Todd Field didn’t write “TÁR” with Cate Blanchett in mind. He wrote it for Cate Blanchett only. If she didn’t want to do it, it wouldn’t exist.
The film, which had its world premiere Thursday night in competition at the Venice International Film Festival, looks at an extraordinary artist at the peak of her career. The fictional Lydia Tár is a celebrated composer, musician, philanthropist and conductor, and the first ever woman to preside over an important German orchestra, who we meet as she’s preparing to debut her autobiography “Tár on Tár” and complete the Mahler cycle with the orchestra.
“It’s a very rare and special moment when Todd leaves the house and makes another movie,” Blanchett said before the premiere.
“TÁR” is one of the most anticipated films of a festival full of major filmmakers. It’s Field’s first film in over 15 years and features what is already being hailed as a bravura performance from one of cinema’s most celebrated actors.
It’s also a film that has been a bit secretive — there is no real easy logline to describe “TÁR” or even tease what happens, but it’s one that reveals itself to you as you go along. Blanchett described it as a process movie about someone who is estranged from herself.
“She’s haunted by something, by her past, by herself, by past deeds,” Blanchett said. “You experience someone who has put her past in a box and who through her immense talent has tried to reinvent herself and be saved and changed and transmogrified by the music.”
And there’s not even one definitive reading, at least according to Field.
“I see a different film every time I watch it and I’ve watched it many times,” he said.
But, in his words, Lydia has external forces going on which we have limited knowledge about what they are or what they mean. Then something happens and everything changes.
“It’s a very long journey in a very short period of time for her,” said Field.
“TÁR” is competing for the festival’s Golden Lion award, to be given out on Sept. 10 by a jury led by Julianne Moore. And it’s expected to be a major contender come Oscar season. Focus Features is releasing the film in theaters in North America on Oct. 7.
And for Field, it is “Cate’s film.”
“She is a master supreme,” he wrote in his director’s statement. “Even so, while we were making the picture, the superhuman-skill and verisimilitude of Cate was something truly astounding to behold. She raised all boats. The privilege of collaborating with an artist of this caliber is something impossible to adequately describe.”
