Tár (Todd Field, 2022)

[DarkImbecile]

SpoilerShow

...I think the biggest problem with the film is that Field is peripherally recognizing that, as you say, "there's nobody to really call her out on her bullshit" but then plays both sides by kinda-calling her out on it and also not really doing much of anything intervention-wise. I think that's what leads her to come up as "a one-dimensional monster" as you put it, though I don't see her as monstrous at all- just as a character I sympathize with in theory but who I feel is being approached by the filmmaker in an obtuse manner when the film demands fuller measures.

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Is her assistant just as bad as her? Putting up with the bullshit until she gets her call to the big leagues? And then once she is passed over seeks her revenge? Is she just as bad as Tar? Or is the ending really everyone in her life extracting their revenge at the same time? If so, what about her wife? Or the neighbors trying to sell their deceased mother's apartment?

SpoilerShow

I think the film is pretty explicitly refusing to compare "badness" as if on a two-dimensional scale, and Field does do a decent job at detailing how impossible it is to be reductive if we are to be truly objective, even if it (admirably) refuses to take a position on actionable justice's relationship with moral relativity. But that's a good point about the assistant and another semi-strength of the film: in obfuscating intentionality of all other players, since we have no entry way into their minds, Field is placing them on the same playing field as Lydia regarding the question of value in psychological drives (intention, emotional baggage, trauma history, etc.) vs behavioral outcomes that can be measured. The problem comes with his empty gestures after that.. he's kindasorta recognizing that we subjectively assess behavior and that this takes on value, so he's both showing that behavior can be measured by others and also measured differently by ourselves to defend our behavior- but also showing how there's an honesty to our defenses since we only know our own rich histories of trauma, intention, etc. However, Field doesn't seem interested in exploring any of this and it's terrible unclear that he's treating his film as an opportunity to 'show' what he is from a rather myopic position (and, again, not one that emulates Tar's subjectivity, which could work really well- or at least... not until the last act?)

The unraveling of everything towards the end has the potential to function as the perfect narcissistic defense mechanism- an externalization of Tar's psychological erosion in every facet of her environment, and there are plenty of movies that have successfully pulled that off... but Field plays everything so straight and non-delusional while observing delusional behavior, that I just don't think he earns the ability to switch gears from austerity and behaviorist approaches into subjective psychological engulfment. This is a film that wants to have it both ways, and I really want it to work, but it simply doesn't because it refuses to engage too far with any side.

It's not actually clear to me what your frustration is with how perspective is used in the film, to be honest; from my recollection, Tár is the focus of all but a handful of frames, and there are multiple scenes reflecting and illustrating her psychological state long before the last act (though there are more as things progress, appropriately). How would a film that centered her subjective experience of the events to your satisfaction look different than this? Or am I misunderstanding your complaint?

As to Field's supposed lack of interest in exploring how her behavior is evaluated by others and herself, I just disagree with that assertion; he may not be exploring it through your preferred schema or arriving at the conclusions regarding human behavior and its justifications that you prefer, but that's a different issue. In fact, this issue and that of perspective seem pretty inextricably linked: if the motives and goals of Francesca and Olga seem inscrutable and/or menacing, it's because Tár perceives them that way, without consideration on her part of all the other factors you cite. Conveying her paranoia and sense of persecution is Field's primary interest, less so providing a clear indication as to what extent those feelings may or may not be justified. Or maybe I'm misreading you again...

[Drucker]

I think you're right DarkImbecile, and I realize my post probably came off as more critical of the film than I meant it to be. Making the film from Tar's perspective allows for the paranoia you describe, as well as allowing for the inconsistencies I pointed out.

SpoilerShow

Of course she has the first emotionally honest scene with her daughter and perceives that the daughter is 'taken' from her only after her wife described it as the one non-transactional relationship in her life.

I'll definitely have to revisit, as you said.

[DarkImbecile]

To be clear, I get being turned off by the film — it’s not a universal crowd-pleaser, for sure — just interested in understanding people’s problems with it.

[therewillbeblus]

It's not actually clear to me what your frustration is with how perspective is used in the film, to be honest; from my recollection, Tár is the focus of all but a handful of frames, and there are multiple scenes reflecting and illustrating her psychological state long before the last act (though there are more as things progress, appropriately). How would a film that centered her subjective experience of the events to your satisfaction look different than this? Or am I misunderstanding your complaint?

As to Field's supposed lack of interest in exploring how her behavior is evaluated by others and herself, I just disagree with that assertion; he may not be exploring it through your preferred schema or arriving at the conclusions regarding human behavior and its justifications that you prefer, but that's a different issue. In fact, this issue and that of perspective seem pretty inextricably linked: if the motives and goals of Francesca and Olga seem inscrutable and/or menacing, it's because Tár perceives them that way, without consideration on her part of all the other factors you cite. Conveying her paranoia and sense of persecution is Field's primary interest, less so providing a clear indication as to what extent those feelings may or may not be justified. Or maybe I'm misreading you again...

Thanks DarkImbecile, you're not misunderstanding my complaint, but I admit that I'm finding it very difficult to explain it beyond the ways I have (hence why I've continued to return to reiterate the same issues in slightly different ways). I'll respond as best I can, and I hope this makes some sense.

I just don't see the subjectivity of the film to be effectively or intentionally as in sync with Lydia Tar as you do. I see Field attempting to do something incredibly, and admirably challenging: to engage with her subjectivity, but also keep enough distance by which we can judge her actions. However, I don't think he creates or implements an internal logic that holds either in the proximity of our alignment to her, or in the progression the film takes deeper into her psychology (which, I agree, would be appropriate).

Inserts like her daughter in another room curled up in a blanket don't enrich the aims of the film for me: they break the rules of subjectivity just enough to seemingly be dismissing the value of the daughter to focus back on Lydia, or they're acknowledging that this is important only to then choose something more important in Lydia. I did not see it as Lydia's perspective acknowledging her daughter as more important than herself, only to then retreat back into 'self', which would have been extremely effective; but I saw it as Field himself going there divorced from Lydia, only to retreat back onto his subject and then sloppily align/interrupt alignment with her off and on, as he saw fit. I think this is a cast where how one sees Field as connected to or apart from Lydia (i.e. the perspective of the film) determines what are problems vs. successes.

I wanted to have a clearer, or more clearly obfuscating perspective; a commitment from Field to a vision. I don't like to give specific notes on movies, but since you asked "How would a film that centered her subjective experience of the events to your satisfaction look different than this?", I suppose it would be re-engaging in a cycle of broad complaints to be unspecific so I'll try to answer you with one example: In the scene where the camera cut away to the daughter in her own room overhearing the drama, I think something as subtle as including the daughter in the same physical space as Lydia -the camera focusing on her for a moment- could at least commit to that subjectivity. The perspective of the film could be emulating Lydia's glance, attending to her daughter before breaking away again to escape into defensive protection of her psyche. I suppose one could read the shot of the daughter in the other room as Lydia 'thinking' of her before breaking away again to revert into self-protection, but I think Field's position of neutrality doesn't lend itself to seeing the film this way. I've only cited one scene as an example here, but there are many in which I feel like Field is stepping on both sides of the line, and I never got the sense of where I was in relation to Tar, which explains why I'm frustrated with seeing her as two-dimensional. Stepping on both sides of a line would even be fine if it was acknowledged, but I think Field is curiously guarded about what he's doing and when- not that it needs to be spelled out, but I don't think he's devoted to a perspective he's confident in, and I think that shows in how the film becomes diluted rather than richer as it progresses. I completely agree that the issue of perspective and conclusions about human behavior and justifications need to be linked, and my issue is that they don't appear to be. I wanted to see the motives and goals of Francesca and Olga as inscrutable and to lean into the potential of them being menacing, but I didn't think Field was committing to Tar's subjectivity in a way that emphasized this experience.

Anyways, I really appreciate you responding to be with that: My takeaway is that we agree that the film should be doing the same things, but that I failed to see it accomplish what you did. You've at least motivated me to give it another go, so I hope to come back here eventually with a completely different take, as I've done many times before with films that didn't click for me on first visits. It bares repeating that Field is attempting something so difficult here, and I've admired his attempt enough to give this a favorable LB score even if I don't like the movie- it's one of the most interesting failures I've seen in a while, but one that I really hope to appreciate in a different way than that.

[Black Hat]

I don't believe one should ever criticize young people, even more so these days, and the film does a lot of that in the worst angry dad ways possible.

Do you genuinely believe this or are you just afraid of being accused of being “out of touch”?

I have some bad news for you: the “kids” (mostly in this case highly online highly educated upper middle class kids competing for virtue in the new ever more competitive economy for high income high prestige jobs) believe a lot of demonstrably false or insane crap at the moment. Sorry.

It’d be funny to see someone keep up this “don’t criticize the kids” thing while reading about the myriad of atrocities largely perpetuated by “in touch” kids during China’s Cultural Revolution. Of course it turned out they were nothing more than puppets of a much older center of power desperate to hold onto that power but hey: maybe it’s the exception that proves the rule!

This was a good laugh. Yours must be the house the kids love to egg on Halloween, huh? Jesus, I can't imagine being bitter to the point of connecting whatever went down during China's Cultural Revolution to an opinion reacting to a dumb movie.


TWBB - What Fields is trying to do, with his ambiguity, is to have things both ways but, he's not clever, insightful or possessing of enough depth, to pull that off gracefully. If fact, in my opinion, he's so clunky with his presentation, brutish, that it's very clear what side he's on both within the confines of his story and, more broadly, culturally. Thus why it's complete horseshit and his hiding behind this veneer of "complexity" shows a real lack of courage.

On a different note, Jon Caramanica did a very interesting show about this film, mostly from a musical perspective, I'd strongly recommend.

[therewillbeblus]

I largely agree with you Black Hat- I'm not sure I'd go as far with the lucidity of a particular side that he's on, but I do think his actual approach is far enough from where he's trying to be (and not self-conscious of that dissonance) that I find myself arriving at a similar conclusion as you for much of the same reasons

[ford]

I don't believe one should ever criticize young people, even more so these days, and the film does a lot of that in the worst angry dad ways possible.

Do you genuinely believe this or are you just afraid of being accused of being “out of touch”?

I have some bad news for you: the “kids” (mostly in this case highly online highly educated upper middle class kids competing for virtue in the new ever more competitive economy for high income high prestige jobs) believe a lot of demonstrably false or insane crap at the moment. Sorry.

It’d be funny to see someone keep up this “don’t criticize the kids” thing while reading about the myriad of atrocities largely perpetuated by “in touch” kids during China’s Cultural Revolution. Of course it turned out they were nothing more than puppets of a much older center of power desperate to hold onto that power but hey: maybe it’s the exception that proves the rule!

This was a good laugh. Yours must be the house the kids love to egg on Halloween, huh? Jesus, I can't imagine being bitter to the point of connecting whatever went down during China's Cultural Revolution to an opinion reacting to a dumb movie.

More cope: "you must be old! and, uh, a republican!" No, I'm afraid I'm the dreaded overeducated creative class urban millennial berniebro who watched a popular social democratic reckoning against an entrenched oligarchy calling for (much needed) public goods like Medicare for All and Full Employment get turned into oligarch-funded/encouraged culture war about identity and assorted other marginal issues. And, at the same time, watched the partisan divide between the two parties finally dislodge from a class-based one into an education-based one. Not good for democracy let alone social democracy, imho!

Considering the kinds of things that get greenlit, props to Todd Field for tackling this subject/phenomenon.

[soundchaser]

I completely agree that the issue of perspective and conclusions about human behavior and justifications need to be linked, and my issue is that they don't appear to be. I wanted to see the motives and goals of Francesca and Olga as inscrutable and to lean into the potential of them being menacing, but I didn't think Field was committing to Tar's subjectivity in a way that emphasized this experience.

I'm going to leap in here again and say that I don't think we need to be FULLY engaged with Lydia's subjectivity for us to be removed from the motivations of the other characters. Or, at least, for there not to be some pleasant ambiguity around them. Subjective perspective is an important part of what the film is doing, but I think Field is canny rather than non-committal about what he chooses to place in that realm. To sum up (or to avoid specifics): what you see as potentially menacing from a subjective point of view I read as interesting in an unanswerable sense. It's not just that we don't know what they're up to because Lydia doesn't - it's that we don't because to know another human being is impossible. I can see how some read it as a cop-out (or, in Black Hat's case, "brutish"!), but it totally worked for me.

And so even though we're in Lydia's perspective for the entire film, I don't think the questions need to be only hers. For me, she remains a heuristic, and a damn compelling one to look through. I don't agree that it's clear what "side" Field is on, because I don't think the film is working in that register.

[therewillbeblus]

Yeah, I read that as unanswerable as well- which I tried to allude to in my pockets of praise in a longer post above. I really like your point about the questions not needing to be her's if the perspective is, but I just at baseline don't think the perspective is her's, or that I'm looking through her for a bulk of the running time. I should see this again to come down more fairly and give more detailed examples, but there's definitely a fine line between canny/non-committal, and unfortunately I found Lydia less and less compelling over the course of the film, and faulted Field for that in his approach- even while repeatedly seeing the potential in being compelled back to her as she began to 'lose' things and have her protective psyche unravel. I liked the allusions to the Whys in the last act, returning to her childhood home and that interaction with her brother, which explained just enough to grant revealing empathy while having the respect to say less and not overexplain, but it just didn't gel together for me still. And yes, the film is not working on coming down on a rigid side, but there's an argument worth engaging with that the filmmaker makes a sociopolitical film, intentionally or otherwise, by what is shown/omitted, especially when screen time is granted to multiple perspectives/vehicles around topics this provocative. I'm not saying that I rigidly come down on a side there (in fact I'm pretty sure my last post indicated I didn't!) but it's an issue I raised before and one the film kind-of demands we engage with through not just its existence but the specific internal processes implemented to evoke discourse and feelings around the topical content

[Black Hat]

Do you genuinely believe this or are you just afraid of being accused of being “out of touch”?

I have some bad news for you: the “kids” (mostly in this case highly online highly educated upper middle class kids competing for virtue in the new ever more competitive economy for high income high prestige jobs) believe a lot of demonstrably false or insane crap at the moment. Sorry.

It’d be funny to see someone keep up this “don’t criticize the kids” thing while reading about the myriad of atrocities largely perpetuated by “in touch” kids during China’s Cultural Revolution. Of course it turned out they were nothing more than puppets of a much older center of power desperate to hold onto that power but hey: maybe it’s the exception that proves the rule!

This was a good laugh. Yours must be the house the kids love to egg on Halloween, huh? Jesus, I can't imagine being bitter to the point of connecting whatever went down during China's Cultural Revolution to an opinion reacting to a dumb movie.

More cope: "you must be old! and, uh, a republican!" No, I'm afraid I'm the dreaded overeducated creative class urban millennial berniebro who watched a popular social democratic reckoning against an entrenched oligarchy calling for (much needed) public goods like Medicare for All and Full Employment get turned into oligarch-funded/encouraged culture war about identity and assorted other marginal issues. And, at the same time, watched the partisan divide between the two parties finally dislodge from a class-based one into an education-based one. Not good for democracy let alone social democracy, imho!

Considering the kinds of things that get greenlit, props to Todd Field for tackling this subject/phenomenon.

It's interesting that you interpreted being called 'bitter' as code for an old republican before expanding on all the reasons why you are, indeed, bitter. From your perspective, most of which I share, there is every reason to be bitter but, it doesn't add up to much beyond, as you said, "cope", so congrats on that. Being that I find that boring what does interest me is your last line, precisely what, is Field tackling here? Surely, you don't mean to connect that to the political disappointment of the last few years? If so, how?

Soundchaser - I've heard this argument from others but, I don't buy it because the rest of the characters, even her partner, lack complexity. The result of which is first, identifying with Lydia, then admiration before, finally, pity. All of which happens at the expense of any real knowledge of the world around her, the people who inhabit it, and her impact on them. Even then it could still have been interesting but, he went more for cheap thrills. This, while entertaining, in the scope of a movie nearly three hours long was extremely manipulative in giving both himself, and the audience, plausible deniability of the film's utter bullshitting.

[soundchaser]

Soundchaser - I've heard this argument from others but, I don't buy it because the rest of the characters, even her partner, lack complexity. The result of which is first, identifying with Lydia, then admiration before, finally, pity. All of which happens at the expense of any real knowledge of the world around her, the people who inhabit it, and her impact on them. Even then it could still have been interesting but, he went more for cheap thrills. This, while entertaining, in the scope of a movie nearly three hours long was extremely manipulative in giving both himself, and the audience, plausible deniability of the film's utter bullshitting.

I disagree - her partner and Francesca and especially Olga are all complex figures in my mind. I do think the idea of this film being sold on cheap thrills is a fun one, though.

[ford]

This was a good laugh. Yours must be the house the kids love to egg on Halloween, huh? Jesus, I can't imagine being bitter to the point of connecting whatever went down during China's Cultural Revolution to an opinion reacting to a dumb movie.

More cope: "you must be old! and, uh, a republican!" No, I'm afraid I'm the dreaded overeducated creative class urban millennial berniebro who watched a popular social democratic reckoning against an entrenched oligarchy calling for (much needed) public goods like Medicare for All and Full Employment get turned into oligarch-funded/encouraged culture war about identity and assorted other marginal issues. And, at the same time, watched the partisan divide between the two parties finally dislodge from a class-based one into an education-based one. Not good for democracy let alone social democracy, imho!

Considering the kinds of things that get greenlit, props to Todd Field for tackling this subject/phenomenon.

It's interesting that you interpreted being called 'bitter' as code for an old republican before expanding on all the reasons why you are, indeed, bitter.

About the Western Left's transition from being material/social democratic (with a tenuous connection to "working class betterment") to moral policing-and-competition for the affluent? Yes, I am in fact quite bitter about that! As a lover of cinema and literature, it's had a pretty deleterious effect on both, at least in the US.

I'm sorry, I'm legit just staggered by the statement that we should never criticize the passions of "the Youth in Revolt." Those same activist youth had us believe that the great Junot Diaz was a "predator." And has effectively shut him out from public life:

When the investigators returned a few months later, board members were surprised by the findings, four told me. It wasn’t just the investigators were unable to verify the allegations of sexual misconduct. They didn’t identify allegations that board members considered charges of sexual misconduct at all.

Some of these details were clear at the time. What one high-profile accuser had described as “verbal sexual assault” took place at a dinner party whose other guests didn’t experience it that way. Another incident took place at a public event whose audio recording doesn’t sound outside the norm.

Clemmons’ account of an unwelcome kiss was “ the one that stood out, the one that was an actual allegation,” Robinson said. When she spoke to investigators about her experience, she didn’t back off the allegation that she’d been mistreated, the board members said. But she added a detail, three board members told me, which the board has not made public until now.

“As a result of the investigation, we learned that it was a kiss on the cheek,” one of the board members, New York University historian Steven Hahn, said in a telephone interview last week.

That detail was decisive for the board, which issued a statement clearing Díaz.

Robinson said he’s been surprised to find how little that mattered.

“By then there was this irrational mob thing happening, especially on Twitter, that had made up its mind that he was this monster,” he said. “Given the fact that we found no reason for the board to take any action against him, therefore it seems wrong that this would have impacted him and his life and his career to the extent that it still has.”

In the (many) situations like the above with Diaz, count me with Team "Old" against "the Young."

Cancel culture remains an elite-sponsored anti-intellectual force -- born out of our post-2007/8 crash, the erosion of American journalism, the sudden widening of economic inequality and the ominous expansion of social media -- at odds with the arts, the thing we all seem to find pretty important. So I was just surprised to hear a sympathetic voice for the supposed nobility of that fury here.

[DarkImbecile]

Cancel culture remains an elite-sponsored anti-intellectual force

As always, I’d argue you have this exactly backwards — fear-mongering around the excesses of cancel culture remains a largely elite-driven hysteria that is used to protect powerful people from the consequences of their actions (closely tied to the demonization of “wokeism” by the same people). There’s a reason the vast majority of the discussion about cancel culture occurs on Fox News and in The Atlantic and similar outlets, and it’s not because those institutions are anti-elite.

Those same activist youth had us believe that the great Junot Diaz was a "predator." And has effectively shut him out from public life:

That article you’re citing notes that Díaz continues to write for the New York Review of Books, remains on the masthead of Boston Review, has a major publishing house ready to publish his next novel, and literally includes the sentence “Díaz hasn’t been cast out of public life.”

[ford]

Cancel culture remains an elite-sponsored anti-intellectual force

As always, I’d argue you have this exactly backwards — fear-mongering around the excesses of cancel culture remains a largely elite-driven hysteria that is used to protect powerful people from the consequences of their actions (closely tied to the demonization of “wokeism” by the same people). There’s a reason the vast majority of the discussion about cancel culture occurs on Fox News and in The Atlantic and similar outlets, and it’s not because those institutions are anti-elite.

Those same activist youth had us believe that the great Junot Diaz was a "predator." And has effectively shut him out from public life:

That article you’re citing notes that Díaz continues to write for the New York Review of Books, remains on the masthead of Boston Review, has a major publishing house ready to publish his next novel, and literally includes the sentence “Díaz hasn’t been cast out of public life.”

Hmmm...

He hasn’t written a word of fiction in four years, he said.

I guess he's just a mope who should get over it? Kinda seems like his cancellation was effective in that it got a widely-beloved and celebrated writer to...stop writing?

fear-mongering around the excesses of cancel culture remains a largely elite-driven hysteria that is used to protect powerful people from the consequences of their actions

Do the consequences here seem fair to you? What about the endless number of "nobodies" who've lost jobs, careers, income, etc all due to either totally baseless "cancellations" or the vaguest of accusations? For every Weinstein, there's 500 media-or-academic nobodies earning $60k a year who lost their careers and livelihoods to this insanity.

"Consequences"? The words of someone who's never met anyone who's found himself at the other end of the beat-down.

There’s a reason the vast majority of the discussion about cancel culture occurs on Fox News and in The Atlantic and similar outlets, and it’s not because those institutions are anti-elite.

First of all: Fox News=The Atlantic? Are you serious?

Second, what a miserable way to form an opinion on world events. "If Fox News thinks something is bad, it must be good." They harp on it because they look at countless polls and see -- again and again -- that the vast majority of Americans find this alienating. And running on "jeez, this cancel culture is outta hand!" is a lot more popular than Fox News's core political agenda which remains: "I wanna cut your parents Social Security and kick poor people off Medicaid while giving a huge tax cut to the rich."

Imagine some middle American on the fence circa 2002/3 about the proposed war in Iraq. "Well, that feminist liberal lady on TV thinks it's bad, so it must be good." This is why this keeps chugging-on, because liberals are afraid of being "contaminated" by seeming to agree with The Bad People that maybe all this mania is "bad, actually"?

[soundchaser]

What do you think of Bach, DarkImbecile?

[DarkImbecile]

He hasn’t written a word of fiction in four years, he said.

I guess he's just a mope who should get over it? Kinda seems like his cancellation was effective in that it got a widely-beloved and celebrated writer to...stop writing?

I have no idea why he's not writing fiction, though it should be noted that this someone who published exactly one novel and two short story collections since 1996, so it's not as if he's Woody Allen breaking his movie-per-year streak.

What about the endless number of "nobodies" who've lost jobs, careers, income, etc all due to either totally baseless "cancellations" or the vaguest of accusations? For every Weinstein, there's 500 media-or-academic nobodies earning $60k a year who lost their careers and livelihoods to this insanity.

Perhaps I'm just under-informed on this topic, so feel free to share the evidence you have of the thousands of low-level professors and and reporters who are now working retail after being hounded out of their chosen careers.

"Consequences"? The words of someone who's never met anyone who's found himself at the other end of the beat-down.

This is wildly presumptive; if I reversed it and claimed that only someone who has been credibly accused of something heinous would be so defensive on this topic, that would be pretty ridiculous, no?

There’s a reason the vast majority of the discussion about cancel culture occurs on Fox News and in The Atlantic and similar outlets, and it’s not because those institutions are anti-elite.

First of all: Fox News=The Atlantic? Are you serious?

Second, what a miserable way to form an opinion on world events. "If Fox News thinks something is bad, it must be good." They harp on it because they look at countless polls and see -- again and again -- that the vast majority of Americans find this alienating. And running on "jeez, this cancel culture is outta hand!" is a lot more popular than Fox News's core political agenda which remains: "I wanna cut your parents Social Security and kick poor people off Medicaid while giving a huge tax cut to the rich."

Imagine some middle American on the fence circa 2002/3 about the proposed war in Iraq. "Well, that feminist liberal lady on TV thinks it's bad, so it must be good." This is why this keeps chugging-on, because liberals are afraid of being "contaminated" by seeming to agree with The Bad People that maybe all this mania is "bad, actually"?

I think you're mistaking my pointing out the class allegiance of those outlets (more or less open in the case of the magazine and obscured by faux-populism and manufactured anger on behalf of common people in the case of the network) for equating their ideological leanings. And I don't think the supposed scourge of cancel culture is wildly overblown just because it's an obsession of a partisan propaganda outlet, but it's not a bad indicator that there might be at least some bullshitting afoot.

Are there real issues around how to handle accusations of sexual misconduct, racially offensive language, or other behaviors that can land on a scale from criminal to toxic to harmless? Absolutely, and they've been a topic of discussion (and the subject of art) for far, far longer than this particular attempt to define them away as the Maoist tendencies of spoiled youth. Should Junot Díaz be made to feel uncomfortable for his past behavior, or lose some of his professional associations? I don't know, that's a question (and not an easy one) for those who've interacted with him in the past and have to choose whether to associate themselves with him in the future, but I think it's only muddied by by treating it not as its own case involving complicated individuals and limited evidence and instead as part of a trendy conspiracy to afflict famous people with overblown accusations.

[ford]

He hasn’t written a word of fiction in four years, he said.

I guess he's just a mope who should get over it? Kinda seems like his cancellation was effective in that it got a widely-beloved and celebrated writer to...stop writing?

I have no idea why he's not writing fiction, though it should be noted that this someone who published exactly one novel and two short story collections since 1996, so it's not as if he's Woody Allen breaking his movie-per-year streak.

Incredible. You "have no idea" why he's not written a word in four years, even after he's just told you why? So the mob campaign against him (based on lies) is okay because he wasn't prolific?

Perhaps I'm just under-informed on this topic, so feel free to share the evidence you have of the thousands of low-level professors and and reporters who are now working retail after being hounded out of their chosen careers.

...you really think it's just all made up? Without naming my personal friends and acquaintances whose careers have been ruined I can think of the Latino electrician who was cracking his knuckles while driving but kids video'd him and said it was a "white power 'okay' gesture" and was fired. I can think of this guy. Or David Sabatini, one of the world's top cancer researchers who cannot work in a lab now due to extremely suspect claims (but hey: how important can his work really be?). Or James Bennett from the Times. Or Daniel Elder. Or the NYT's Donald McNeil, a science writer cancelled and fired during the pandemic, I might add. Or this YA star. Or Florian Jaeger. Or Stephen Elliott. Or Nancy Spector. Or Gary Garrels. I could do this for another couple hours, but really, is it making a dent for you?

And I don't think the supposed scourge of cancel culture is wildly overblown just because it's an obsession of a partisan propaganda outlet, but it's not a bad indicator that there might be at least some bullshitting afoot.

It's quite simple: it's a moral panic among liberals in the same way the 1980s Satanic panic was largely among conservatives. The reason so many centrists and righties will openly say "this sucks" while liberals stay silent or nod along is because centrists and righties have zero investment in the greater liberal project, which is the source of all this. There are quite a few people left of center who are either hostile to this shit or deeply skeptical but since it's a project emanating from the left, which they identify with, they keep their mouths shut. (Which is why you see so many rightwingers defending JK Rowling, a deeply liberal person. Do we really think liberal moms and dads all deep down in their hearts think she's a "hate-monger" as much of the media claims? Or is in any way controversial?)

but I think it's only muddied by by treating it not as its own case involving complicated individuals and limited evidence and instead as part of a trendy conspiracy to afflict famous people with overblown accusations.

If this affected only famous people, I wouldn't care too much. But it has certainly gotten scores of "normal" people fired, ruined "normal" careers and created a chilling effect in the media, publishing, academia and other similar industries which employ predominantly progressive people. It's bad for democracy, bad for art, and bad for intellectual pursuit.

[furbicide]

Rowling is a Blairite centrist who nowadays wears her transphobia on her sleeve. Whether that makes her a "liberal" I guess depends on how many negative associations you attach to that term, but it's not as if The Atlantic, Quillette, Spiked et al. are defending her from across an ideological gulf. And while I generally share your opposition to "cancel culture" and agree that some people have been unfairly sucked in, what you're describing is quite clearly distinct from the SRA panic because that was pretty much entirely groundless, whereas MeToo is based on the very real societal epidemic of sexual assault and harassment of women in professional industries. The existence of edge cases of the latter being drawn into the discussion is an absolutely inevitable consequence of a clearly necessary movement, and the fact that some of those people should have been treated better hardly invalidates it.

And ironically, Tár, which I recall this exchange began with you defending, is a film that seemingly wouldn't have existed without a curiosity about exploring that grey area, rather than reactionary dismissal of it.

[DarkImbecile]

To connect this to one of my favorite parts of the film we're drifting away from discussing, you keep assigning the responsibility for this scourge of unwarranted firing to moral panic among liberal activists carrying out mob campaigns, but who are the people actually making the investigations and decisions that result in people being fired? A couple of dozen picketers and angry twitterers, or the publishers and editors of the New York Times, boards of museums and non-profits, etc.? In Lydia Tár's case, the elite institutions who benefited from her presence and who were happy to look the other way at her behavior are the same institutions that toss her aside (justified or not) when her presence became inconvenient for their fall fundraising campaigns.

To nitpick some of ford's specific examples: James Bennett was fired because he was so bad at his extremely sensitive public-facing and highly-paid job that he lost the newspaper thousands of subscribers, not because he made an off-color joke at the water cooler or something; meanwhile, Sabatini's case was investigated by an outside law firm that determined he had violated sexual harassment policies, among others — not sure what more due process you might want for him short of a court trial under the circumstances. Also, yes, I think you're overthinking the issues around JK Rowling: the Right defends her because she's an extremely prominent voice helping them undermine the role of trans people in society. She may have her own (wrongheaded) reasons for doing so separate from the exclusionary goals of the Right, but they're absolutely supporting her to further those efforts, not because they give half a shit about free speech or "real" women's rights or something. Finally, it strikes me as telling that you're not merely doubting the sufficiency of the evidentiary basis for some of the specific accusations we're discussing — many of which are highly dependent on perspective and assertions by interested parties — but instead feel very confident proclaiming them lies.

As to the larger question: people have been losing their jobs over sexual misconduct or racist language for decades, and some of those decisions have been questionable... and at the same time (unlike satanic cabals of child-murdering fiends, for example), egregious sexual misconduct and racial discrimination have been anything but vanishingly rare in American society for far longer than people have been held accountable for them. You've dialed back your hyperbolic assertion that there were 500 innocent 'nobodies' cast aside for every Weinstein-style abuser, but I'm actually quite confident that for every unequivocally unfounded accusation that has damaged someone's career that there have in fact been hundreds or more likely thousands of incidents of actual abuse of some sort that has damaged other people's careers, psyches, and bodies more profoundly. I'd gently suggest that perhaps the reason one of those scenarios occupies more space in many people's minds is that they can more readily imagine themselves being unfairly accused than they can being sexually harassed, racially discriminated against, or trapped in a toxic professional environment.

I have many similar questions in this vein, none of which are necessarily directed at ford: Is it worse for art, democracy, and intellectual pursuit that many women and racial and sexual minorities have been abused in and excluded from accessing and adding to those fields for centuries, or that more people are more inclined to investigate and believe accusations of misconduct since 2018? Organizations have long made poor HR decisions and people have always been publicly criticized — why does it suddenly become an era-defining crisis when those bringing complaints are largely women or minorities? Separately, why is a private organization's decision about someone's job so much more worthy of our concern than states passing laws that exclude people from school activities or public service jobs on the basis of their sexuality, gender, or political inclinations?

Anyway, we can keep going back and forth on this but I doubt it's going to result in much shifting of perspectives; oddly enough, I seem to have found myself arguing with someone whose regard for the film's merits (if not the reasons for that regard) is much closer to mine than many of the others in the thread.

ETA: I see furbicide addressed a few of these points while I was putting this together with far more brevity than I managed

[ford]

Regarding the Satanic Panic which you correctly say was entirely based on bullshit, it had heavy overlap with the child abuse moral panic of the 80s culminating in numerous disgraces like the McMartin trial — still the longest running criminal trial in American history — and the recovered memory hucksters who destroyed thousands of families.

Unlike the general satanic panic, many prominent liberals bought into it: Gloria Steinem donated money to help excavate the McMartin grounds as children had described an underground dungeon of torture; of course no such “dungeon” was found. (There were very real structural roots to this moral panic just as there are to ours: the sudden shift in American socioeconomic life in which tens of millions of mothers began to drop their children off in daycares.) That doesn’t mean of course that there’s no such thing as child abuse. There certainly is and it is morally abhorrent.

But it someone were to call McMartin and the many many people accused of absurd “satanic” or other kinds of ritual abuse at that time a national embarrassment which our justice system should guard against to ensure it never happens again (and it certainly led to major changes in police investigation techniques, psychiatric practices and rightfully ended the careers of the recovered memory frauds) would you dismiss that with:

The existence of edge cases of the latter being drawn into the discussion is an absolutely inevitable consequence of a clearly necessary movement, and the fact that some of those people should have been treated better hardly invalidates it.

Personally, I would say: “since this keeps happening our entire way of going about this is probably all wrong and should be changed.”

TAR examines complexity. The gray areas as you say. Saying “edge case so who cares; throw ‘em on the pile and keep the machine a-churning’” is hardly approaching a situation with nuance or complexity. It is in fact the reactionary stance.

[hearthesilence]

For Taubin it's almost certainly the final sequence that is the most racially problematic, but to me that's a very un-generous reading she is taking, especially to the point where she would call it one of the most racist "serious" films she has ever seen. Really, Amy? Because I know you've seen far too many movies for that claim not to come off like hyperbole.

Correct. I don't agree with her take, but I don't want it to be too dismissive either...it's hard to articulate, but in terms of how high culture and low culture has been defined, I don't think she's entirely wrong. FWIW, she writes more about it here:

SpoilerShow

"My charge is based on a single cut. In attempting to convey how far Lydia Tár has fallen, Field cuts from the concert halls and trophy residential real estate of Berlin and New York (the location of 98 percent of the film) to the filthy streets and decaying buildings of an unnamed Southeast Asian country, where in the closing minutes she is embraced by an audience of 'others' who turn her concerts into cosplay events."

[domino harvey]

Are you aware of what a spoiler is? I’ve edited your post, please be mindful in the future

[Matt]

I hadn’t had occasion to read Taubin’s comments until they turned up in this thread, but that’s a really dumb and casually racist take.

SpoilerShow

She might as well call what is recognizably Thailand (and I’ve never even been there) a “shithole country.” The point of that ending is not that Tàr has fallen so far she needs to conduct in a Southeast Asian country, it’s that she is relegated to being a guest conductor (something she derides earlier in the film), using a click track (leaving absolutely no room for interpretation, which she believes is her entire reason for existing), and doing one of those “pops” orchestra live screenings. I think everything after she (literally) falls is a (literal) nightmare or she’s in Hell or something to that effect. Nearly everything that happens to her after that point is either something she worried about or something she made fun of others for.

But I guess I can be sympathetic to Taubin in that festivals are a terrible place to try to pay attention to a film that’s not spoon-feeding you its opinion of its characters. This is definitely not the first time she’s blundered into concern-trolling, though.

[The Curious Sofa]

I'm with Drucker in that I thought the film is at it's strongest in its first act, the interview and the lecture were its best scenes and at that point I was genuinely thrilled by the movie.

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Then Tàr gets a drawn out comeuppance and the last act is half an hour of making the same point over and over. I especially could have done without the clicheed scenes of her wife taking away their daughter and Tár's noisy freakout at her neighbours. I even think it might have been more chilling had Lydia/Linda managed to cling on to her position, though I get that this would be antithetical to its reflection on the Zeitgeist

While a white, straight conductor confronting the identity politics represented by the student early on would have been shooting fish in a barrel, a gay woman of Tàr's generation doing so is something worth exploring a little more, though this ends up a bit of a red herring. I'd still recommend this, there is some wonderful acting and very good writing here. The main bulk of Tár compares for me to something like Cassavetes' Opening Night, it's just a shame the last act is more like Alejandro González Iñárritu's Birdman.

[pistolwink]

SpoilerShow

You don't have to think that Thailand is some kind of shithole country to acknowledge that it's fairly far from what someone like Cate Blanchett's character would consider the centers of the European high culture to which she's dedicated her life and ego. Also the sheer difference between the physical environments suggests a kind of exile which has more significance than the specific place she's been exiled to.

I did not like this film. I felt like its vaunted "complexity" and "ambiguity" was programmed in an especially heavy-handed way, and the whole thing from start to finish reminded me of Manny Farber's complaints about "white elephant art" and its desire to plaster every inch of the frame with meaning. I can imagine someone arguing that this approach, which creates a sort of suffocating feeling, is appropriate to the situation the main character finds herself in, and maybe that was the intent. But for all the talk of this film prompting conversations (which I suppose it has, viz. this thread) and withholding answers, I felt like it actually allowed the viewer little room for exploration.