I tried watching Tar again last night — my third viewing. It happened at Stamford’s Avon, which turned out to be a mistake. My next viewing will happen when Tar starts streaming. I’m very much looking forward to reading the subtitled dialogue as there are still passages (particularly when Cate Blanchett‘s Lydia Tar is whispering to her young adopted daughter) that I can’t make heads or tails of.
Tar is exactly the same mindfuck that I saw in Telluride several weeks ago. I still find it complex, ravishing, brilliant (certainly as far as Blanchett’s performance is concerned) and more than a little frustrating at times.
I still don’t get the ticking metronome in the middle of the night or the unseen shrieking girl in the woods scenes. I’m still deeply bothered by the crude table manners of the young Russian cellist. I get that the black dog or wolf in the old tenement buildjng is a metaphor for secrets that Lydia is afraid might come out, but it’s presented as a half-real thing and not a dream sequence so it left me puzzled at first.
I finally realized that the grubby two-bedroom home that Lydia crashes in toward the end is her childhood home, and that the insolent guy at the bottom of the stairs is her under-educated brother, and that her real first name is Linda. (I’ve no explanation for missing this the first time.) I still think it’s absurd that Lydia’s career would be completely destroyed over the Christa thing. And I still think that anyone who would call the last shot racist (a slow tracking shot of cosplaying fans at a kind of Asian ComicCon gathering) is demented.
Alas, the whole experience was diminished due to the Avon’s crummy screening conditions. Yes, it’s an independent theatre and a beloved Stamford mainstay but I’ll never see a film there again. Three bad things — the screen is too small for the auditorium, the screen lighting was way too dim (the minimum SMPTE standard is around 14 or 15 foot lamberts — I’d be surprised if last night’s Avon image was more than eight or nine) and the sound was way too soft.
I complained to the manager (a chubby woman in her 40s or early 50s) and I suspected right away that she didn’t even know what “foot lamberts” means. I returned to my seat, resigned to sit through two hours and 38 minutes of shadows and mud and murky, often indecipherable dialogue.
Basically a shit show and money down the drain.
Incidentally: Owen Gleiberman‘s “Is Tár Rooting For or Against Cate Blanchett’s Superstar Predator Conductor?” is worth reading.
