With TÁR, Todd Field makes a power play

The multiple-Oscar-nominated psychodrama TÁR is the story of a compulsive, privileged leader who abuses her power. In this special episode of the MUBI Podcast, writer/director Todd Field tells host Rico Gagliano why he set that story in a concert hall instead of the halls of politics.

Also up for discussion: Cate Blanchett’s small miracles, why Field prefers marathons to sprints, and his mentor Stanley Kubrick’s biggest fear.

TÁR is now showing in theaters in many countries and is available to stream on Peacock in the United States.

MUBI is a global streaming service, production company and film distributor. A place to discover and watch beautiful, interesting, incredible films. A new hand-picked film arrives on MUBI, every single day. From iconic directors, to emerging auteurs. All carefully chosen by MUBI’s curators.

Transcript

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In March 2020, filmmaker Todd Field got a phone call from top brass at Focus Features. With an offer. Peter Kujawski and Kiska Higgs at Focus said,"Write whatever you like." Stuck at home during the first pandemic lockdown, he figured this was his chance to write a story about a character he'd been carrying around in his head for more than a decade. A classical music conductor. Once I started, it was about 12 weeks, and I really had no... Reasonable expectation that the studio would ever want to make the film. I kind of just wrote it because it felt like the world was ending. And who even knew if there was going to be movies on the other side of whatever we were, you know, facing. And I told them that at the time. I said, "I'm going to hand you a script"and you're not going to want to make it."But don't worry,"I'll write something else for you so you don't feel like I stole your money." And I was shocked and somewhat horrified when they said that not only did I want to make it, but they wanted to make it immediately. What was horrifying about that? That's what most people dream about. I think it's always horrifying when you actually have to make a film. It turned out he had nothing to be afraid of. The movie he made is called Tár, one of the most celebrated of the year. But it definitely deals with some modern horrors. It's the story of Lydia Tár, an American conductor who leads the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. She's exalted, catered to, a great artist, living a privileged life. Which slowly turns into a nightmare as first her colleagues, and then her lover, and then herself, come to terms with what she's done to get power, and how she's abused it. I'm Rico Gagliano, and welcome back to the MUBI podcast. MUBI's the streaming service that curates great cinema. On this show, we tell you the stories behind the great cinema. Season three is coming soon. But today, one more special episode to tide you over. It is my interview with Todd Field about Tár. Back in the early nineties, he graduated from my alma mater, actually, the AFI, the American Film Institute, and this is only his third feature since then. But just like his other movies, it's up for a raft of Oscars, including for Best Film Field's writing and direction, and his star Cate Blanchett's performance. She actually already won a Golden Globe for that. And since the next season of this show is all about music in movies, I thought Field was just the guy to talk to. He actually played in jazz bands and he entered college on a music scholarship. As an actor, he portrayed a pianist in Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut'. But as you'll hear later, when he dreamt up the character of musician Lydia Tár, music was the last thing on his mind. First up, though, I pressed him to tell me a little more about the horror of getting a green light. I mean, one of the things that, you're... You know, you were a fellow at AFI, as I was. And I think part of the pleasure and the pain of that program was the fact that we had to do these Cycle Projects with such little turnarounds. These very quick turnaround shorts that we had to make like many of each semester. Right. And it didn't give you too much time to to think about it. And I think that there was a real wisdom in that. Just having to make decisions and hang a lantern and get to work, you know? And the problem with feature filmmaking often is that it moves so glacially. That there's plenty of opportunity for anxiety and fear, you know.- So...- That's interesting. I mean, a mentor of yours was Stanley Kubrick, who also didn't take short amounts of time to make a movie. And I guess you got to watch him be fairly tortured, too. Well, I do remember having that conversation with him and asking, you know, gently saying, you know, is there a reason that you take such long periods of time? Because at that point in time, I had just been out of AFI for three years, actually a year... And had no forecast of what was ahead. I really thought I would just go off and, you know, make movies once a year or something, which is far from what occurred. But... And Stanley said, because it has to be something where I know I won't lose interest or I have a fair chance of not losing interest, because the most horrifying thing would be to start something and get halfway through and realize that it no longer engages you, you know? And I think that that is the sort of for anyone making a feature film, it is that, you know, the loneliness of the long distance runner. You don't want to be on mile ten or twelve, and not want to finish the race, you know? Yeah, that was... I mean, this is something I was going to ask away later in this interview, but I'll go to it right now. How much when you are planning a movie, to what extent is this the most important thing that, you know, you say to yourself, in this case, I want to do this because I just like classical music and I want to do a film where I get to be around it for several years. Oh it had nothing... I have no interest in classical music whatsoever. I mean, that's not why I made the film. The backdrop is important because it's such a very simple frame of looking at a pyramid or in this case, a triangle in terms of a power structure. I was more interested in taking a character and putting her in some kind of cultural hierarchy, and examining how that works. You know what what are the cornerstones of a pyramid of power and who has to hold that up, and who gains and who benefits and who feeds it and who is complicit in that? And how does somebody sit at the top of such a pyramid? Then let's talk about that character who I know you've said you dreamed up, you know, ten years ago. Where did that character come from as sort of the vessel to examine power? Well, I work in the film business. So I'm sure that character sort of was birthed out of many parents. Let's put it that way. That's all you're going to say? Seriously? Well, this is... Do you want me to get confessional?- I mean.- Yep. Well, I'm not! Well, let me... What's the essence of that character that was that leapt into your mind? Like, I want to do a character who is what? I think it was just, you know, the idea that there's a reason people rise to power and as this character would say, it's not always so polite. You know, there's always going to be some road kill for someone to reach that destination. That's fascinating to me. It's fascinating to me about how people are enabled to exist like that and have been, you know, from the beginning of time.- This is nothing new.- Yeah. I mean, for me, this is a movie that puts us in the mindset of a narcissist. And I mean, it's interesting to me that you've been carrying this character around for many, many years because the first thing that came to my mind was we've had several narcissists running major countries over the last few years. There's also a few asides about democracy in this movie. Lydia Tár actually says at one point about her orchestra,"This isn't a democracy." The politics of our modern world enter into your mind as you were structuring this? Well, certainly. And what she's saying actually, in fact, is untrue. If you are in a German orchestra, it actually is a democracy. So in actual fact, she doesn't necessarily have the right to do that. She's been granted that privilege essentially by the orchestra. And that orchestra is, in fact, led by the concertmaster. And in this case, that concertmaster is her partner.- Yeah, yeah.- So that partner benefits from allowing her to be out front, you know, in the spotlight. And she's sort of safely in the wings, but is doing a lot of scene shifting from the wings. She's an enabler. She's an enabler. And she has the ear of that entire orchestra because she's the most powerful player in it. It actually occurs to me, you you know, you've said that you're not particularly interested in the classical world just for its own sake, and that this does have, you know, some political ramifications. Why not set this in the realm of politics? Why set this in the realm of the arts? Well, I mean, it's an auto... Audio visual medium, and you can fit a triangle in a frame. I mean, if you look at her on the podium, she's literally at the tip of a triangle, right? I mean, it's a very efficient way to very simply illustrate a power system. You know, if nothing else. It's also there's I've always been fascinated by front of house, back of house, you know, whether it's a play or a film like The Dresser or what have you. But the idea of how does the show actually get on its feet, you know, and what is the drama involved in that show. And that's a little bit different than, you know, political intrigue is fascinating and rich and interesting to a point, you know, or if she sat at at the top of a media organization or something like that or an energy company, anything. But you have to actually be able to stand atop mount Olympus and throw thunderbolts with your hands and have and have there be an explosion, which is what it's like to be a conductor is fairly dramatic.- You know.- That's great. It does it makes for a better movie in some instances, although I will say it's like the Speaker of the House sits up on top of a podium looking down at an arc of people before them. That's a triangle, too. Well, it, you're right about that. Maybe.

Maybe we do Tár 2: 9:12

The Senate. Yeah. I'll look forward, that'll be the most bizarre sequel ever. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes.- The comeback!- What an interesting franchise. Um, there's a scene, speaking of power, there's a scene, and it's been the subject of a lot of conversation. Before I saw the movie, I was reading, you know, the reviews as I do, and most of them mention this scene, the scene where Lydia's teaching a conducting class, and she gets in an argument with this student who is conducting a very atonal piece by a modern female composer. And, you want to set up the rest? Well what's going on with the scene is she... Basically declares war on the atonal.<i>- So you're a violinist? All right.- Yeah.</i><i>Okay, well...</i><i>I can see why you would choose to conduct a piece like this.</i><i>Must be a familiar pleasure in presiding</i><i>over a bed of strings</i><i>that behave as if they're tuning.</i> And she declares war on the atonal, quite conveniently, because the piece of music that she's torpedoing is by another woman who's very celebrated, who's very young and beautiful by her own accounts. But instead of talking about that, she's really kind of going after the student and basically saying, go back to the this old dead white man thing. Instead of admitting that she's jealous of this other composer, she tells the student that he would be better off- playing the classics.- Yes.<i>Have you ever played or conducted Bach?</i><i>Honestly, as a</i><i>bipoc pan-gender person,</i><i>I would say Bach's misogynistic life makes it kind of</i><i>impossible for me to take his music seriously.</i> And when the student very politely says that they're not interested in that, she essentially guts him.<i>But you see, the problem</i><i>with enrolling yourself as</i><i>an ultrasonic epistemic dissident</i><i>is that if Bach's talent</i><i>can be reduced to his gender, birth, country,</i><i>religion, sexuality and so on,</i><i>then so can yours.</i> Here's what is interesting to me. The New Yorker's published two analyses of this movie, one by Richard Brody and one by Tavi Gevinson. And they couldn't have more divergent takes on the movie and this scene. Brody is basically like, this is a regressive conservative movie about the evils of so-called cancel culture as embodied in this scene. And Tavi is like, this is an exposé about artists who abuse power. And how surprised were you that you could get such totally different reads on this scene? Because to me, it's very clear what this scene is about. What's thrilling? I mean, the scene is constructed in a way to be a punching bag for whatever you bring to it. You know, it's not... I wouldn't offer any other interpretation of the scene. The only thing I would be sad about is if somebody watched the scene and was indifferent to it. You know? I mean, the conversation itself is a useful tool for a character that's going to preach religion and purity and then violate that, a half a dozen scenes later with their own hypocrisy. But this to me, this is what I'm saying. I 100% agree with you. So I don't understand how one can take this as a movie about, you know, the evils of so-called cancel culture when you've got at the heart of it the person who is canceled is so hypocritical and has so many negative things. It's not like where I don't feel like we're totally sympathetic to this character. I do think we're fascinated by her. But it's not like this is a character that is ever painted as somebody that you can totally get behind. And she's capricious and she's as full of hypocrisy as any of us, let's put it that way.<i>Where are you going?</i><i>You're a fucking bitch.</i><i>And you are a robot.</i> So I want to talk a little bit about your return to filmmaking after a long hiatus there. And just to put this in personal terms, we take a few months between the regular seasons of this podcast to research and do interviews and stuff. And every time that part's finished and we go back to actually writing and producing episodes, it feels like I'm the Tin Man, in need of oiling. I'm kind of like creaking back to life and figuring out how to move again. And that's after a few months. Fifteen years you took. What... Actually sixteen years to be more... Actually seventeen years to be, to be more precise, because we shot little children in 2005, and it was released in 2006. But who's counting, right? My question being like, what muscles were the hardest of flexing for you, when you got back on the set? None, because I haven't stopped shooting in seventeen years. I've been doing advertising. So, I mean, I'm on the floor all the time. I've been at the forefront with many other commercial directors in terms of developing technology, both in the editorial areas and visual effect areas and camera systems long before they ever get to feature film or television directors. So I shoot constantly. I actually feel much stronger than I did with my previous two films. The one difference was sort of the... You know, moment where you realize,"Oh yeah, I remember" you know, I remember it was like to get in this on this animal again, which is the very first day of the shoot with, with the actors. And just on the very first day with Cate Blanchett and Noémie Merlant and Nina Hoss, that was like opening a door that had been locked firmly for a very long time for me. And that was a that was a revelation. And that made coming to work intensely exciting in a manner that, you know, working in advertising never will. You mentioned Cate Blanchett and working with her, you've said you wrote this film with her in mind and that you wouldn't have made it without her, actually. What does she have that this movie could only get from her? Well, I had met Cate on another project, that didn't happen about ten years ago, a script that Joan Didion and I had written together. And I didn't know Cate before then. I mean, I knew her work, obviously, but the time that we spent together talking about doing that, was some of the richest dialog I'd had with another filmmaker. She's not just looking at her character and what her character can do, she's looking at the entirety of it. And when that project didn't happen and I sat down to write this, I just couldn't stop thinking about her. You know, clearly the quite impressive practical things that she had to master for this because she she's playing the piano, she's playing Bach. Note for note on screen. She's conducting for real. You know, she's speaking German. She's doing an American accent. She's she's doing all of these things. And you know, what she would tell you is she would say poo poo about all that, that those are givens. You have to do that. But that, but that's not where the character is. That's just the character's, you know, particulars. And she's right about that. You know, we shot such an aggressive schedule. We never looked at dailies. And it wasn't until Monika Willi and I were sitting in Scotland seven days a week, watching the work, where you see what's important about the performance is what she does with the character in a almost pointillistic way, just the tiny physical actions that she's mapped out that when you see them in their entirety, are rather breathtaking.- You know.- Like what? This very small things, the way this character is obsessed with intent listening. What she does with her hands does tiny things, tiny things that have their own sort of rhythms and hues to them. You know. There's a moment early on in the movie and it repeats later on, she's waiting to go out on stage for an interview with Adam Gopnik, and she's trying to get to a point of relaxation before going on stage. And then suddenly does this kind of like batting at her face and kind of brushing off her clothing. And it really struck me as an amazing moment that sort of get something about what's going on inside of this character. Is that her then, or did that come from you? Well, where that came from was this character suffers from misophonia. You know, part of, and this is not uncommon for people that are conductors. Where they're highly attenuated to noise and they can't stand sound that they can't control, which is probably why they're gravitated to this vocation in the first place. So in actual fact, what she's doing there is she's responding to sounds that she's hearing in particular in the audience now, those sounds are described, the whole first page of the script is just one big black dense description of the sounds that she's hearing and what they're doing to her. So the plan had always been that we would play her those sounds and she'd be responding to the sounds. But when we shot it... And I saw what she was doing physically to respond to those sounds... I realized it was so much better if we didn't hear what she heard. It was much better just to see what was activating her. And yeah, that's a very good example and I'm glad you brought it up. That sets the tone, that's table setting for her. And and she's also doing a lot of other things. She's trying to get, she's trying to brush off energies. You know, she's going through ceremonies and she's going through these things that she's done forever to calm herself enough to be able to go out and perform, because, of course, that is the performance that this character is sort of self constructing in the whole movie. That first interview with Adam Gopnik. Oh, true. So for her, the interview and kind of her whole life are as much of a performance as, you know, a concert. Yeah. Ready for them. I think it's interesting, by the way, that earlier you were talking about how scary it was to get the green light for this, but you're also saying that dealing with actors, which is the thing for you that was the hardest to get back into about directing a movie was also the most exciting. There was nothing hard about getting into it. I think my what I was horrified about is the length of time. When I work in advertising at the most, I'm gone for three weeks and then I go home, you know, and it's on the air in front of the Olympics, you know, two days later, and it's already in the rearview mirror. But when you work on it on a film, you've got a couple of years of your life, you know, and away from your family and away from your children. And... If you care, you're working seven days a week and you're not sleeping well and your health is probably not so great. And so it's a huge amount of physical, emotional, and philosophical investment that you simply don't have in these shorter sprints. Again, it's like the loneliness of the long distance runner. You know, you have to know, can I get through 26 miles? And, that's the fundamental question that you really don't know. Can you do it? Given that, do you, are you actually looking forward to doing another film quickly or is it kind of like, okay, I'm happy doing these every decade? And in between, I can just do the quick hits of commercial work? You know, I don't know. I mean, you know, it's a... Given the paltry output, you know, post AFI I would like to make another film quickly. We'll see. You know, we'll see whether it comes together or not. Let's say, I like the 26 miles. I prefer it. Todd Field Last week, his movie Tár got nominated for six Oscars. And that is our special episode of the MUBI podcast for today. In just a few weeks, we're going to drop our full season three, telling the stories behind the legendary pairings of great songs and great movies. Guests include Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly, Noel Hogan of the band The Cranberries, and many more, all talking about movie tunes from dream pop to classical. Follow us wherever you get your podcasts so you don't miss it. While you're at it, declare your love for this show by leaving a five star review, wherever you listen, it'll help others find and love us too. This show was hosted, written and edited by me. Rico Gagliano. Our booking producer was Jackson Musker. Mastering by Steven Colón. Yuri Suzuki composed the theme music. Thanks this week Ciara McEniff and Dallas Taylor. The show is executive produced by me, along with Jon Barrenechea, Efe Cakarel, Daniel Kasman and Michael Tacca. Thanks for listening, be safe. Now go watch some movies.