By the end of TÁR, Cate Blanchett has delivered a monstrous performance and the fictional conductor she plays, Lydia Tár, finds herself at the very opposite of where her story begins. Like Icarus after flying too close to the sun, her fall from grace is as poetic as it is sad and appropriate. The once great is now relegated to the very spaces she used to look down upon with disdain, from the bright lights of Berlin and New York, to small theaters in South East Asia. How did this happen?
TÁR follows one of the world’s most renowned classical music conductors as she prepares to record Mahler’s 5th Symphony with the Berlin Philharmonic. As the film develops, director Todd Field slowly unwraps Lydia’s complicated psychology and behavior through various episodes. These include embarrassing a student at Juilliard for his lack of interest in classical composers due to identity politics, Lydia’s inability to sleep, and her growing paranoia. Most notably, the film depicts her strained relationship with her assistant Francesca and wife Sharon in favor of the orchestra’s new cellist Olga (before a blind audition, Lydia sees her in the bathroom and changes the scorecard to elect her as the new cellist of the Philharmonic).
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After her former student takes her own life and leaves a note with very serious allegations against Lydia, she instructs Francesca to delete all emails. Francesca, visibly affected, does not comply with Lydia’s orders, which leads to her not filling the assistant conductor vacancy. She subsequently leaks all the emails, leaving Lydia to face the scrutiny of the world as her history of abuse is now revealed.
How Does TÁR End?
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After Lydia’s abuse of power comes to light, her life tumbles down. Having groomed, abused, and left deeply scarred former proteges from her fellowship, she is stripped from her place conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, custody from her adopted daughter taken away, and to top it all, she attacks her former friend Eliot, who has been hired to conduct the Philharmonic. Being advised to lie low by her management agency, Lydia goes back to her lower-middle class home in Staten Island (where it’s revealed her real name is Linda Tarr) before relocating some time later to an undisclosed location in South East Asia.
Here she has found a job, even after her widely known cancelation; Lydia Tár is still conducting, only now it’s a small orchestra five thousand miles away from the world she used to know. The images are a shocking contrast as the spaces she frequents in the final minutes of the film are vastly different to the luxurious ones she had grown accustomed. Low-lit hotel corridors, riding through densely populated narrow streets, and finding that no matter what, she can’t escape her way of being.
Lydia asks the concierge at the hotel she is staying for a massage parlor recommendation, which leads her to one which is also a brothel. As she finds herself soliciting for sexual favors, and being stared at by one masseuse, she rushes outside to vomit. It’s unclear what happened between these two moments — is Lydia a changed person at all or is she still the same? Maybe somewhere in between.
The final scene can be confusing to people who are unfamiliar with video games, as Lydia is now entering a theater full of cosplayers, ready to conduct with her new orchestra the score to Monster Hunter, as a screen shows the game. Despite this new environment, Lydia Tár is still showing the same expressions as she did when she was on the world’s spotlight: dead serious and committed to her craft.
What Does TÁR Mean?
Various dream sequences in the film allude to Lydia being a sexual predator. Her growing paranoia, constant back pain, and her clear attraction and bias towards Olga are hints as to what will come. It’s no surprise, then, when it’s all uncovered, but there are more details to it than what is explicitly portrayed.
The reveal of Lydia’s real name alludes to her construction of this new self, a constant reinvention through lies and posturing. There seems to be no moral change whatsoever or regret; she never admits to any wrongdoing, and there are no apologies or signs of conscious shame. Yet the body can’t escape, just as her abuse was directly upon bodies (the psyche as well, but the body is the first barrier where the predator attacks), Lydia can’t run away from herself. The pain, the auditory hallucinations, and the visual cues of her life haunt her. When she arrives at the massage parlor/brothel, the masseuses are assembled just like her orchestra, and the one that stares at her is the one that sits in the position Olga used to hold. As mentioned before, it’s unclear if Lydia had sex with her before rushing outside to vomit, which could be very plausible as she shows no remorse for her actions.
As someone who lauds the western canon and looks down upon forms of art that are inferior to her eyes, it’s deeply poetic that Lydia ends up conducting a video game score (and one with a title which may be meaningful in relation to the film). There is a high probability nobody in the audience knows who she is, a huge contrast to the first scenes where the audience at the New Yorker Festival is there specifically for her.
TÁR and Cancel Culture
There is also a point to be made about how the film tackles cancel culture in a very mature and nuanced way. In a world where Andrew Tate is not in jail, Louis C.K is starting to do shows again, and a lot of other celebrities that have been presumably “canceled” are doing just fine, it makes sense for Lydia Tár to still find a place in the world where they don’t care about her monstrous past. TÁR doesn’t make a case in favor or against its protagonist, but rather takes her perspective in order to look through the eyes of the person being canceled.
The film doesn’t shy away from the hideous acts committed, nor does it sympathize with the perpetrator; it simply showcases a deeply perturbed psychological profile as it navigates with little to no empathy towards the destruction it has created. It’s a hugely original take on the subject, as there are moments where very valid points are made by this monstrous human being, such as when Lydia argues in favor of Bach despite his misogynistic lifestyle, and tells Max, the student she ridicules, to be ready to be judged because of their identity, as they judge others in that same regard. Here, cancelation is understood and validated but also points at discursive flaws in the culture that permeates it.
The last and most interesting thing the film evokes is the concept of reinvention. Even though Lydia’s lies, deceit, and abuse have caught up with her, she has decided to keep on going. Just as she changed from Linda Tarr from a very humble home in Staten Island to Lydia Tár, one of the world’s most respected artists (EGOT!), she is not letting her narrative end by just being someone who got canceled. In her mind, performing in front of a theater filled with cosplayers is just another step toward transformation, to becoming something else.
Yes, at the end she’s been stripped (righteously so) of everything she once held dear, yet she pays no mind to this (even though her subconscious and very bones and muscles seem to). Her only focus is what it always has been, to ascend in the world using every opportunity as a transactional relationship that works to her advantage. You can’t cancel that ideology.
