The Partnership: ‘Tár’s Cate Blanchett And Nina Hoss On The Complexity Of The Film’s “Big Questions” & Why This Is Not A Clear #MeToo Story
22.12.2022 - 21:09
/ deadline.com
In Todd Field’s Tár, we meet Lydia Tár, a revered composer-conductor heading up the Berlin Philharmonic, played by Cate Blanchett. Nina Hoss, as Lydia’s wife Sharon, is concertmaster and first chair violin, and together they navigate the politics of their musical life while parenting their daughter Petra. But Lydia, who is at the top of her game, and readying for her career-pinnacle live recording, begins to self-destruct, forming an obsessive attachment to Olga, a young cellist, just as a troubling past entanglement comes to light. The target of criticism from her students and a New York Post article, Lydia’s staff and Olga desert her. Then Sharon takes flight with Petra, and Lydia finally slides into the demise of both her personal and professional life. In conversation with Antonia Blyth, Blanchett and Hoss discuss the absence of objective truth, how change is built on open-hearted discussion, and the emergence of art from the raw, painful edge of experience.
DEADLINE: You first met at a hotel when you were both by chance in Hungary working on separate projects. Did you talk about Tár then?
CATE BLANCHETT: It was just pure chance, wasn’t it? A little bit like the way this project came together. But I sort of felt like we’d already met, but I don’t know that we had. Maybe it’s just because we had so many people in common and so many experiences in common, so it sort of felt fated somehow.
NINA HOSS: Yeah, I had the same feeling, like we knew each other. I must admit, I did have this one moment, I told Cate already, that I thought, “I mean, does she know what I look like?” I had this moment. But then once that was over and we hugged each other, and it felt like we knew each other already. And I must say, that was like