The Fourth Movement

Graphic by Chase Manze; Image courtesy of Focus Features

Todd Field begins his first film in sixteen years with an extended biography delivered by Adam Gopnik, a writer for The New Yorker. "If you're here, then you already know who she is," he says of the film's titular character Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett), before pushing through a laundry list of accolades and appointments that Lydia has attained over her remarkable career. A prolific composer and member of the rarified “EGOT” Club, she appears to occupy a unique place in world culture, dominant and revered in her multiform yet singularly-focused endeavors. Lydia previously worked as a conductor of four of the “Big 5” U.S. orchestras, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, and the New York Philharmonic, and is a former mentee of Leonard Bernstein’s, whom she refers to as "Lenny." Field immediately places the viewer at the nexus of Lydia's vast sphere of influence.

Her conversation with Gopnik, an extended sequence, assures the viewer of her genius. Not only does she receive rapturous applause by an audience of New York intellectuals following the above-mentioned career flattery, she subsequently earns their adoration and obsession through hyper-articulate and clinical musings on music theory, all of which are rooted in her own robust experiences. Lydia is, as is almost always the case throughout the film, the most important person in the room.

Lydia currently works as the conductor of the Berlin Orchestra, a position she has held since 2013, and is in the process of recording a cycle of Mahler symphonies. At work, she is God, instructing members of the orchestra in German and in English in between stretches of volatile yet precise conducting. Her predominantly male colleagues tailor their behavior and, in some instances, the policies of the institution, to her whims. With absolute creative authority, Lydia "cycles out" an older male conductor who had made Berlin his home for many years and circumvents traditional working practices twice to ensure that she's able to fulfill her own wants. 

Her individual existence is supplemented by a coterie of loving women, all of whom hope to rely on her more than they're actually able to. Lydia is married to her first chair violinist Sharon (Nina Hoss), the Orchestra's concertmaster, with whom she shares a young daughter, Petra (Mila Bogojevic). When given the opportunity, Lydia manipulates and outright lies to Sharon as much as she shows her any affection. Petra, by contrast, receives frequent, authentic love; seemingly the only functional relationship in Lydia's life. Lydia's long-term assistant Francesca (Noémie Merlant, holding the same curious, voyeuristic gaze she carried for much of Portrait of a Lady on Fire) waits breathlessly for a recognition that will never come.

Through these relationships Field creates a quiet web of ever-fracturing connections to Lydia that, when finally ruptured, fuel the final third of the film. The way he structures this story is genuinely unique, moving from lengthy interviews to lectures to numerous scenes of quiet isolation. It's a real testament to Field's airtight screenplay that so much of the film's first 100 minutes, which feel both innocuous and tense, naturally build into an increasingly manic second half which provides real payoff on some oblique narrative threads from earlier on.

Even as the tempo of the film shifts and accelerates, Field and cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister maintain a steady hand, capturing the film largely through delicate, still shots allowing the expressions or physicality of the performers to do the heavy lifting. This isn’t meant as a criticism of the film’s aesthetic as turgid or bland or unappealing to look at. It's gorgeous and deliberate, mirroring the steely intensity of its central character. The color palette Field draws from feels entirely appropriate and in line with the colors present in any given orchestra hall. 

In a post-screening talkback at the New York Film Festival, the film's composer, Hildur Guðnadóttir, went into great detail about how she and Field approached the film from a sonic standpoint. She claimed that they mapped out all of the beats and movements within the film musically, unrelated to the score, assigning specific tempos to each of the characters based on how they operate. Lydia moves at 120 BPM. Sharon, 60. This silent musicality, layered atop the actual music performed in the film, allowed for Guðnadóttir to craft an "inter-score," operating on a subliminal level, scarcely heard but always present. You feel these layers as you engage with the film, almost as though there is a ghostly movement ushering you from one scene to the next, allowing you to stay in tune with the performances on screen and the aesthetic decisions being made by Field and his team across the board.

When talking about a performance its easy to use terms like "transformative" lazily, with writers often applying them to fictional interpretations of real-life figures kept afloat by makeup and costuming departments. Here, however, Blanchett is titanic, disappearing into a character consumed by ego and self-interest. Lydia Tár must be many things: a virtuoso pianist (Blanchett learned), a German speaker (she learned), a conductor (Blanchett’s physicality from behind the rostrum affronts the view), and someone capable of speaking as an absolute authority on matters of classical music. One need only listen to Mark Wahlberg's English lectures in The Gambler to recall how challenging it is to mimic intellect. Supreme intellect, in this case.

Blanchett makes every academic mini-monologue feel entirely improvised and deeply personal, created on the fly by an obsessive mind. One of many fascinating tensions within Lydia Tár herself is that between her survivalist priorities, her ego, and her irrational, profound lust. This part requires Blanchett to balance these three attributes at all times as Lydia's actions continuously contradict themselves. Blanchett appears at the center of every frame in this film and must convey the weight of this enormous interiority in every scene. Any other actor might buckle. She excels here, doing career-best work.

One of the initial pieces I read about this film repeatedly referenced "cancel culture," stating that this film is now an integral text within that conversation. I’ll say this: At some point during their ascent, every powerful person in the history of mankind has realized that they can begin to act with impunity. This film feels like an interrogation of that idea: the circumstances through which one can acquire that level of power, the myriad of ways it presents itself, and how, ultimately, it dissolves the original identity of the person possessing it. Very late in the film Field offers one glimpse of Lydia Tár's life before "Lydia Tár." It rips your heart out.