, the hidden force behind the powerful performance, supervised the orchestral scenes after guiding Blanchett during rehearsals. “Cate can conduct now, if she wants,” Murray Beale told the Observer. “She is very musical, sings beautifully and now she has the tools to conduct.
Murray Beale is credited in Tár as the music consultant, conducting supervisor and coach to Blanchett. She also conducted the London Symphony Orchestra for the Tár concept album, featuring 21-year-old British-German cellist Sophie Kauer (a cellist in real life who auditioned for the film when she was still a student).
And while Cate Blanchett's conducting looks realistic overall, there are a few moments — like when she grips the baton and swings it like a baseball bat — that make symphony subscribers cringe.
After one student named Krista tried to leave, Lydia blacklisted her from the industry, causing Krista to take her own life. The repeated pattern of grooming makes Lydia Tár a villain, with the film showing her finally being held accountable for her actions.
Others have accused “TÁR” of being racist, based on the controversial Juilliard scene (in which Lydia upbraids a student because he says he rejects Bach for “misogyny”) and the ending (in which Lydia is exiled to an Asian outpost to conduct video game scores).
If you haven't seen the Academy Award film Tár — or even if you have — you might have been convinced Oscar nominee Cate Blanchett was portraying Lydia Tár, a real-life legendarily headstrong composer.
"My skin routine is also about what I put into my body. I'm not religious about it, but I've always drunk lemon juice in the morning and I take a collagen supplement – at the moment I like Totally Derma. I'm careful about what I eat, and what I feed my children.
In a key scene, Tár goes to a massage parlor that's a front for a brothel. As a White woman, she's so appalled by the degradation of Asian women, she runs onto the filthy street and vomits on-camera. As her final humiliation, Tár must conduct an orchestra in a rundown, surrealist venue.
She did a deep dive.” Blanchett also learned German, took piano lessons, studied online masterclasses by the great Soviet conductor Ilya Mussin, and sought out as many performances of Mahler's Fifth as she could. “I can't tell you how many conductors I watched,” she says now, “and they were all so idiosyncratic!
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, accompanied by Olga, returns to New York City to attend a deposition in the lawsuit of Krista's parents and to promote her book; they are met by protestors.
The first clear shot of Lydia shows her backstage and chugging pills (later revealed to be her wife's beta blockers), a motif that continues throughout the film.
Who did Lydia Tar sleep with? As she puts together an ensemble for her next performance, details emerge from Lydia's past that reveal that she was once in a sexual relationship with a member of her staff, Krista Taylor (Sylvia Flote).
She might have seemed innocent to Lydia earlier, but Olga clearly knows more about the conductor's reputation than she lets on. She was probably texting Francesca (Noémie Merlant), Lydia's former assistant who suddenly leaves after not getting a conducting job in Berlin.
Critics are taking Todd Field's film at face value, but the final act suggests that nothing is as it seems. Lots of writers and critics disagree about Tár, Todd Field's film starring Cate Blanchett as an art monster and orchestral conductor whose past catches up with her.
While dropping off Petra at school, Lydia confronts the bully – a prissy-looking girl by the name of Johanna – and puts the fear of God in her (literally). She tells Johanna that she'll “get” her if she ever bullies Petra again, and that if she tries to report Lydia's threats to anyone, they won't believe her.
But the truth is the other way around. It is Lydia who is acting. Her peculiar ticks are one part subtle evidence of an OCD diagnosis that is routinely hinted at but never referred to and one part affectations to become a person that she simply is not.
Tár's life begins to deteriorate. She fires her assistant conductor, Sebastian, and plans to replace him with Francesca, until Sebastian accuses Tár of sleeping with her assistant and granting favors to young, beautiful women. As a result, Tár finds a different replacement, which drives Francesca to quit.
Tár tackles "cancel culture" and #MeToo from a perspective we don't often see. After all, the movement is what triggers Lydia's downfall, and she's our protagonist. The subject looms over the entire film, leading to several hot-button scenes and talking points.
Lydia lives with Sharon (Nina Hoss), the Philharmonic's first violinist, and their young daughter, Petra (Mila Bogojevic). The couple's intimacy is edged with wariness and unspoken resentment. Sharon looks perpetually tired. Their child is being bullied in school.
