A “complicated” story full of “layering and interpretation”. That’s how he defines himself tar its protagonist, Cate Blanchettwho dazzles with an immense and nuanced performance of a director who goes from top to oblivion due to a case with echoes of #MeToo. And where the name of the Spanish tenor hovers over the narrative Placido Domingoaccused of sexual abuse by several women.
With two Oscars (best supporting actress po The aviatorby Martin Scorsese, in 2005, and best actress for Blue jasmineby Woody Allen, in 2014), four Golden Globes, three BAFTAs and the first international Goya for Spanish cinema, withdrawn last year, the Australian actress, once again nominated for an Oscar for this work – there are already 8 nominations -, has nothing to prove.
But, in every project she undertakes, when it seems impossible, she surpasses herself.
On this occasion, under the orders of director Todd Field, she becomes Lydia Tár, a queen in a man’s world, an imaginary woman called to be the first to conduct a prestigious German orchestra. And to make this genius, even despotic and dark, credible, Blanchett learned to speak German, to conduct orchestras and to play the piano.
But when the actress talks about her performance in the film, she barely refers to the effort put in and passionately defends a character that earned her the Coppa Volpi at the Venice Film Festival, for which she won the Golden Globe and which places her as an overall favorite to win what would have been her third Oscar.
“For her (Tár), directing is like breathing, so she had to find her own way to breathe. I became very obsessed with (director) Carlos Kleiber and his ambivalent and tormented relationship with his work and with Simon Rattle,” he explains . in an interview with various media, including EFE.
His idea, he explains, was to find out how far a conductor’s authority goes, why he ends up being “an autocrat” and to show, incidentally, “how the world of classical music changed when the Berlin Wall”.
The fiction takes place in the German capital, where Lydia Tár, a passionate, cultured and cold musician, famous throughout the world for her concerts and compositions, falls overnight from the highest point into an abyss of accusations that they crash her universe, to the disbelief of his wife (a role played by German actress Nina Hoss) and their daughter.
Her impeccable facade cracks when allegations of abuse of power emerge, in a behavior with which she replicates that of her male colleagues. There is even a moment in the film where Plácido Domingo’s room is mentioned.
“There is an awareness (in Domingo’s case) of the complexity, of the minefields, of the traps… A lot of those people are mentioned who are dotted with cases like his, but the script goes through them very little,” he points out outside . .
According to him, “it’s as if you see Picasso and can only imagine what’s going on outside his studio. But you watch ‘Guernica’ and think this? It’s one of the best works of art in history. I think it’s also A sound criticism is important I’m not more interested in questions than in finding an answer,” she sums up.
a movie for her
Field wrote this story for Blanchett, who carries 158 minutes of elegant film on her shoulders, but would be far from the success she had achieved were it not for the Australian’s work.
“This screenplay was written for an artist: Cate Blanchett. If she had said no, the film would never have seen the light of day. This won’t surprise viewers, fans or otherwise. After all, she is a supreme teacher,” said the director.
However, while we were making the film, Cate’s superhuman ability and lifelikeness was a truly amazing thing to see. She exceeded all expectations. The privilege of collaborating with an artist of this caliber is impossible to adequately describe. In every possible way, this is Cate’s movie.”
For the actress, who also had an affair with a woman in the film Carolthat Tár is a lesbian “is not part of her identity any more than other aspects”, indeed, “it is so natural that she does not need to talk about it”.
Blanchett defines tar as “a complicated story”. “She’s a successful woman who rises to a position of power (…), but the people around her also demand that authority from her. That’s another aspect of this film. The most amazing thing for me is all these different layers and interpretations.
“She’s capable of enormous power and also great generosity, but somehow she’s swallowed up by the system she’s admired for so long. And she’s about to turn 50, another incredible change,” he sums up.
“Once you get to the top, you realize you can only go downhill. We find it at the end of a cycle, when it questions itself. What happens now, what’s next? And, perhaps time, what follows is far jump all up”.
But the film, which comes out this Thursday in Argentine cinemas, “doesn’t give answers or judges”, he warns.
A director always candidate
Todd Field (California, February 24, 1994) made his feature film directorial debut at the Sundance Film Festival with In the bedroom (in the bedroom2001) which at the time had 5 Academy Award nominations (Film, Lead Actress -Sissy Spacek-, Lead Actor -Tom Wilkinson-, Supporting Actress -Marisa Tomei-, Adapted Screenplay) and designated Best Picture of the Year by The New York Times, The Wall Street JournalHe, New York Magazine, The New Yorker and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
His star, far from dying out, shone again, getting the premiere of his next film, intimate secrets (children) will take place at the 44th New York Film Festival. He garnered three Hollywood Academy Award nominations: Best Actress in a Leading Role for Kate Winslet, Best Supporting Actor for Jackie Earle Haley, and himself was nominated again for Adapted Screenplay.
his short film Grandparents&Alex premiered at the Sundance Film Festival where it received a Special Jury Award. Another of his short films, When I was a boyalso played at that festival and was selected to be shown in the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s New Directors/New Films film series at the Museum of Modern Art.
The next thing we’ll see from Field is the series purity, which is still in development, and will star Daniel Craig, the former James Bond. Plot: A young woman joins a group of activists and embarks on a global journey in search of her father.
As an actor, Field has appeared in films such as Eyes tightly closedby Stanley Kubrick, in Tornado It’s inside Accidental killers.
In total, he has 6 Oscar nominations to his credit (for the screenplays of his three films, as a producer of In the bedroom and Tár, and as director, also for the film with Cate Blanchett).
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Source: Clarin
