Oscars Best Picture nominee profile: ‘TÁR’ pulls no punches with its cancel culture commentary

Following a 16-year hiatus from feature filmmaking, “In the Bedroom” and “Little Children” writer-director Todd Field reemerged in 2022 to unleash his first original creation on the world (his previous films were adaptations). “TÁR” — an engrossing fictional character study and a deep analysis of how and why power is abused — is now up for six Oscars, including Best Picture. Since he was previously nominated for producing “In the Bedroom,” he could follow Jim Burke (“Green Book”) and Dan Janvey and Peter Spears (“Nomadland”) as the fourth person in five years to take the academy’s top prize on his second bid.

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“TÁR” primarily takes place in modern day Germany, where central character Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett) serves as chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic. The highly-decorated artist initially appears to enjoy the seemingly perfect balance between the professional and personal aspects of her life, but it all begins to unravel when her history of sexual misconduct comes to light. As she progressively loses her power, she also becomes less attuned to reality.

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Field, who received Oscar nominations for adapting his first two films’ scripts, is now a first-time Best Director and Best Original Screenplay contender thanks to “TÁR.” Along with Steven Spielberg (“The Fabelmans”) and Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), he is one of four individuals currently in the running for the producing, directing and original writing Oscars. He shares his Best Picture bid with spouses Scott Lambert and Alexandra Milchan, who recently produced the Apple TV+ limited series “Black Bird.”

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Having already collected a Golden Globe, a Critics Choice Award and a BAFTA Award for her portrayal of Tár, Blanchett is now looking to triumph in the Best Actress Oscar category. Although she lost this season’s SAG Award contest to Michelle Yeoh (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”), she clearly has plenty of support where it counts. She is already a two-time Oscar winner for “The Aviator” (Best Supporting Actress, 2004) and “Blue Jasmine” (Best Actress, 2013) and has earned additional supporting bids for “Notes on a Scandal” (2006) and “I’m Not There” (2007) and lead notices for “Elizabeth” (1998), “Elizabeth: The Golden Age” (2007) and “Carol” (2015).

The final two categories in which “TÁR” could pull off wins are Best Cinematography and Best Film Editing. The respective individuals associated with these nominations – Florian Hoffmeister and Monika Willi – are first-time Oscar contenders, but the former did receive an Emmy, a BAFTA Award and an ASC Award for lensing the 2011 BBC miniseries “Great Expectations” and just picked up his second TV academy notice for his work on the “Pachinko” main title sequence.

This article is a part of Gold Derby’s “Oscar nominee profile” series spotlighting the 2022 Best Picture nominees. 

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