Late to the conversation: Storied critic Amy Taubin has viciously trashed Todd Field’s Tar, and in ways that struck me as mystifying. She’s called it (a) “a dreadful movie,” (b) “One of the stupidest movies I have seen in long time”…odd; (c) “Absolutely a one-note movie [that] turns into one of the most racist shit I have ever seen in a serious movie…I loathed this movie and I think [Cate Blanchett‘s] performance is terrible.”
The racist stuff, in Taubin’s view, comes at the every end when Blanchett’s deplatformed conductor Lydia Tar goes on a kind of banishmnent tour in Southeast Asia. Taubin deplores the use of cosplauing brown-skinned Asians at a Comic-Con-like gathering. I didn’t take the slightest offense at this portion of the film, which is basically a glum denoument.
There is, however, a racist moment early on when a male BPIOC pangender student of Blanchett’sexpresses a dislike of Johann Sebastian Bach, due to the 18th-century composer’s whiteness and “misogyny” (i.e., having been married twice).
There’s no merit whatsoever to dismissing Blanchett’s performance….not worth debating.
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Taubin delivered these remarks four days ago during episode #142 of Nicolas Rapol‘s “The Last Thing I Saw.” I happened upon her comments via a 10.17 post on Jordan Ruimy’s “World of Reel.”