Let me be honest; I would give Cate Blanchett the Oscar for Best Actress, sight unseen. First look at her career, then focus on her new film, before it opens in Australian cinemas.
Cate (b1969) graduated from Melbourne's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992, a great career decision from the start. Then she moved to accept roles in Sydney Theatre Co's productions of Top Girls, Kafka Dances and Oleanna. Her first tv role was in the ABC's drama Heartland (1994). She was a successful Ophelia in Belvoir Street Theatre Co's production of Hamlet, plus The Tempest and The Blind Giant is Dancing. TV roles followed, but I was much more familiar with her feature film, Paradise Road (1997).
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Cate (b1969) graduated from Melbourne's National Institute of Dramatic Art in 1992, a great career decision from the start. Then she moved to accept roles in Sydney Theatre Co's productions of Top Girls, Kafka Dances and Oleanna. Her first tv role was in the ABC's drama Heartland (1994). She was a successful Ophelia in Belvoir Street Theatre Co's production of Hamlet, plus The Tempest and The Blind Giant is Dancing. TV roles followed, but I was much more familiar with her feature film, Paradise Road (1997).
Queen Elizabeth I
IMD
Cate met Andrew Upton in 1997 on a film set, then they married and left for Britain to play the starring role in Elizabeth (1998), winning a Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Drama. Later she had starring roles in Bandits (2001), Shipping News (2001), Charlotte Grey (2001) and the Lord Of The Rings trilogy.
I don’t remember her role as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator (2004), winning a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. But I remember her Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for the naughty teacher in Notes on a Scandal (2006).
The biggest change came when the two of them became artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Co in 2008, to spend more family-time on Sydney’s beaches. Then Woody Allen offered her the title role in Blue Jasmine (2013), winning the Academy Award as Best Actress!! This largely ended her directorship of the Sydney Theatre Co.
Cate Blanchett’s career continued well, but let’s leap to her best role, soon to be released in Australia! David Stratton in the Australian (21/1/2023) wrote that Todd Field’s hugely ambitious, impressive drama Tar (2022) is a portrait of a great artist: orchestra conductor Lydia Tar. It might be the performance of Blanchett’s career, one that won the Best Actress prize in Venice and a Golden Globe Award. But the film is more than a great performance: it’s a film about cancel culture, political correctness and abuse of power.
Start with a lengthy interview in a New York theatre in which New Yorker journalist Adam Gopnik chats with Tar before a large, enthusiastic audience. Tar is articulate, witty and supremely confident and this scene effectively illustrates the conductor’s back story.
She was mentored by the revered Leonard Bernstein, has conducted Boston’s Symphony Orchestra and New York’s Philharmonic Orchestra, and has been conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. She has learnt German (as did Blanchett) and lives in a beautiful Berlin apartment with her wife, Sharon/Nina Hoss, and their adopted Middle Eastern daughter, Petra/Mila Bogajevic. She also keeps a second apartment which she uses so that she can work in peace, and for other reasons!
I don’t remember her role as Katharine Hepburn in Martin Scorsese's film The Aviator (2004), winning a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award. But I remember her Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for the naughty teacher in Notes on a Scandal (2006).
The biggest change came when the two of them became artistic directors of the Sydney Theatre Co in 2008, to spend more family-time on Sydney’s beaches. Then Woody Allen offered her the title role in Blue Jasmine (2013), winning the Academy Award as Best Actress!! This largely ended her directorship of the Sydney Theatre Co.
Cate Blanchett’s career continued well, but let’s leap to her best role, soon to be released in Australia! David Stratton in the Australian (21/1/2023) wrote that Todd Field’s hugely ambitious, impressive drama Tar (2022) is a portrait of a great artist: orchestra conductor Lydia Tar. It might be the performance of Blanchett’s career, one that won the Best Actress prize in Venice and a Golden Globe Award. But the film is more than a great performance: it’s a film about cancel culture, political correctness and abuse of power.
Start with a lengthy interview in a New York theatre in which New Yorker journalist Adam Gopnik chats with Tar before a large, enthusiastic audience. Tar is articulate, witty and supremely confident and this scene effectively illustrates the conductor’s back story.
She was mentored by the revered Leonard Bernstein, has conducted Boston’s Symphony Orchestra and New York’s Philharmonic Orchestra, and has been conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. She has learnt German (as did Blanchett) and lives in a beautiful Berlin apartment with her wife, Sharon/Nina Hoss, and their adopted Middle Eastern daughter, Petra/Mila Bogajevic. She also keeps a second apartment which she uses so that she can work in peace, and for other reasons!
Conducting the orchestra in Tar
WSWS
In the interview Tar, who has composed music for the movies, reveals that she’s a artist who has won Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony awards. She also reveals that she’s writing a book and she defines the most important element of music as time. She asserts that to conduct Mahler’s Symphony #5, which she is about to do in Berlin, it’s essential to know all about the relationship between the composer and his wife. Thus Tar is an obsessive control freak!
Then Tar is teaching students at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music where she humiliates a young male student who refuses to play Bach because he thinks the composer was a misogynist. Tar is not having any of this cancel culture: The architect of your soul appears to be social media, she tells the student in a withering put-down that will have ramifications later.
Each person involved in Tar’s life plays an important role in the drama: her PA Francesca/Noemie Merlant, capable and ambitious young woman; Elliott/Mark Strong, investment banker with whom she has established the Acccordian Conducting Fellowship, supporting young women conductors; Sebastian/Allan Corduner, elderly assistant conductor who criticised one of Tar’s decisions; and Olga/Sophie Kauer, the new cellist, a deceptively naïve young Russian woman. Real musicians are featured as members of the orchestra.
Rarely in the cinema has there been such a detailed, comprehensive portrait of an artist. The film celebrates Tar for her tireless enthusiasm for her work and for how she navigates the inevitable politics behind a famous orchestra. And it criticises her for her ruthlessness and cunning.
Lydia Tar is brilliant, and also arrogant, power-hungry and malicious. And she abuses her power, confident that she is too important, too indispensable to face any consequences. She first shows her true colours when she confronts a little schoolgirl who bullied her daughter, yelling at the startled child in German!
One important character seen in the film is Krista, one of the aspiring conductors Tar has pledged to support. Like other young women who cross Tar’s path, Krista had a deeply distressing experience with the celebrated conductor.
The world of classical music concerts might seem to be a very refined one and there’s no doubt that the 2.5 hours film will be a challenge for some viewers. But it’s a challenge that will be well rewarded, seeing the brilliant Blanchett and also for the universal insights that the film potently explores. Actually Tar is as much a sexual predator as a Harvey Weinstein and Blanchett is exceptional in the role, supported by a fine cast. It’s an intelligent, disturbing film about power, sex and art.
Then Tar is teaching students at the prestigious Juilliard School of Music where she humiliates a young male student who refuses to play Bach because he thinks the composer was a misogynist. Tar is not having any of this cancel culture: The architect of your soul appears to be social media, she tells the student in a withering put-down that will have ramifications later.
Each person involved in Tar’s life plays an important role in the drama: her PA Francesca/Noemie Merlant, capable and ambitious young woman; Elliott/Mark Strong, investment banker with whom she has established the Acccordian Conducting Fellowship, supporting young women conductors; Sebastian/Allan Corduner, elderly assistant conductor who criticised one of Tar’s decisions; and Olga/Sophie Kauer, the new cellist, a deceptively naïve young Russian woman. Real musicians are featured as members of the orchestra.
Rarely in the cinema has there been such a detailed, comprehensive portrait of an artist. The film celebrates Tar for her tireless enthusiasm for her work and for how she navigates the inevitable politics behind a famous orchestra. And it criticises her for her ruthlessness and cunning.
Lydia Tar is brilliant, and also arrogant, power-hungry and malicious. And she abuses her power, confident that she is too important, too indispensable to face any consequences. She first shows her true colours when she confronts a little schoolgirl who bullied her daughter, yelling at the startled child in German!
One important character seen in the film is Krista, one of the aspiring conductors Tar has pledged to support. Like other young women who cross Tar’s path, Krista had a deeply distressing experience with the celebrated conductor.
The world of classical music concerts might seem to be a very refined one and there’s no doubt that the 2.5 hours film will be a challenge for some viewers. But it’s a challenge that will be well rewarded, seeing the brilliant Blanchett and also for the universal insights that the film potently explores. Actually Tar is as much a sexual predator as a Harvey Weinstein and Blanchett is exceptional in the role, supported by a fine cast. It’s an intelligent, disturbing film about power, sex and art.