Tár London film premiere 2023

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1. Cate Blanchett had to re-learn the piano, learned how to speak German, and learned how to conduct an orchestra for the film.
2. Professional cellist Sophie Kauer had no prior acting experience and auditioned at the encouragement of a friend. She learned to act by watching YouTube tutorials hosted by Michael Caine.
3. Throughout the film, Lydia is stalked by the "ghost" of Krista and other possible women. They can be seen directly at least twice: first in the background kitchen when Lydia enters her apartment, and then at night sitting in the corner of the room as Lydia gets up from her bed to comfort her daughter. Her insomnia from random noises inside her house, the scream heard in the park while she is jogging and the dog in Olga's building are all likely hallucinations due to her guilt, as a black dog is often a symbol of grief or sadness.
4. Todd Field wrote the film specifically for Cate Blanchett and would not have made the film without her. They had previously planned to work on a different film, but Field could not acquire financing for it.
5. The screams Lydia hears when jogging in the woods are the audio of Heather Donahue from the climax of The Blair Witch Project (1999).
6. The entire scene of Lydia teaching students at Juilliard is filmed in one unbroken take.
7. According to Todd Field, Lydia Tár never met Leonard Bernstein, whom she claims as a mentor - the closest she got to him was through the VHS tapes we see in the house she grew up in. With his own words, "He was a genuine figure in her childhood imagination, a very real person for her in a non-cynical way, in a non-opportunistic way. And maybe it's just something she tried on. That's how lies happen."
8. The film begins in a mono sound mix and gradually adds more tracks as it goes on.
9. In Michael Schulman's January 14, 2023, New Yorker interview of Todd Field, Field clarified that viewers are supposed to understand that Lydia Tár lied about ever having studied with Leonard Bernstein, saying that she almost certainly would have been too young. In response, Bernstein's three children, Jamie, Alexander, and Nina Bernstein, wrote a tongue-in-cheek letter to the editor facetiously "clarifying" that Bernstein was indeed one of Tár's mentors: "As representatives of Bernstein's estate, and in the spirit of the ongoing hubbub over the film, we can assure Field that his heroine was a teen-age prodigy whose talents were so formidable that she was granted special permission to be one of Bernstein's conducting students at Tanglewood in the summer of 1990, during the final year of Bernstein's life. His impact on her artistry is indelible, down to her churning 'washing machine' movements, an intriguing adaptation of Bernstein's legendary podium style."
10. When Lydia's tour guide tells her that she cannot swim in the river due to the presence of crocodiles, he mentions that "a Marlon Brando movie" brought them to the location and that they have been there ever since. He is referring to The Island of Dr. Moreau (1996), which was shot in the Philippines.
11. When Mahler's 5th Symphony is introduced in the film, it is heralded in by a sudden cut to a loud burst of music. When Lydia attacks Eliot Kaplan at the concert toward the end of the film during a performance of Mahler's 5th, the attack occurs during the same chord, making it the first and last chord played by the orchestra in the film.
12. In September 2020, Todd Field was driving while on the phone with Cate Blanchett's agent, Hylda Queally and was delivered the devastating news that her client was booked for the next three years and wouldn't be able to star in his movie. And then Field crashed his car. According to Field, because Queally felt sad for him crashing his car, she agreed that if Field wasn't in too bad a physical condition, she could get home and send Blanchett the script, and she would read it. The rattling sound that can be heard in Tár's Porsche as she drives was recorded from Field's own car, never fixed properly after the accident.
13. To bring Tár's cultured, counterfeit speaking voice into being, Cate Blanchett listened to recordings of Susan Sontag, whom she calls "a really razor-sharp, absolutely authentic public intellectual."
14. Close to the start of the movie, Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) is interviewed by Adam Gopnik, a real New Yorker reporter, in a scene that is supposed to be taking place at the magazine's real, annual New Yorker Festival. Adam Gopnik also interviewed Cate Blanchett during her press rounds promoting the movie Tár; the resulting piece, "Cate Blanchett Plays Herself," was published in the New Yorker on February 14, 2023.
15. The film is very particular about Tár's world, down to its most rarefied details: Her book is being published by the Nan A. Talese imprint at Doubleday; her bespoke suits are tailored by Egon Brandstetter, playing himself; the person interviewing her at The New Yorker Festival is the actual writer Adam Gopnik; we hear her being interviewed by Alec Baldwin on his podcast, Here's the Thing with Alec Baldwin (2011).
16. On the flight to Berlin, Lydia opens a gift that Krista sent before committing suicide, which is the novel "Challenge" by Vita Sackville-West. The novel is based on the author's real-life romance with Violet Trefusis in the 1900s. Trefusis often threatened to kill herself if Sackville-West would ever leave her. The novel starts even with a dedication page from the author in Romany, which translates to "This book is yours, my witch. Read it and you will find your tormented soul, changed, and free." Sackville-West also flipped her gender and often depicted herself as a man.
17. Cate Blanchett was prepared for the role of Lydia Tár by Hungarian pianist, professor at the Hungarian Academy of Music, Emese Virág.
18. Focus Features told Todd Field that they would produce any film that he wanted as long as it was at a certain budget.
19. When Lydia is in the Filipino massage parlor near the end, the women are all arranged like Lydia's orchestra alignment. The girl she is interested in and who eyes her back (prompting Lydia to get sick) is sitting in the same relative position as Olga was, and is also wearing number 5, referring to Mahler's Fifth Symphony.
20. The odd pattern that has been scribbled on a page in the book that Lydia receives from Krista (which she subsequently rips out) re-appears a couple of times: on the metronome cover, recreated in clay by Lydia's daughter, on Krista's face in the dream. It comes from the Shipibo Indians, where Lydia and Krista once lived for a while, and resembles the texture of a snake skin. Snakes are sacred creatures within Shipibo culture, representing entities that have a cleansing and purifying function; note that when Lydia dreams of lying in bed in the rain forest, a snake swims towards her, and she starts to catch fire, which could be signs that she is trying to come to terms with her sins.
21. The scene at the cafe (at around 53 mins) between Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) and her friend Andris Davis (Julian Glover) is shot while the actors are sitting right in front of an actual picture of Julian Glover signed by him in the past.
22. Todd Field wrote the script during a 12-week sprint in the lock-down stage of early COVID.
23. Noémie Merlant said in an interview before the film was released that Cate Blanchett is the actor who inspires her most. She said, "She's always been a key reference for me. I like to re-watch my favorite scenes of hers, sometimes right before I shoot a scene myself; not to copy her, just because it gives me energy." She added that working with Blanchett in this film was "mind-blowing."
24. According to Cate Blanchett, "Tár speaks to a moment in a woman's life when she is moving inexorably, as we all are, towards death, and we try to outrun that very thing -we try to outrun the unpalatable sides of ourselves. We try to hide."
25. During a conversation with Lydia about whether one can separate the artistry of conductors from their misconduct, Andris Davis (Julian Glover) mentions several real conductors: James Levine, Charles Dutoit and Wilhelm Furtwängler. In 2017, Dutoit was accused of multiple sexual assaults over the previous several decades; he resigned from his post as artistic director and principal conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2018, the Metropolitan Opera announced that James Levine, their principal conductor since 1972, had been fired in the wake of multiple sexual assault allegations and investigations. Wilhelm Furtwängler was principal conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic between 1922 and 1945; though he made certain symbolic nods toward independence from Nazism, he was nonetheless the most prominent conductor to stay in Germany throughout the Nazi regime and was known as Hitler's favorite conductor.
26. When this movie was released, some reviewers noted that many of the details of Lydia Tár's biography match those of the real-life conductor Marin Alsop: both are pioneering female conductors in a profession in which they are nearly the only women; both are out lesbians also partnered with another musician; both were professionally mentored by Leonard Bernstein (or in Tár's case, she at least claims she was). Tár briefly mentions Alsop in a line of dialogue during the New Yorker Festival interview scene. But Alsop was not consulted, and in a January 2023 interview with the (London) Times she expressed her strong dislike of the movie: "So many superficial aspects of 'Tár' seemed to align with my own personal life. But once I saw it I was no longer concerned, I was offended: I was offended as a woman, I was offended as a conductor, I was offended as a lesbian. To have an opportunity to portray a woman in that role and to make her an abuser, for me, that was heartbreaking. I think all women and all feminists should be bothered by that kind of depiction. There are so many men, actual documented men, this film could have been based on, but instead, it puts a woman in that role but gives her all the attributes of those men. That feels anti-woman. To assume that women will either behave identically to men or become hysterical, crazy, insane is to perpetuate something we've already seen on film so many times before." While interviewing Cate Blanchett and Todd Field on the NPR program Fresh Air (1975), Terry Gross read Alsop's statement aloud and asked Field for his reaction to it, and his response was: "It's an incredible statement, and I appreciate it. I think that it's a really important conversation to have. It's part of why we made the film. And people--some people were bound to be offended. I mean, in terms of Marin Alsop, she's a storied trailblazer. She is--you know, she was a first of a very, very still tiny subset of female conductors. You know, as she says, any relationship to her is superficial. I mean, I'm in the masquerade business, so I'm not - I wasn't interested in making a, you know, public service announcement about the evils of, you know, bad conductors or people abusing power in the classical music sphere. This is a --this is about a character, and it's about the corrupting force of nature. And, you know, unfortunately, I firmly believe that whoever holds power, it's going to corrupt them. I mean, that's just an unfortunate fact. We're part animal. You know, sometimes the animal takes over our better angels. So we've spoken to many female conductors at the top of their game that love the film. And they love the film because of the conversations that it inspires. And yeah, I don't know what to say. I --you know, I could pick apart what she said, but that's hardly the point. And it's really not my place to do that."
27. Back at her home in Staten Island, Tár watches a tape of her mentor Leonard Bernstein's first episode of Young People's Concerts, "What Does Music Mean?"
28. The opening scene with Lydia being filmed asleep by Francesca who is having a live text message conversation actually summarizes the film's main plot, and foreshadows its major theme: the sender asks "Our girl's an early riser isn't she?" and Francesca replies "Haunted." Sender asks "Ha you mean she has a conscience?" and Francesca responds "Maybe." The film shows us how Lydia gets confronted with the questionable things she may have done, and explores the ways in which they affect her, but remains ambiguous about whether she is able to embrace her past or not.
29. In a 2022 interview with GoldDerby, Todd Field gave an example of what it was like to return to feature filmmaking after a 16-year absence: "The very first scene we shot was a post-rehearsal scene... at the Dresden Philharmonie that's supposed to be after the very first rehearsal that we see of the Mahler. It was the three of them, it was Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss and Noémie Merlant, and I remember that first take, and it just, it took my breath away because that's a part of filmmaking... It's the magical part of filmmaking. It's beyond the camera, it's beyond the lighting, it's beyond your lens choice, it's beyond all of - art direction, everything else. It's human beings in front of a camera that can do MAGICAL things. And that part of it felt like a long overdue homecoming."
30. When Tár and the orchestra are rehearsing the Adagietto movement of Mahler's Symphony No. 5 (at about 1:15) she tells them (in German) to forget Visconti, and the musicians chuckle. She says, "So familiar to everyone here. It really doesn't help you to know this piece so well." She is referring to the movie Death in Venice (1971) directed by Luchino Visconti, which famously used and popularized the Adagietto.
31. While at her childhood home, Lydia Tár's real name is revealed as Linda Tarr.
32. Todd Field's first film since Little Children (2006).
33. This is the third time actress Nina Hoss has portrayed a violinist, after Schwestern (2004) and The Audition (2019). On all three occasions, she practiced with instrument coach Marie Kogge.
34. Leonard Bernstein died in 1990, five days after retiring. While Lydia Tar's age is never revealed, if it's close to Cate Blanchett's 53 years, she would have been in her late teens or early twenties during this time. It's a clue they'd never actually met that director Field has confirmed in interviews.
35. Some characters share their names with the movie's crew members. Francesca Lentini is the New York City unit line producer. Sebastian Brix is the name of both the assistant conductor and the first assistant director Sebastian Fahr-Brix.
36. The teaser trailer includes many scenes not included in the final film. Notably, it has a shot showing Krista (played by Sylvia Flote) with a maze-like pattern on her face.
37. Twenty three years before this film, Todd Field and Cate Blanchett were both involved in the 1999 Kubrick movie Eyes Wide Shut (1999). Field played Nick Nightingale, and Blanchett had an uncredited voice role as one of the masked women. However, Field has stated in an interview that they didn't meet until years later.
38. Cate Blanchett came up with the idea of having an accent mark in the title after seeing the Hungarian word for pharmacy ("gyógyszertár") while filming in Budapest.
39. In one scene, we hear Lydia being interviewed by Alec Baldwin as part of his real-life podcast 'Here's the Thing.' Baldwin co-starred in both films for which Cate Blanchett won an Oscar for her acting: The Aviator (2004) and Blue Jasmine (2013).
40. In a callback to Lydia dressing down the student at Juilliard, of all the music she conducts, the last piece is the only piece written by people of color. It's a theme from the video game Monster Hunter credited to Akihiko Narita, Zhenlan Kang, Yuko Komiyama, and Tadayoshi Makino. The dressed-up people in the audience are all cos-players.
41. For her Mahler cover photo, Tár mimics the cover of Claudio Abbado's recording of the same piece.
42. At the 95th Academy Awards, Tár (2022) received six nominations: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Field, Best Actress for Blanchett, as well as Best Cinematography and Best Editing. Cate Blanchett won the Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the 79th Venice International Film Festival in September 2022.
43. The scenes between Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) and her friend Andris Davis (Julian Glover) unite the villains of the previous two Indiana Jones movies: Glover played Walter Donovan in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), while Blanchett played Irina Spalko in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).
44. When Lydia Tár is being shown examples of possible photographic styles for her album cover, at 1 hour 33 minutes into the film, the first photograph shown is that of Russian-American pianist Lola Astanova.
45. Reunites Cate Blanchett with Mark Strong after Robin Hood (2010).
46. The film was released for VOD on November 15, 2022, and on Blu-ray, DVD and 4K UHD on December 20, 2022, by Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

Genre

Drama,Music

Cast

as Lydia Tár

as Francesca Lentini

as Sharon Goodnow

as Olga Metkina

as Krista Taylor

as Whitney Reese

as Eliot Kaplan

as Max

as Alec Baldwin

as Jessica Hansen