The brilliance of this scene is that Lydia is being hypocritical and self-serving here. She wants people to separate the art from the artist because she herself is a monster in her personal life and doesn't want her career and legacy to be affected by her behavior. Both characters are partially right and wrong here, and Todd Field doesn't pass judgment on either of them, allowing the audience to project their own beliefs onto their arguments.
You got it wrong. The mindless, snot nose kid is the worm here. She's dead-on with the line " it seems the architect of your soul is social media!" Generations will look back on this time and it's youth culture as pitiful weaklings.
Lydia is not a good person at all, but she is completely correct in this scene. "The architect of your soul appears to be social media" is a fantastic line.
Do you hear yourself saying “The rest of the movie makes it clear that she is the bad person but in this one scene she is so correct!” You’re letting your biases dictate your media literacy. She is very obviously in the wrong during this scene too.
@@liefnielson how is she in the wrong? She pointed out his small mindedness. and then made an example of him with said small mindedness. A harsh lesson, but a lesson all you little shit heads need to learn.
@@bruins94laurent85 imagine you are student and your substitute comes and is possibly one of the most important professionals in your field and uses your class to pompously shit on you for not wanting to engage with an artist on your own accord…. That’s just silly. That’s like acting Ben Shapiro is smart cause he can ruthlessly rip some naive teenager during a Q&A. We all can do that to youngsters that just start out in our field. That’s no achievement and I can promise you, they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves just like that kid in the movie.
As a gay man who completely agrees with the character Lydia here, her delivery of this scene is incredible. Not to mention, BACH is my companion during my time gardening and his genius is absolutely cemented in history.
This scene is so good. The problem she is eloquently pointing out here, in my opinion is also, that the young fellow's strategy is strengthening exactly those powers that he is pretending to fight against. As we can currently see in quite a number of countries. I saw TÁR a second time yesterday. This movie is brillant. This scene is so good.
As a progressive who went to a very liberal school, I can say I’ve met so many people like him. Instead of defending their own viewpoints, they shut down anyone who challenges them - even if you’re on their side.
Sadly that is the way of a lot of companies groups and individuals nowadays - especially in the LGBT+ scene. You are not allowed to question anything, you’re not allowed to have a debate or a discussion, or else you get kicked out. That’s why I can’t stand the ultra progressive woke movement anymore because they exclude people on the guise of being “inclusive”.
Then, the fact that they shut down any people's attempts to make them see other horizons and perspectives will only make them look not only as intelorant, but very radical with their own ideas, which will only make them look stuck in their own bubble. And such types shouldn't be socialized with, and further ostracisation from them is required to make them look for their own behavior as a consequence of their own undoings.
Max didn’t even have a good reason for not liking Bach. He wasn’t an evil man, he just slept around a lot. 🤣 As if artists represent the greatest morals in society.
I feel like many folks are kind of missing the point of this scene. Yes, she's right, but she's so needlessly condescending and cruel in how she makes her argument that she completely alienates the person she's trying to reach. It's a good speech as far as the audience is concerned, but as a piece of pedagogy, it's a disaster. If she'd been a bit kinder and more considerate, she might actually have convinced him to change his mind. Instead, she takes it as an opportunity to demean the music that he likes and to humiliate him in front of his peers. And don't get me wrong; it's entertaining. She's a great performer ... and a terrible teacher, because she's so narcissistic she can't engage with anyone's needs but her own.
@@rruusseell9948 Being able to take multiple angles and ideas from a film should ban this person from talking about films? Lol k. Regardless of what point was trying to be made, if that’s how this person saw it, that’s how they saw it. Refrain from telling people what they can and can’t talk about online…..oh wait….see what I did there?
@@travisvanalst4698 The experience of art is deeply varied, but it's ignorant to say that Todd Field's message should take a back seat to a person's subjective understanding of the film. The movie is a direct swipe at narcissism and hubris. The desire and drive to try and defend a person like Lydia Tar in a crude and simple way is exactly what Todd Field was critiquing.
I didn’t watch the movie. I guess Cate Blanchett’s character is the antagonist and that’s how Hollywood morons see “bad guys”. They’re sober-minded conservatives. But the funny thing is, everyone who sees this clip in isolation sees Blanchett’s character as the “good guy”, the protagonist. You know why? Because people know “social justice” is an evil ironic euphemism.
I find it interesting that the ones who most closely identify with Lydia are the ones who seem “so eager to be offended.” The student is obviously wrong, and the writer is not stupid enough to believe he was making him right. But in praising Lydia, they are literally praising an abusive malignant narcissist publicly humiliating a student. It’s like he wrote a game of “spot the fascist” into the script.
Sorry Jarvis but I watched the entire film in the movie is not pro cancel culture. In fact the film is about her own personal ego and how she controls others. If you watch the movie the movie does not land on either side of the argument in any meat fashion. In fact when this conversation comes up later it’s heavily edited as an attack piece To ruin her career. Every point she makes in this conversation and in the missing part of the conversation is completely rational.
@@CommonSwindler Yet one is entitled to their own opinions, so long as they don’t try to enforce them through force or threat of force. I don’t need to agree with or defend them, since people are also entitled to make their own mistakes…and either learn from them or let them define who they are. So if someone, let’s say a grown man like Max, wished to go on being indignant and belligerent whenever their beliefs are challenged then far be it from me to save them from their own stubbornness.
@@AntonNight Not for a moment do I think Lydia, herself almost psychopathic, didn’t err in forcing her argument down his throat, but I’m reminded of Disraeli’s old adage-“Always leave an argument one is losing”. This Max did; in many ways this itself is a reflection: the vast, VAST majority of people simply don’t know what their talking about and cling on to narratives that comfort them, and further provide them an excuse simply not to actually know. Witness the tired and lazy line about Bach being objectively unrelatable. Yet as a jazz musician, I’ll bet Max interacts with the counterpoint and continuo section which are direct descendants of Bach’s craft. But these things simply don’t appear on his radar, because he just doesn’t know. Far easier for the people who his character represents to dismiss the difficult in favor of the simplistic. (Just as aside, in what world was JS Bach immoral for being fecund? Just bonkers.) As a classical musician myself, and having endured the painful rigors that often accompany a classical training ie a forceful teacher/mentor, I can say without a doubt that one is the weaker for not sticking around for the battle. It’s about the apprenticeship. This is the reality, sink or swim.
@@CommonSwindler I don’t disagree with anything you just said. Nor do I defend his behaviour, nor that of the people his characterization is meant to symbolize; on the contrary…I’d rather their own behaviour saw them either sink or learn to swim. All I meant by my initial point is that him resorting to insulting her (however arrogant she may have been in the way she went about it) and walking out is what made me lose any respect for his argument. Because if you can’t stand by your argument at a position of disadvantage, why should anyone listen to it to begin with?
@@AntonNight I find it interesting that you make this distinction. The reason why nobody can defend woke ideology is because it is intellectually, and often scientifically, indefensible. When confronted with logic and the turning of tables to use the same rhetoric back on the believer, woke people ALWAYS hurl insults and run away. There is nothing special about having an opinion. Yes, everyone is entitled to one, but that doesn't mean there is no such thing as a wrong or bad opinion. In fact, there are far more wrong and bad ones than right and good. It through the act of attacking and defending beliefs and opinions that we reveal them for what they are and expose their virtues or their lack of merit. And the whole point of the movie is that identity politics are stupid, because even a lesbian becomes a tyrant when she has POWER. Power is everything, and that's why the woke are so eager to paint themselves as disenfranchised and victims, because then they deserve your sympathy and your charity; they become untouchable to your criticisms lest you be labeled as an -ist or a -phobe; and lastly, as a victim they are now justified in attacking you based on their own racism, sexism, etc. such as reducing a genius such as Bach to a "cisgender heterosexual white man". To be able to shit on Bach when you have accomplished nothing even close to his greatness requires a massive amount of power, and the woke gain this through labeling. But put Max in a position of power and watch him become every bit the immoral person that Tár is.
The entire conversation went over my head. When he called her a Bitch and walked out I was like OH she must have said something offensive. Had to rewatch. I was wondering why he kept shaking his leg. I thought he was just nervous to be in Her presence.
The architect of so much of film and television is social media. Every other TV show I see moments or characters where you know it wasn’t to tell a great story, it was because they know it’d get a lot of shares in TikTok or twitter and such.
It's interesting that she calls Max and people like him "robots" throughout the film, but she herself is a robot as shown by what she describes just a second later when she says you have to give up your identity to serve the composer's vision. The architect of Max's soul might be social media but she has chosen an architect of her own soul, and it's something that just doesn't resonate with the masses in the way that it used to.
Every single point she makes here is absolutely correct, but that doesn't make her conservative, nor does it make this scene or this movie pro-conservative in its messaging. What conservatives fail to understand is that it's actually very possible to criticize this kind of mentality from a left-wing perspective. In fact, Max's mindset and the mindset of people like him (i.e., "woke" people) is really no different from reactionary conservatives who judge peoples' value on superficial characteristics like skin color or gender or ethnicity. It's the same behavior, just aimed at a different target. True leftism is about rejecting that mindset altogether. Tár is right here not because she's "taking the left down a peg", but because her viewpoint is more nuanced and reasonable, traits that are far more in line with progressive attitudes than reactionary ones. Just because some reactionary people vote blue doesn't make them a leftist-it just makes them a blue reactionary. And the common feature of both conservative and "woke" reactionaries is that they engage in thought-terminating cliche's to not have to engage with difficult questions or appreciate the works of groups of people they don't like. It's childish mentality on both sides, but it is NOT a leftist mentality. In short, anyone who claims Tár as a champion of conservative anti-woke culture is deluding themselves into thinking they aren't exactly the same or worse as Max is.
Yes the movie is far more objective and nuanced in its commentary than this scene would have you believe. That's kind of why this is both my favorite and least favorite scene in the movie.
What liberals fail to understand is that they can be just as totalitarian as anyone on the right (left wing heroes like Mao and Stalin are good examples of left wing fascism), and the left are the ones that invented this woke bullshit, not the right. Now many lefties are calling anyone who uses the word "woke" as racist, which is hilarious, considering the left coined it and has been yelling it at everyone for years.
I don’t disagree with you take here, but I think it misses the larger point. This isn’t a movie about “cancel culture.” It’s about power, and how it is obtained and used (and abused). Here, Lydia (Linda) is exposing the mechanism of power and simultaneously telling on herself. She says that you must sublimate yourself to the will of the composer, but she says that as a person with a carefully crafted public image (edits her own Wikipedia page, etc.). She decries ratings sheets being based on non-musical influences, but she carefully manages herself and those around her to ensure that she gets the ratings she wants. While I absolutely agree that she is correct about identity politics, social media, etc., it must be viewed in context of her position of power. Bach is like Tradition with a capital T. She has used both honest and dishonest means to obtain a position of great power within that tradition, and now she pulls the ladder up behind her (opening her fellowship for women to all applicants) and attempts to keep her students from straying too far from that Tradition (which is the only context where she really has power. She also abuses her power by bulldozing and belittling a student who doesn’t toe the line. So, yeah, the student is narrow-minded, but that doesn’t make her right. And she is a deeply flawed character, but that doesn’t make her wrong. It’s very nuanced.
"it is NOT a leftist mentality" huge THANK YOU for saying this! I've gotten frustrated feeling like I was politically homeless recently, cause too many people on the internet who are critical of the left are not nearly as critical about the populism happening on the right. Liberalism is not a conservative ideal, and in my reading of the situation true "conservatism" is hard to find anymore. But we can all agree that wokeness and it's ideology is stupid. I just wish we would stop calling everything 'woke'.
Tar makes the stronger moral argument, but she also refuses to respect his choices. If we cannot respect what people tell us about their own beliefs and values, then we live in a landscape of micro tyrannies. For example, we honour others religious convictions, traditional practices, or choice of partners, not because we fundamentally approve or disapprove, but out of indivisible respect for the moral qualities we all possess, that which makes us human: the freedom of choice. Making judgements, the obligation to be responsible for our choices, and the freedom to fail. Take that away from someone, and you are actually obliterating yourself.
I love how she decimated Max in this scene. She's absolutely right. What the heck is Max going to do when he has to conduct an orchestra playing the Bach Fugue in G minor? "I can't conduct this piece because Bach was a womanizer?" Grow up Gen Z and get over yourself! It was the 17th Century!
maybe there are better things to conduct than the orchestral arrangement of Bach's fugue in g? feel like it's been a while since I've even seen something like that programmed...
@@TheHairyKnee Okay, then Brandenburg Concertos or the The Four Orchestral Suites.I was a professional ballerina, and Baryshinkov was the greatest male dancer of his generation, to this day, even. He was a huge womanizer. I never let that get in the way of observing his massive talent.
I feel like the “it was the 17th century” thing is relevant to the movie. In the initial interview Lydia (Linda) says that she controls the time. She even says she can stop time. But she can’t. Time marches on and society changes, with or without you. The film specifically mentions Levine and Dutoit as examples of terrible behavior by conductors, and their behavior was evidently something of an open secret. I have many of their records, and will not stop listening to them, but their respective organizations were justified in cutting ties with them. On the issue of Bach, I don’t know what the fuss was about because I’m not aware of anything horrific about him. He had many children, but was, as far as I know, a kind father and not a bad person. It’s understandable that a person like the student in this scene has difficulty relating to a person who was so different, and only sees misogyny and patriarchy in the old dead white guys, but that’s the nuance here. Lydia isn’t wrong, she just fails as a teacher because she uses her authority to humiliate the student. She fails to do what she was trying to tell the student to do.
@@ericdaniel323 this is a very well stated and thoughtful response. I agree with most of it. She probably could have done it in a kinder tone, perhaps with some humor, albeit her character is pretty devoid of that. But for myself, as a professional ballerina in New York in the 80's, I've had way more severe training and scolding. We all did. And we never viewed it as a negative. If you weren't getting 'schooled' regardless of tone or delivery, or in this case, Lydia's intent to humiliate him, us dancers took it without batting an eyelash, because it was a good thing. It meant you were worth their time. I think in this case the student needed a bit of humiliation. He was so arrogant and entitled in his disgust of Bach's personal life without being able to separate that and his brilliance as a composer. Gen Z has been way too molly coddled. And the interesting thing to me, (as a first year Gen Xer), we're the ones whose raising them....
@Santa Claus exactly! Look at video he compiled and edited to make it look like she physically assaulted him. As a professional ex-ballerina, we used to get hit with a cane...😂
I feel you're not really getting the main point of this scene, not trying to be rude, just saying that this mans "wokeness" isnt being obliterated by tar, both are right, but what is so interesting and necessary about this scene is for tar herself. A building up on her egotistic, pretentious character. She trys to explain to this student about separation of the art from the artist, which is a very , truly non woke thing to say. Lydia wasnt being pro conservative, but her way of saying this was cruel and seemed she was doing this only for herself, because in short, separating the art from the artist comes down to herself as well, as later in the film, she is a terrible person. Excusing herself for her acts like this, but wait! shes an amazing composer! I hope you understand what im saying and im not trying to come off as rude i just see a lot of people see this movie about a take on cancel culture or wokeness and blah blah.
@@deerorcinusorca 1. Nothing Max says is right. He's an idiot. 2. Her being cruel is exactly what he deserves, and perhaps needs. He didn't even see his own hypocrisy, and he wasn't about to. His response is also typical of a woketard, rather than make any actual valid argument or defense he just hurls an insult and runs away. If I had a dollar for every time that's happened when I make a point to a woke person. 3. The movie absolutely is a destruction of woke ideology. Throughout the film, great men in history are mentioned and always someone makes a jab at character assassinating them based on some aspect of their personal life. But Tár's mentor points out that the personal life has no relevance to their talent and skill. But then we contrast this with Tár herself: She's a woman and a lesbian, yet here she is being an awful person. WHY? Aren't these things she does supposed to be the awfulness of MEN? Of masculinity itself? No, they are the things that happen when someone has POWER. In this, we see that all the identity politics are bullshit, because humans gonna be humans. The woke think they are morally superior, but give them power and they will be just as bad, if not far worse, than those they criticized and demonized.
@@deerorcinusorca well it is about alt left, wokeness. She is bad but a good point cant go away. He doesnt like the artist because he is white, male and straight. All about looks the left love. He was saying what a sexist and racist would say. Just reverse the looks now. Artist is black, he is white. He would be called hateful for not liking a black person. 🤯 People now are about what the artist looks like and not his personality and art. He said something hateful. Yes, if he doesnt like the music or artist, is his opinion. He said about looks and she corrects him and he blasted off. He knew or just didnt want to here the fact. 👍
Although yes, the basic premise of what she's saying makes the most sense, she's being unnecessarily cruel. And although Max does have a point in saying Bach wasn't a good person, Tar's point is that no one is saying he is, and that you should be able to separate the music from the artist. Although she's doing this from a self-serving position, as she isn't a good person herself, the point still stands. Regardless of the kid of person he was, Bach has been dead for centuries. Playing his music doesn't benefit him at all. Both are a bit wrong in this situation and both are a bit right.
The mindset of the Wokists is a mirror image of the far right. (what ever you want to call them, MAGA, KKK, fascist etc). They have a lot in common, they judge exclusively by identity, they think they know everything and believe anyone who opposes them must be in the other ideological camp. If you really examine them all, all extremists (Wokists, MAGA, Islamists, Communists, Fascists, Nazis etc etc) have a lot in common. They all have a dialectic approach to the world. They view themselves as the ONLY bearers of knowledge and wisdom in the world and all that oppose them are enemies to be silenced.
I have to disagree with the many fawning comments here. I thought her acting was cringingly pretentious, like Acting 101. And his leg shaking looked phony, forced, and distracting. It all seemed like they were throwing script lines at each other, rather than actually INTERACTING-and for that I fault the director. I did not like this movie.
Interesting how the comments section seems to be nothing but people criticizing her tone, and how she delivered her message as opposed to the message itself. You know why? It's because her message is pure truth. I for one am completely tired of being told all my accomplishments boil down to the fact that I am a straight white man. It completely disregards the hard work I put in, sacrifices I had to make, and good decisions I made.
The main problem I have with this scene is _how_ it's written. The dialogue is incredibly pretentious and ornate. Humans don't talk like this. People don't burst into rehearsed-sounding soliloquies with flowery language, coming up with one clever one-liner after another on the fly. It hurts the immersion of the film.
Yeah, right? It's almost like the whole narrative about Hollywood being openly hostile to anything that criticizes left-wing social ideology is a bogus right-wing fabrication designed to make them look more totalitarian than they actually are. Not like you'd ever see that kind of behavior from conservatives, after all. I mean, as long as you ignore the whole "don't say gay" stuff, threatening to punish school teachers with felony charges just for stocking vaguely objectionable material in their books, and openly trying to silence medical professionals who try to inform the public about vaccines and diseases. But yeah, no, Hollywood is the real authoritarian presence in our society.
@@derekdirk3829 The movie absolutely takes a side. Tár is unambiguously cast as the bad guy by the end of the movie. She is portrayed as an egotistical, manipulative, cruel, selfish, obsessive, and deceitful woman who gets what she deserves for using people and ruining their lives. The movie might be geared to make us empathize with her, but empathizing with a bad person isn't the same as "taking their side." We can feel bad for her, but at the end of the day, the movie is VERY clear that everything happening to her is the result of HER actions and hers alone, and she shouldn't be let off the hook for what she's done. Only conservatives who are notoriously terrible at any form of media criticism would look at a deeply layered story like this and only walk away with "durr, yep, cancel culture's bad, mm-hmm!"
@@derekdirk3829 There's so many strawmen in this comment that I think I can see a flock of crows coming to perch on it. First of all, I never said once that Tár was a Republican, you just made that up. Obviously, Tár is supposed to be a liberal (because again, conservatives are very rarely able to hack it in any artistic industry like music). But the movie doesn't condemn her for her political leanings, it condemns her for her actions. If you'd paid literally ANY attention to the movie besides this scene, you would know how Tár constantly uses people, throws them away, and schemes behind her colleagues' backs in order to position herself more desirably for her career. All the events of the story were set in motion because she decided to groom a young woman into a relationship, and then destroyed her chance at a career by pretending to email letters of recommendation which were actually damning letters accusing her of being dangerously insane. She cheats on her wife with other young women half her age, and, oh yeah, let's not forget the fact that she literally threatens a CHILD to her face! But of course, only a conservative could look at someone like that and think of them as a good person. Instead of blowing hot air out of your ass, how about you go back and watch the film again and see if you might possibly come out of it with something a bit more sophisticated than "durr-hurr, get woke go broke!"
@@tristenallen3076 yeah she is a bad person. It’s a bit reductive to just say she’s “bad” when in reality her character is manipulative, condescending, selfish and egotistical throughout the movie so it is more complex than just bad It doesnt mean she’s wrong in that scene though, and it is reflective of herself (an artist that doesnt want her persona to interfere with her work and legacy, that would rather be remembered for what she’s created rather than what she is: a monster)
The brilliance of this scene is that Lydia is being hypocritical and self-serving here. She wants people to separate the art from the artist because she herself is a monster in her personal life and doesn't want her career and legacy to be affected by her behavior. Both characters are partially right and wrong here, and Todd Field doesn't pass judgment on either of them, allowing the audience to project their own beliefs onto their arguments.
THANK YOU FOR THIS.
This might be the best take on this scene I’ve seen.
How is that hypocritical? And how does that make her any less correct and make him any more correct?
You got it wrong. The mindless, snot nose kid is the worm here. She's dead-on with the line " it seems the architect of your soul is social media!" Generations will look back on this time and it's youth culture as pitiful weaklings.
The young man is wrong. Pitifully wrong.
The architect of your soul is social media...
Lydia is not a good person at all, but she is completely correct in this scene. "The architect of your soul appears to be social media" is a fantastic line.
Do you hear yourself saying “The rest of the movie makes it clear that she is the bad person but in this one scene she is so correct!” You’re letting your biases dictate your media literacy. She is very obviously in the wrong during this scene too.
@@liefnielson she’s wrong in how she abuses her power to humiliate the student infront of the whole class but what she is saying is right.
@@liefnielson explain why she is wrong in this scene, she’s an asshole in this scene but the guy couldn’t even defend what he was saying lol
@@liefnielson how is she in the wrong? She pointed out his small mindedness. and then made an example of him with said small mindedness. A harsh lesson, but a lesson all you little shit heads need to learn.
@@bruins94laurent85 imagine you are student and your substitute comes and is possibly one of the most important professionals in your field and uses your class to pompously shit on you for not wanting to engage with an artist on your own accord…. That’s just silly. That’s like acting Ben Shapiro is smart cause he can ruthlessly rip some naive teenager during a Q&A. We all can do that to youngsters that just start out in our field. That’s no achievement and I can promise you, they wouldn’t be able to defend themselves just like that kid in the movie.
Cate Blanchett is gold. What a talent. It's a great time to be into film with her and people talented like her around.
As a gay man who completely agrees with the character Lydia here, her delivery of this scene is incredible. Not to mention, BACH is my companion during my time gardening and his genius is absolutely cemented in history.
You wanna dance the mask, you must service the composer.
This scene is so good. The problem she is eloquently pointing out here, in my opinion is also, that the young fellow's strategy is strengthening exactly those powers that he is pretending to fight against. As we can currently see in quite a number of countries. I saw TÁR a second time yesterday. This movie is brillant. This scene is so good.
As a progressive who went to a very liberal school, I can say I’ve met so many people like him. Instead of defending their own viewpoints, they shut down anyone who challenges them - even if you’re on their side.
Sadly that is the way of a lot of companies groups and individuals nowadays - especially in the LGBT+ scene. You are not allowed to question anything, you’re not allowed to have a debate or a discussion, or else you get kicked out. That’s why I can’t stand the ultra progressive woke movement anymore because they exclude people on the guise of being “inclusive”.
Then, the fact that they shut down any people's attempts to make them see other horizons and perspectives will only make them look not only as intelorant, but very radical with their own ideas, which will only make them look stuck in their own bubble. And such types shouldn't be socialized with, and further ostracisation from them is required to make them look for their own behavior as a consequence of their own undoings.
Max didn’t even have a good reason for not liking Bach.
He wasn’t an evil man, he just slept around a lot. 🤣
As if artists represent the greatest morals in society.
I know right. He said its because of his sex, color and who he looks.
He said that stuff just like a racist and sexist.
Crazy 🤯
I feel like many folks are kind of missing the point of this scene. Yes, she's right, but she's so needlessly condescending and cruel in how she makes her argument that she completely alienates the person she's trying to reach. It's a good speech as far as the audience is concerned, but as a piece of pedagogy, it's a disaster. If she'd been a bit kinder and more considerate, she might actually have convinced him to change his mind. Instead, she takes it as an opportunity to demean the music that he likes and to humiliate him in front of his peers. And don't get me wrong; it's entertaining. She's a great performer ... and a terrible teacher, because she's so narcissistic she can't engage with anyone's needs but her own.
spot on. She's a terrible fucking teacher and essentially just stroking her own ego.
She told him exactly what he needed to hear.
@@pdallis If you left the movie thinking you're supposed to root for her, you probably should avoid talking about films online.
@@rruusseell9948 Being able to take multiple angles and ideas from a film should ban this person from talking about films? Lol k. Regardless of what point was trying to be made, if that’s how this person saw it, that’s how they saw it. Refrain from telling people what they can and can’t talk about online…..oh wait….see what I did there?
@@travisvanalst4698 The experience of art is deeply varied, but it's ignorant to say that Todd Field's message should take a back seat to a person's subjective understanding of the film. The movie is a direct swipe at narcissism and hubris. The desire and drive to try and defend a person like Lydia Tar in a crude and simple way is exactly what Todd Field was critiquing.
It's easy to see, based on these comments, who didn't watch the movie.
I didn’t watch the movie. I guess Cate Blanchett’s character is the antagonist and that’s how Hollywood morons see “bad guys”. They’re sober-minded conservatives. But the funny thing is, everyone who sees this clip in isolation sees Blanchett’s character as the “good guy”, the protagonist. You know why? Because people know “social justice” is an evil ironic euphemism.
I find it interesting that the ones who most closely identify with Lydia are the ones who seem “so eager to be offended.” The student is obviously wrong, and the writer is not stupid enough to believe he was making him right. But in praising Lydia, they are literally praising an abusive malignant narcissist publicly humiliating a student. It’s like he wrote a game of “spot the fascist” into the script.
@Santa Claus no one is on the side of the student. You are badly missing the point of this scene.
Sorry Jarvis but I watched the entire film in the movie is not pro cancel culture. In fact the film is about her own personal ego and how she controls others. If you watch the movie the movie does not land on either side of the argument in any meat fashion. In fact when this conversation comes up later it’s heavily edited as an attack piece To ruin her career. Every point she makes in this conversation and in the missing part of the conversation is completely rational.
@@ericdaniel323 It’s not that deep bro, people just find libs cringe and enjoy seeing the worst of that ideology mocked regardless of context
The REAL Galadriel!
I haven't even seen this movie yet, but I love this scene!
I don’t dislike the character of Max for his beliefs, but I do dislike him for his unwillingness to defend or debate them.
Yet his “beliefs” are inseparable from his unwillingness to debate.
@@CommonSwindler Yet one is entitled to their own opinions, so long as they don’t try to enforce them through force or threat of force. I don’t need to agree with or defend them, since people are also entitled to make their own mistakes…and either learn from them or let them define who they are. So if someone, let’s say a grown man like Max, wished to go on being indignant and belligerent whenever their beliefs are challenged then far be it from me to save them from their own stubbornness.
@@AntonNight Not for a moment do I think Lydia, herself almost psychopathic, didn’t err in forcing her argument down his throat, but I’m reminded of Disraeli’s old adage-“Always leave an argument one is losing”. This Max did; in many ways this itself is a reflection: the vast, VAST majority of people simply don’t know what their talking about and cling on to narratives that comfort them, and further provide them an excuse simply not to actually know. Witness the tired and lazy line about Bach being objectively unrelatable. Yet as a jazz musician, I’ll bet Max interacts with the counterpoint and continuo section which are direct descendants of Bach’s craft. But these things simply don’t appear on his radar, because he just doesn’t know. Far easier for the people who his character represents to dismiss the difficult in favor of the simplistic. (Just as aside, in what world was JS Bach immoral for being fecund? Just bonkers.) As a classical musician myself, and having endured the painful rigors that often accompany a classical training ie a forceful teacher/mentor, I can say without a doubt that one is the weaker for not sticking around for the battle. It’s about the apprenticeship. This is the reality, sink or swim.
@@CommonSwindler I don’t disagree with anything you just said. Nor do I defend his behaviour, nor that of the people his characterization is meant to symbolize; on the contrary…I’d rather their own behaviour saw them either sink or learn to swim.
All I meant by my initial point is that him resorting to insulting her (however arrogant she may have been in the way she went about it) and walking out is what made me lose any respect for his argument.
Because if you can’t stand by your argument at a position of disadvantage, why should anyone listen to it to begin with?
@@AntonNight I find it interesting that you make this distinction. The reason why nobody can defend woke ideology is because it is intellectually, and often scientifically, indefensible. When confronted with logic and the turning of tables to use the same rhetoric back on the believer, woke people ALWAYS hurl insults and run away.
There is nothing special about having an opinion. Yes, everyone is entitled to one, but that doesn't mean there is no such thing as a wrong or bad opinion. In fact, there are far more wrong and bad ones than right and good. It through the act of attacking and defending beliefs and opinions that we reveal them for what they are and expose their virtues or their lack of merit. And the whole point of the movie is that identity politics are stupid, because even a lesbian becomes a tyrant when she has POWER. Power is everything, and that's why the woke are so eager to paint themselves as disenfranchised and victims, because then they deserve your sympathy and your charity; they become untouchable to your criticisms lest you be labeled as an -ist or a -phobe; and lastly, as a victim they are now justified in attacking you based on their own racism, sexism, etc. such as reducing a genius such as Bach to a "cisgender heterosexual white man". To be able to shit on Bach when you have accomplished nothing even close to his greatness requires a massive amount of power, and the woke gain this through labeling. But put Max in a position of power and watch him become every bit the immoral person that Tár is.
The entire conversation went over my head. When he called her a Bitch and walked out I was like OH she must have said something offensive. Had to rewatch. I was wondering why he kept shaking his leg. I thought he was just nervous to be in Her presence.
Glad I'm not the only one. I would've just been like "Okay! I get it! It was a stupid thing to think and say. Chill! Damn!"
In the end she really did stand in front of the public and god and obliterated herself. 💀
The architect of so much of film and television is social media.
Every other TV show I see moments or characters where you know it wasn’t to tell a great story, it was because they know it’d get a lot of shares in TikTok or twitter and such.
This whole scene is so brilliant
It's interesting that she calls Max and people like him "robots" throughout the film, but she herself is a robot as shown by what she describes just a second later when she says you have to give up your identity to serve the composer's vision. The architect of Max's soul might be social media but she has chosen an architect of her own soul, and it's something that just doesn't resonate with the masses in the way that it used to.
Every single point she makes here is absolutely correct, but that doesn't make her conservative, nor does it make this scene or this movie pro-conservative in its messaging.
What conservatives fail to understand is that it's actually very possible to criticize this kind of mentality from a left-wing perspective. In fact, Max's mindset and the mindset of people like him (i.e., "woke" people) is really no different from reactionary conservatives who judge peoples' value on superficial characteristics like skin color or gender or ethnicity. It's the same behavior, just aimed at a different target. True leftism is about rejecting that mindset altogether. Tár is right here not because she's "taking the left down a peg", but because her viewpoint is more nuanced and reasonable, traits that are far more in line with progressive attitudes than reactionary ones. Just because some reactionary people vote blue doesn't make them a leftist-it just makes them a blue reactionary. And the common feature of both conservative and "woke" reactionaries is that they engage in thought-terminating cliche's to not have to engage with difficult questions or appreciate the works of groups of people they don't like. It's childish mentality on both sides, but it is NOT a leftist mentality.
In short, anyone who claims Tár as a champion of conservative anti-woke culture is deluding themselves into thinking they aren't exactly the same or worse as Max is.
Yes the movie is far more objective and nuanced in its commentary than this scene would have you believe. That's kind of why this is both my favorite and least favorite scene in the movie.
What liberals fail to understand is that they can be just as totalitarian as anyone on the right (left wing heroes like Mao and Stalin are good examples of left wing fascism), and the left are the ones that invented this woke bullshit, not the right. Now many lefties are calling anyone who uses the word "woke" as racist, which is hilarious, considering the left coined it and has been yelling it at everyone for years.
I don’t disagree with you take here, but I think it misses the larger point. This isn’t a movie about “cancel culture.” It’s about power, and how it is obtained and used (and abused).
Here, Lydia (Linda) is exposing the mechanism of power and simultaneously telling on herself. She says that you must sublimate yourself to the will of the composer, but she says that as a person with a carefully crafted public image (edits her own Wikipedia page, etc.). She decries ratings sheets being based on non-musical influences, but she carefully manages herself and those around her to ensure that she gets the ratings she wants.
While I absolutely agree that she is correct about identity politics, social media, etc., it must be viewed in context of her position of power. Bach is like Tradition with a capital T. She has used both honest and dishonest means to obtain a position of great power within that tradition, and now she pulls the ladder up behind her (opening her fellowship for women to all applicants) and attempts to keep her students from straying too far from that Tradition (which is the only context where she really has power. She also abuses her power by bulldozing and belittling a student who doesn’t toe the line.
So, yeah, the student is narrow-minded, but that doesn’t make her right. And she is a deeply flawed character, but that doesn’t make her wrong. It’s very nuanced.
@@ericdaniel323 This a fantastic reading of the scene.
"it is NOT a leftist mentality" huge THANK YOU for saying this! I've gotten frustrated feeling like I was politically homeless recently, cause too many people on the internet who are critical of the left are not nearly as critical about the populism happening on the right. Liberalism is not a conservative ideal, and in my reading of the situation true "conservatism" is hard to find anymore.
But we can all agree that wokeness and it's ideology is stupid. I just wish we would stop calling everything 'woke'.
Man his leg wouldn't stop fucking moving
Why the hell am I just now hearing about this film?
He didn’t have a leg to stand on
Considering one of them was twitching the entire time, I’m inclined to agree lol
Tar makes the stronger moral argument, but she also refuses to respect his choices. If we cannot respect what people tell us about their own beliefs and values, then we live in a landscape of micro tyrannies. For example, we honour others religious convictions, traditional practices, or choice of partners, not because we fundamentally approve or disapprove, but out of indivisible respect for the moral qualities we all possess, that which makes us human: the freedom of choice. Making judgements, the obligation to be responsible for our choices, and the freedom to fail. Take that away from someone, and you are actually obliterating yourself.
I completely agree with Tar.
Oh dear. The filmbros have found their Patrick Bateman.
@@moviemaster8510 quite literally. by the end of the film it’s so clear you’re not supposed to be on her side.
@Derek Dirk
That’s what’s wrong with the world. Who cares what the writer of the film thinks? Critical Race Theory is still wrong. Think for yourself.
@@TonyYuEvangelism what does any of this have to do with CRT? Did you actually watch the movie?
@moviemaster8510 filmbros already have their Patrick Bateman, it's Patrick Bateman himself
Wonder what she would've said on Wagner.
😂😂😂😂
Love this movie!!
I love how she decimated Max in this scene. She's absolutely right. What the heck is Max going to do when he has to conduct an orchestra playing the Bach Fugue in G minor? "I can't conduct this piece because Bach was a womanizer?" Grow up Gen Z and get over yourself! It was the 17th Century!
maybe there are better things to conduct than the orchestral arrangement of Bach's fugue in g? feel like it's been a while since I've even seen something like that programmed...
@@TheHairyKnee Okay, then Brandenburg Concertos or the The Four Orchestral Suites.I was a professional ballerina, and Baryshinkov was the greatest male dancer of his generation, to this day, even. He was a huge womanizer. I never let that get in the way of observing his massive talent.
I feel like the “it was the 17th century” thing is relevant to the movie. In the initial interview Lydia (Linda) says that she controls the time. She even says she can stop time. But she can’t. Time marches on and society changes, with or without you.
The film specifically mentions Levine and Dutoit as examples of terrible behavior by conductors, and their behavior was evidently something of an open secret. I have many of their records, and will not stop listening to them, but their respective organizations were justified in cutting ties with them.
On the issue of Bach, I don’t know what the fuss was about because I’m not aware of anything horrific about him. He had many children, but was, as far as I know, a kind father and not a bad person. It’s understandable that a person like the student in this scene has difficulty relating to a person who was so different, and only sees misogyny and patriarchy in the old dead white guys, but that’s the nuance here. Lydia isn’t wrong, she just fails as a teacher because she uses her authority to humiliate the student. She fails to do what she was trying to tell the student to do.
@@ericdaniel323 this is a very well stated and thoughtful response. I agree with most of it. She probably could have done it in a kinder tone, perhaps with some humor, albeit her character is pretty devoid of that. But for myself, as a professional ballerina in New York in the 80's, I've had way more severe training and scolding. We all did. And we never viewed it as a negative. If you weren't getting 'schooled' regardless of tone or delivery, or in this case, Lydia's intent to humiliate him, us dancers took it without batting an eyelash, because it was a good thing. It meant you were worth their time. I think in this case the student needed a bit of humiliation. He was so arrogant and entitled in his disgust of Bach's personal life without being able to separate that and his brilliance as a composer. Gen Z has been way too molly coddled. And the interesting thing to me, (as a first year Gen Xer), we're the ones whose raising them....
@Santa Claus exactly! Look at video he compiled and edited to make it look like she physically assaulted him. As a professional ex-ballerina, we used to get hit with a cane...😂
I'm not into the movie but I love how this scene left hooks the woke ideology!
This guy would never have made it outside of a college.
Real world's gonna grind him into fodder lol
I feel you're not really getting the main point of this scene, not trying to be rude, just saying that this mans "wokeness" isnt being obliterated by tar, both are right, but what is so interesting and necessary about this scene is for tar herself. A building up on her egotistic, pretentious character. She trys to explain to this student about separation of the art from the artist, which is a very , truly non woke thing to say. Lydia wasnt being pro conservative, but her way of saying this was cruel and seemed she was doing this only for herself, because in short, separating the art from the artist comes down to herself as well, as later in the film, she is a terrible person. Excusing herself for her acts like this, but wait! shes an amazing composer! I hope you understand what im saying and im not trying to come off as rude i just see a lot of people see this movie about a take on cancel culture or wokeness and blah blah.
@@deerorcinusorca 1. Nothing Max says is right. He's an idiot.
2. Her being cruel is exactly what he deserves, and perhaps needs. He didn't even see his own hypocrisy, and he wasn't about to. His response is also typical of a woketard, rather than make any actual valid argument or defense he just hurls an insult and runs away. If I had a dollar for every time that's happened when I make a point to a woke person.
3. The movie absolutely is a destruction of woke ideology. Throughout the film, great men in history are mentioned and always someone makes a jab at character assassinating them based on some aspect of their personal life. But Tár's mentor points out that the personal life has no relevance to their talent and skill. But then we contrast this with Tár herself: She's a woman and a lesbian, yet here she is being an awful person. WHY? Aren't these things she does supposed to be the awfulness of MEN? Of masculinity itself? No, they are the things that happen when someone has POWER. In this, we see that all the identity politics are bullshit, because humans gonna be humans. The woke think they are morally superior, but give them power and they will be just as bad, if not far worse, than those they criticized and demonized.
@@deerorcinusorca cruel? She is being great. Today's students are bitches
@@deerorcinusorca well it is about alt left, wokeness.
She is bad but a good point cant go away.
He doesnt like the artist because he is white, male and straight. All about looks the left love.
He was saying what a sexist and racist would say.
Just reverse the looks now. Artist is black, he is white.
He would be called hateful for not liking a black person. 🤯
People now are about what the artist looks like and not his personality and art.
He said something hateful.
Yes, if he doesnt like the music or artist, is his opinion.
He said about looks and she corrects him and he blasted off.
He knew or just didnt want to here the fact.
👍
Although yes, the basic premise of what she's saying makes the most sense, she's being unnecessarily cruel. And although Max does have a point in saying Bach wasn't a good person, Tar's point is that no one is saying he is, and that you should be able to separate the music from the artist. Although she's doing this from a self-serving position, as she isn't a good person herself, the point still stands. Regardless of the kid of person he was, Bach has been dead for centuries. Playing his music doesn't benefit him at all. Both are a bit wrong in this situation and both are a bit right.
How is Bach not a good person? This kid lke most kids are idiots and ungrateful idiots at that!
No answer cuz you don't got none. Bach was a great person- how bout that dum-dum!
The mindset of the Wokists is a mirror image of the far right. (what ever you want to call them, MAGA, KKK, fascist etc). They have a lot in common, they judge exclusively by identity, they think they know everything and believe anyone who opposes them must be in the other ideological camp.
If you really examine them all, all extremists (Wokists, MAGA, Islamists, Communists, Fascists, Nazis etc etc) have a lot in common. They all have a dialectic approach to the world. They view themselves as the ONLY bearers of knowledge and wisdom in the world and all that oppose them are enemies to be silenced.
I would have expelled the punk kid for the leg thing in the first minute.
So great
Awesome.
These are the words of someone to whom something is sacred.
Brilliant!!!!
Could this one scene eliminate years of brainwashing done by social media? Or will the idiots just ignore it and go back to their echo chambers?
I think they will disregard her stance as they will use the fact she is a villain as an excuse, and then resort to the second option...
I have to disagree with the many fawning comments here. I thought her acting was cringingly pretentious, like Acting 101. And his leg shaking looked phony, forced, and distracting. It all seemed like they were throwing script lines at each other, rather than actually INTERACTING-and for that I fault the director. I did not like this movie.
0:27 Welp let the assholery begin. Or no wait it started earlier than that right?
Interesting how the comments section seems to be nothing but people criticizing her tone, and how she delivered her message as opposed to the message itself. You know why? It's because her message is pure truth. I for one am completely tired of being told all my accomplishments boil down to the fact that I am a straight white man. It completely disregards the hard work I put in, sacrifices I had to make, and good decisions I made.
Hallelujah
The main problem I have with this scene is _how_ it's written. The dialogue is incredibly pretentious and ornate. Humans don't talk like this. People don't burst into rehearsed-sounding soliloquies with flowery language, coming up with one clever one-liner after another on the fly. It hurts the immersion of the film.
This is so stunning a commentary on "woke" political posturing that it's a miracle Hollywood allowed it to be made.
Yeah, right? It's almost like the whole narrative about Hollywood being openly hostile to anything that criticizes left-wing social ideology is a bogus right-wing fabrication designed to make them look more totalitarian than they actually are. Not like you'd ever see that kind of behavior from conservatives, after all. I mean, as long as you ignore the whole "don't say gay" stuff, threatening to punish school teachers with felony charges just for stocking vaguely objectionable material in their books, and openly trying to silence medical professionals who try to inform the public about vaccines and diseases. But yeah, no, Hollywood is the real authoritarian presence in our society.
you missed the entire point of this scene and even the movie then
You clearly didn't watch the rest of the movie...
@@derekdirk3829 The movie absolutely takes a side. Tár is unambiguously cast as the bad guy by the end of the movie. She is portrayed as an egotistical, manipulative, cruel, selfish, obsessive, and deceitful woman who gets what she deserves for using people and ruining their lives. The movie might be geared to make us empathize with her, but empathizing with a bad person isn't the same as "taking their side." We can feel bad for her, but at the end of the day, the movie is VERY clear that everything happening to her is the result of HER actions and hers alone, and she shouldn't be let off the hook for what she's done. Only conservatives who are notoriously terrible at any form of media criticism would look at a deeply layered story like this and only walk away with "durr, yep, cancel culture's bad, mm-hmm!"
@@derekdirk3829 There's so many strawmen in this comment that I think I can see a flock of crows coming to perch on it.
First of all, I never said once that Tár was a Republican, you just made that up. Obviously, Tár is supposed to be a liberal (because again, conservatives are very rarely able to hack it in any artistic industry like music). But the movie doesn't condemn her for her political leanings, it condemns her for her actions. If you'd paid literally ANY attention to the movie besides this scene, you would know how Tár constantly uses people, throws them away, and schemes behind her colleagues' backs in order to position herself more desirably for her career. All the events of the story were set in motion because she decided to groom a young woman into a relationship, and then destroyed her chance at a career by pretending to email letters of recommendation which were actually damning letters accusing her of being dangerously insane. She cheats on her wife with other young women half her age, and, oh yeah, let's not forget the fact that she literally threatens a CHILD to her face! But of course, only a conservative could look at someone like that and think of them as a good person.
Instead of blowing hot air out of your ass, how about you go back and watch the film again and see if you might possibly come out of it with something a bit more sophisticated than "durr-hurr, get woke go broke!"
I think that cancel culture is the answer to Blacklist culture, so I'm into it.
What's funny is he let her talk which is not common for groomed thinkers like him but then he called her a bitch so it balances out
"You bitch" is a painfully weak stand.
Her comment, "The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring conformity" said it all.
Every person here commenting “She is a bad person but she’s so right in this scene!” has zero media literacy and is a moron
how so? Is she not a bad person? Not trying to start a fight, just genuinely confused
@@tristenallen3076 yeah she is a bad person. It’s a bit reductive to just say she’s “bad” when in reality her character is manipulative, condescending, selfish and egotistical throughout the movie so it is more complex than just bad
It doesnt mean she’s wrong in that scene though, and it is reflective of herself (an artist that doesnt want her persona to interfere with her work and legacy, that would rather be remembered for what she’s created rather than what she is: a monster)
he cute
lowkey im not gay yknow
You have poor tastes then. Real men don't act the way he does.
Max is 110% RIGHT! He has the RIGHT of interpretative choice and must be accommodated. Period.