Explaining Aspects of Fascism Through Todd Fields' Movie Tár

This article is part of my time capsule series, in which I will be posting my articles no one would publish containing foreshadowing on our way to fascism in the U.S. It was written in March 2023.

Trigger Warning: This movie deals with abusive bosses/teachers, sexual harassment, narcissistic abuse, and suicide.

I am a bit late to the conversation regarding this incredible piece of art, but I cannot keep my reaction to myself. I am not the kind of person who watches reaction videos and analysis for every movie I see. This time, I felt inclined to go hunting for the Easter Eggs and listen to the analysis, and then I almost wished I had stayed out of the comments. I loved Tar for being so relevant and intellectual, but I am so disappointed by how much of it is being missed or misused by an audience that essentially wants to see it as an indictment of cancel culture and an opportunity to stand with perpetrators.

First of all, in case you have not seen the movie, I should probably explain that it is an incredibly realistic fictional story about Lydia Tar (played by Cate Blanchett), the fictional first female conductor of the Berlin Symphony. She is an undeniably talented genius, and a public intellectual, who is enjoying her place at the top of her field. As the movie unfolds, you see who she is behind her successful facade and what evil things she does from her podium of power. Everything good in her life, including her family and the only non-transactional relationship she has which is with her child, is sabotaged when her misdeeds catch up with her and she faces a public reckoning.

1. Neurodiversity: I wanted to see this movie in part because I am working with someone who has ADHD and autism, and who taught himself to conduct music. There are two characters who are very much like him in the movie: Max (the student Lydia publicly humiliates in class) and Sebastian (the assistant conductor she tries to fire). You can tell these two have ADHD and/or autism partially because of their stimming behaviors — leg tapping and clicking a pen — which you can see Lydia Tar suppressing. It is also not abnormal for such people to have trouble with impromptu speaking which is one of the reasons that calling on students who do not raise their hand in class is inequitable to begin with (creates anxiety, undermines consent, and is an inherent power play). It is so brilliant that the movie includes and represents neurodiversity in characters, and so realistic that neurodiversity would be seen in this very specific specialization in music. What I do not appreciate is that these characters’ representation and the injustice of their targeting appears lost on the mostly white male analysts who prefer to admire Tar’s imposing display and see Max as getting deservingly schooled for his “narrow” point of view in not divorcing an artist’s identity from their art. These reactions mirror what happens in these abusive public humiliation scenes involving extremely powerful professors engaging in ablest bullying in real life: Too few third party observers appreciate that this is abuse. I guarantee that Max, and the real people his character is modeled after, could not care less how talented the Lydia Tars of the world are when they are lording over them, undermining their education and fair participation, and denying them opportunities.

2. Narcissism: One of the ironies in the extremely brilliantly-scripted lecture scene is that Tar accuses Max of “egotistical Narcissism” for considering a genius’ character, actions, and issues of identity, as well as his own, instead of just appreciating their art. Who is being egotistical and narcissistic throughout that display, and also the rest of the movie? Lydia Tar. She hides behind a false self she has constructed, hurts and exploits people throughout the movie without empathy, and is entitled and controlling. The whole lecture scene is classic projection. Narcissists condemn and accuse their victims of things of which they themselves are guilty: egotism, closed-mindedness for not being “open” to their opinion and agreeing with them, superficiality. She does not want these students to consider the misdeeds of artists, or to acknowledge and contextualize artists’ work in light of their character, because she does not want anyone doing that when looking at her. Narcissists and perpetrators like this in real life are very protective of their reputations and legacies, and they want nothing more than their talent and accomplishments to serve as a veil through which history will conceal their indiscretions and judge them only in accordance with their brilliance. It is not uncommon for them to attack, judge, and undermine anyone who does not agree with this generous, forgiving, and ultimately unaccountable perspective and the impunity it breeds.

3. Chicken vs. Egg. Does power corrupt, or do the corrupt seek and secure power? I am seeing so many commenters make this movie out to be about how power corrupts. What I think they are missing is that those who are corrupt in nature and personality are far more-likely to gain power in systems. There is an acknowledgement of this in the movie when Tar’s wife Sharon points out that she helped Tar navigate the politics of the system to get the conductor position in the first place. Tar also maintains a sort of political relationship with the former conductor whom she makes feel important by paying for him to have a driver. It was her willingness to play the game, and engage in a level of inauthenticity and transactionality as well as manipulation, that got her to the top (even changing her name and story to get there). A lot of talented people do not achieve positions of power, not because their talent is insufficient, but because their values are incompatible with doing dirty work. The people around Tar (such as her assistant Francesca, the other musicians, and presumably Krista Taylor whom she drives to suicide and paints as unstable to get her blacklisted from her field) are talented too, but she manipulates, discredits, and discards them if they are not useful to her ends. This is partially how her power is maintained: She punishes anyone who objects or disagrees with her. Thus being talented is not enough to succeed in this system unless one is also manipulative and exploitative like Tar, or obedient and appeasing like Francesca, or a combination of both whenever the situation rewards either.

4. Nazism: How fitting and contemporary it is that there are very subtle references to Nazism and the liberation of East Berlin from tyranny (a time of hopefulness, freedom, and democracy after which Sebastian rescued a statue from a flee market). There is a discussion between Tar and the old conductor about former conductors being Nazis and whether or not sexual harassment is equal to being a Nazi. This is a moment where Tar, in pointing out that a composer threw a woman down a staircase only to have the old conductor cast this as irrelevant to the composer’s art and legacy, expressed Max’s position that maybe there is a level to which it should matter who someone is and how they live their life. This example of Nazis in the orchestra shows us the limits and dangers of focusing only on someone’s talent in judging and rewarding them. No one worth listening to is out there arguing that Hitler should be viewed only as a brilliant orator, communicator, or artist, and such an extreme example of divorcing a person’s talent from their deeds shows how ridiculous, narrow, and dangerous such a thing can be. I personally do not want to live in a world where we only consider a genius’ merits, and we are not concerned at all with whether or not they are evil (e.g., driving a young talent to suicide, stealing Sharon’s medication, grooming and manipulating students for sex). That is a world where tyranny thrives, and the orchestra under Tar, which she says “is not a democracy,” is a microcosm for a dictatorship. The climate of fear is exactly the same: If you are different (Max and Sebastian), no longer useful (sexually or otherwise), unwilling to comply, or dissent (e.g., not destroying the incriminating emails) when the most-powerful person is doing wrong, then you will be made an example of until only compliant collaborators remain (a perpetrator’s dream come true).

5. Public Accountability: It matters how society views its geniuses, and whether or not it idolizes them unconditionally or qualifies its adoration with accuracy: Viewing the Wizard of Oz as a con artist instead of just a great, powerful, and benevolent Wizard. This film is prized for its realism, and I think it is incredibly realistic except for the extent to which Lydia Tar faces a public reckoning in which she is exposed and punished. For all the fear people with certain demographics and political orientations have of “cancel culture,” hardly any perpetrators who get called out face more than a slap on the wrist. Weinstein was an anomaly, yet many people believe that the accountability he experienced is the outcome awaiting any person or company that does what he did. Sadly, he represents only an extreme example where arguably the most powerful news outlet in the world (The New York Times) devoted significant resources and a platform to exposing him (even pushing through the legal threats from his lawyers, which is enough to silence many less powerful media). If any one thing was different (i.e., not enough victims went on the record, documents did not exist, Weinstein was not a celebrity), it would not have happened. Think of the Weinstein company covering for him for so long, not the extremely improbable convergence of all the factors necessary to expose him at exactly the right moment in history. Believing that perpetrators are more likely to get punished than promoted is a pipe dream almost as ridiculous as believing that someone who is talented and hard-working will become the next billionaire.

I appreciate that one analyst on Youtube, Vivian Strange, points out that a queer woman (unlike a white male) probably would not come out of such a scandal without being “tarred and feathered,” but I do not agree that even a queer woman would be likely to face consequences of this magnitude, for these actions, in this political climate (at least in the U.S.). So many other things would have to happen to get to this point: Krista's parents would have to have the resources and wherewithal to sue; Francesca would have to have kept those emails and blown the whistle; someone would have had to have recorded Tar’s humiliation lecture; publications would have to publicize this; protesters would have to show up. More frequently than most would like to admit, when something like this happens, all the institutions involved (the orchestra, the fellowship provider, the higher education school, etc.) engage in cover-ups and circling the wagons, settling quickly and silencing the victims or otherwise undermining them (i.e., blacklisting them from the field, suing them for defamation, paying them lip service regarding reform, etc.). Far from condemning and refusing to protect their affiliated perpetrators, institutions (including the government) limit liability and promote impunity in order to protect their own reputations. At the most extreme, this just becomes a way of doing business: The price of Lydia Tar’s talent is looking the other way and bringing in the P.R. clean-up firm whenever a scandal threatens to break out.

In the psychology of genocide, there are roles: perpetrator, bystander, victim, and rescuer. The Holocaust did not need a society of sociopaths and narcissists who truly believe in and enjoy evil: It needed a few of those people and a lot of bystanders who would look the other way or do what they are told to avoid becoming victims themselves. Anytime someone becomes a rescuer (Francesca when she quits and leaks the emails), perpetrators just have to crush and discredit them to such an extent that no one will ever try again. If you create a society in which Tar’s fairytale ending of accountability is considered “unfair” and “unjust,” or is virtually impossible on a grand enough scale because everyone is too afraid of what happens to you if you stand up, you get a dystopian status quo exactly like authoritarianism.

Please consider my argument that the line between Lydia Tar and a Nazi, or her belief in talent as a veil and creating the conditions of tyranny, is very thin. There are Lydia Tars at the top of a lot of institutions, and when the conditions of our society are much more likely to keep them there, reward them, and replicate them than to remove them, the world is no longer safe for anyone who is not one of them or useful to them. If you identified with any other character in this film besides Lydia Tar, do not be afraid of cancel culture, be afraid of impunity, exaltation, and deification of perpetrators. After all, so many of them are “talented,” and doing [insert evil or criminal action here] should not cost them their bright careers, as their enablers will argue. That attitude is only grooming to get a culture and society to incrementally accept the unacceptable, admire and emulate the unaccountable, and ultimately elect the next Hitler to power.