Cate Blanchett rejects Tar is ‘anti-woman’

Cate Blanchett rejects conductor Marin Alsop’s criticism that her Oscar-contending drama Tar is ‘anti-woman’ and that ‘all women should be bothered’ by Todd Field’s film.

Tar is a 2022 psychological drama film written and directed by Todd Field and starring Cate Blanchett as a renowned conductor and composer.

Cate Blanchett rejects conductor Marin Alsop’s criticism that her Oscar-contending drama Tar is “anti-woman” and that “all women should be bothered” by Todd Field’s film.

Alsop, the most famous female conductor in the world, who is name-checked within the first half-hour Tar and, according to New York Times’ critic Zachary Woolfe “clearly” inspired Blanchett’s character Lydia Tar, told The Sunday Times that the film offended her “as a woman, as a conductor, as a lesbian’’.

In her criticism of Tar, Aslop condemned the film for making Blanchett’s character an abuser. “To have an opportunity to portray a woman in that role and to make her an abuser — for me that was heartbreaking,” Alsop said. “I think all women and all feminists should be bothered by that kind of depiction, because it’s not really about conductors, is it? It’s about women as leaders in our society.”

Marin Alsop says Todd Field’s film ‘feels anti-woman’. Photo: AFP

Blanchett, who won a Golden Globe earlier this week for her portrayal as the fictitious orchestra conductor, told BBC Radio 4 that, although she has the “upmost respect” for Alsop, she does not think the film is offensive to women — stressing that Tar is about power and not gender.

“It’s a very provocative film and will elicit a lot of very strong responses for people,” said Blanchett. Adding that although Alsop is “entitled to her opinion” the film is “a mediation on power and power is genderless.”

“It is a meditation on power and the corrupting nature of power and I think that that doesn’t necessarily happen only in cultural circles.”

Cate Blanchett in the film, Tar. Picture: Supplied

Blanchett notes that Todd Field’s intention with the film was “to create a really lively conversation” about power, adding “I don’t think you could have talked about the corrupting nature of power in as nuanced a way if there was a male at the centre of it.”

“We understand so absolutely what that looks like. I think that power is a corrupting force no matter what one’s gender is. I think it affects all of us,” Blanchett said.

The actor notes that the “circumstances of the character are entirely fictitious”, adding that the film is not about conducting and that Lydia Tar “could just as well have been a master architect or the head of a major banking corporation.”

“I looked at so many different conductors, but I also looked at novelists and visual artists and musicians of all stripes. It’s a very non-literal film.”

Tar made its world premiere at the 78th Venice International Film Festival, where Blanchett was awarded the Volpi Cup for best actor. The film is topped to be a major Oscar contender, with Blanchett nabbing nominations for best actress at the Critics Choice Awards and Screen Actors Guild Awards. It arrives in Australian cinemas on January 26th.