Month: January 2023

This article contains spoilers.

Todd Field’s new, multi-Academy Award nominated feature film Tár is generating considerable commentary – and not a little controversy.

For some, its storyline allows for a timely exploration of intergenerational conflict concerning the value of Western art and artistic ethics. Others see it as a critique of cancel culture.

Still others think it epitomises the problematic representation of women and LGBTQI+ people in a traditionally male-dominated industry.

But I think it also shines a light on some of the social and political dynamics of the world in which it is set: the elite end of the classical music industry.

Power before the fall

Portraying the professional and psychological downfall of orchestral conductor Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), the film depicts her as prone to abusive and grooming behaviours. Those behaviours, the film suggests, may have led to the suicide of a young former student (and possible love interest).

In interviews, Field has stated he created her character not to explore gender or sexuality, but rather power. The film could have equally been set, he suggests, in “a multinational corporation or an architectural firm. Pick your poison.”

But Field’s choice of setting supports his dramatic aim beyond merely providing it with an interesting backdrop.

The globetrotting level of the classical music industry at which Tár works has faced its own #metoo stories.

It is also characterised by especially high numbers of people drawn from private wealth and educational privilege – a situation some argue is only becoming worse.

Late in the film, we discover Tár is from much humbler stock. This informs her character more than we might first realise.

From the outset, the film gives us several clues about her true class identity. Her charitable foundation is named “Accordion”, after the decidedly non-elite instrument she happens to play. Despite living in a supremely stylish Berlin apartment, she feels more comfortable retreating to the bedsit she has refused to relinquish. She has impostor syndrome about whether all she creates is merely pastiche, if all her creative work is derivative.

Ultimately, we discover she was not born Lydia Tár, rather Linda Tarr. When she briefly encounters her brother, he tellingly remarks “you don’t seem to know where the hell you came from, or where you’re going”.

Tár is therefore not a “true” member of the elite level of artists she has fought so hard to join.

Although we initially see her being supported by colleagues who enable aspects of her toxic behaviour or choose to stay silent when they witness it, when things go public, she is unceremoniously dumped.

Ultimately she is not protected by the industry that promoted her, nor does she really know how to protect herself when it turns on her.

This is not the norm. The film names two real-life conductors (James Levine and Charles Dutoit) who also fell from favour owing to similar accusations of predatory sexual behaviour, but their downfalls occurred at the end of their careers, not, as here, at its apex.

Field’s film suggests Tár’s particularly swift and brutal downfall may be in part because she cannot fully access networks of patronage and privilege in the classical music industry.

In this world, personal and institutional power is still intimately tied up with class. Both can be made to serve the interests of wrongdoers and silence their victims.

Read more:
Classical music training and abuse cultures – we need to act now

From Mahler to Monster

There is one other dominating presence complicating the film’s narrative: the music. It is not for nothing Field chose a composition by Gustav Mahler, in particular his Symphony No. 5, for Tár to conduct.

At first glance, here is another artist who might be vulnerable to cancel culture. Mahler had his own history of manipulative behaviour, such as insisting his wife sublimate her own musical career to support his.

Much like Tár herself, the symphony can be characterised as self-aggrandising. As with all his symphonies, it is conceived on a colossal scale and is replete with self-quotations from earlier works.

And yet exposing the personal faults of the conductor and the composer is neither sufficient nor necessary to appreciate the resulting art. As German philosopher Theodor Adorno noted in an essay from 1932, we tend to avoid considering the measure of a conductor’s life off the podium when we watch them on it.

The film reminds us this tendency can come at a significant human cost, and we apply it unequally: depending on not just the identity but also the class background of the conductor themselves.

The film ends with Tár conducting a concert in an unnamed Southeast Asian country. No Mahler is to be found here. Rather, she conducts a program of music from the 2018 action role-playing computer game Monster Hunter: World.

This is not, I think, meant to be some kind of cruel joke (apart from the possible allusion to Tár herself in the title of the game) or a tasteless (and culturally patronising) dig at the expense of non-Western, commercially oriented, orchestral music. But computer game music carries little of the establishment prestige Western classical music does.

The film ultimately leaves it as an open question, but there is a hint that, away from the political machinations of the elite classical music industry, Tár might be able to reconnect with a more authentic – and less destructive – artistic and ethical persona.

Read more:
Tár – an exploration of the flawed musicians behind decadent music

Tár is in Australian cinemas now.

Felix van Groeningen’s 2018 sentimental biographical drama Beautiful Boy stars comedy actor Steve Carrell and indie film golden boy Timothée Chalamet as a father-son duo attempting to mend a fractured relationship stemming from the son’s substance abuse. Inspired by the works of John Lennon, writer Luke David adapted the books, Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff and Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff, into a critical success, despite an initial box office failure. 

Beautiful Boy is an emotional, harrowing and heartbreaking exploration of addiction and family values as the two concepts battle it out in an exhausting ordeal. The direction exercises masterful attention, with the stylistic choices of score and camerawork exploring the psychology of substance abuse. Chalamet’s performance as a struggling Nic Sheff garnered nominations for the actor at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, BAFTA Awards and Critics’ Choice Awards. 

The source of inspiration for the movie’s title derives from rock and roll legend Lennon’s song ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’. Original author Sheff famously interviewed the Beatles rhythm guitarist and his partner multimedia artist Yoko Ono in the build-up to their senior album, Double Fantasy. This piece of work is a folk rock composition showcasing the couple’s relationship with one another and their child Sean Lennon, released in 1980. Lennon was murdered three weeks after its release, on Monday, December 8th, 1980, by Mark David Chapman. 

The album’s track ‘Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)’ was written and recorded as a tribute to their son Sean, who was born five years before the album’s release. During an interview (via Beatles Bible), Lennon expressed his intentions and approaches to the song to express his newfound love of being a father. “The joy is still there when I see Sean. He didn’t come out of my belly but, by God, I made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and to how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish,” he shared. “That’s because I took him to the ‘Y’. I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of those things. He is my biggest pride, you see.”

He added: “Well, what can I say? It’s about Sean. It’s self-explanatory. The music and the lyric came at the same time.”

Sheff’s book and van Groeningen’s film title are a tragic spin on this concept of a father and son bond, juxtaposing the initial innocence and wholesome love of Lennon’s song whilst still highlighting a ghost of that family love. The film demonstrates an older landscape of this dynamic, one that has been infiltrated with the struggles and pressures of youth on the son’s part, with the father attempting to view his son as the individual he is growing into to understand him. The issues of youth addiction emphasise the exterior weight of the situation, that when you love someone with an abusive habit consuming their life, it also consumes everyone around them. The struggle of a child is shared with their parent. 

Beautiful Boy contrasts Double Fantasy in posing something more dark, intense and emotionally grabbling but also something just as powerful and moving. Chalamet’s compelling performance anchors the film’s heart, focusing the narrative’s thematic values for audience engagement against the challenging editing and score composition. 

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