Cate Blanchett’s performance in “Tár” is riveting, playing the EGOT-winning German composer Lydia Tár. The Todd Field film centers around themes of art, lust, obsession and power.
Cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister delivers Field’s vision and Blanchett’s portrayal of a complicated character who falls from grace through long takes and intense close-ups.
Audiences are first introduced to Lydia Tár, classical composer-conductor and superstar, as she sits down for an interview with the New Yorker’s Adam Gopnik. The interview is shown in real-time.
Hoffmeister says the scene was about putting the audience in the room. “After three minutes, you think you’re sitting there watching this event,” he said. He adds that the idea was not to move the camera. “We were just there. We didn’t try to guide the audience in terms of importance by panning. We were just there and it was about finding the right angle.”
Not much later, another long sequence unfolds with Tár teaching at Julliard. Hoffmeister reveals the scene was ten pages in the script. The team had scouted a hall in Berlin that resembled a music university space. It was on seeing that room that Field suggested doing it in one shot.
“It’s her walking around the room, addressing the students, teaching and talking about her passion,” Hoffmeister explains. “But she’s also annoyed by this student and his political attitude towards music.”
The scene is a crucial in setting the tone for the film.
“This is her true being. It fell to me to show the two elements. It was about giving Cate the chance to deliver an amazing performance and modulate the camera,” Hoffmeister shared. “She also becomes alive in that moment, because it’s so important to her; this is about her passion and her making music. From, a visual point of view, we could unleash the camera after having constrained it for so long.”
Hoffmeister spent a day with tests exploring how to move the camera. It culminated in a full rehearsal day with Blanchett, and it was, “indeed shot in one shot.”
However, on the morning of the shoot, things went wrong. “A grip tripped over and the camera fell. It had been this amazing performance. She sits down, she plays the piano – and she plays it for real and the camera drops.”
To further immerse audiences into the film, the cinematographer and Field had conversations revolving around subtleties and making distinctions. Hoffmeister says, “We discussed whether we would do a close rendering of a face or a close-up and get closer to the person and film them. What are those differences?”
Those decisions also led to how he would light the film. Through discussions with Field, Blanchett and his own conclusions, Hoffmeister had a roadmap of “Tár.”
“She has two states of mind. One was about appearances such as what we see at the beginning of the film,” Hoffmeister says. “She’s catering to this narrative of what she thinks she is and what other people think she is.”
The other is the private Tár. “That’s when she is anxious, and the audience can observe some of those feelings where the narrative is unprotected in those moments when she is by herself or with her lover.”
In the orchestra hall, there needed to be a certain brightness so the orchestra could read the sheet music. However, since they shot on location, Hoffmeister found he had constraints. On wide shots, the built-in lighting worked well, but on the close-ups, “it wasn’t so pleasing. So, I went in and very subtly diffused the lights” to achieve that sense of authenticity.
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