It has been a long time since a film, a real auteur film, had so fascinated the public, that a fictional character had not aroused so much enthusiasm and comments. Some offer their interpretative delirium on the meaning of the ending, others rebel against the misogyny of the portrait that is made of Lydia Tár, brilliant conductor whom the film that bears her name picks at the peak of her career. Note that this is in no way a biopic: Tár is simply a character powerful enough to make you want to go read his Wikipedia page once the screening is over.
If it has this thickness, it is because its creator, Todd Field, has been ruminating on this character for ten years. Actor, director, he worked a lot for advertising before managing to produce this tailor-made project for Cate Blanchett. It must be said here how much actress and character are one, how Cate Blanchett, actress with absolute technique, flourishes in this role which is her best: the sharpness of her acting, her deep voice and her hypnotizing phrasing, formulating in themselves a great show – she is the metronome of all the scenes.
It is also on images that have program value that the film opens: an army of little hands is busy making a custom-made costume for the great Lydia Tár. An opening in the form of preparations for the actress who, for two hours thirty-eight, will play this monster of intelligence, talent and self-control. The world is a large hushed theater with muted colors, without limits or obstacles. A world for Lydia Tár.
Tiny breaches
After having her heroine’s ego measured (master class, updating her Wikipedia page, swooning fans, etc.), Field pierces it with tiny holes: a course at the Juilliard School confronts her with a student who, bluntly, claims not to be interested in this great misogynist of Bach. For Tár, it will be the occasion for a staggering clarification, all in witticisms and murderous retorts: “The architects of your soul seem to be social networks. Field walks a tightrope while managing to be untraceable. It is not him who belches against the woke culture, but his heroine. The student leaves the room, before blurting out, “You’re a real bitch. »
Todd Field observes the world from the gaze of an artist confined in her megalomaniac bubble, swollen with a feeling of impunity: apart from her narcissism, everything is struck with unreality. Starting with the violence it dispenses, filmed as something impalpable, dematerialized.
Lydia Tár is a conceptual character sculpted in our image: the world is no longer this weave that we all share, but a kind of persistent tinnitus in which our dear heroine will eventually dissolve.
