Tár: Critical Status:
For Field’s work on Tár, the Los Angeles Film Critics named him Best Director of the Year, and his script Best Original Screenplay, as did the National Society of Film Critics.
Tár was selected Best Film of the Year by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Association, and the National Society of Film Critics.
Tár became only the seventh film in history named as such by the nation’s top critics’ groups, the so-called “trifecta.”
The previous films were: Goodfellas, Schindler’s List, L. A. Confidential, The Hurt Locker, The Social Network, and Drive My Car.
Field’s film was also named “Best Picture of the Year” by more critics than any film in 2022. Vanity Fair, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Variety, Hollywood Reporter, Screen Daily, Entertainment Weekly, and IndieWire’s annual poll of 136 critics worldwide. The American Film Institute named it one of the top 10 films of the year.
Scorsese presenting Best Film at the 2022 N.Y. Film Critics Circle, praised Field’s filmmaking: “For so long now, so many of us see films that pretty much let us know where they’re going, they take us by the hand and, even if it’s disturbing at times, sort of comfort us along the way that it will be all okay by the end. Now this is insidious, as one can get lulled into this and ultimately get used to it, leading those of us who’ve experienced cinema in the past – as much more than that – to become despairing of the future of the art form, especially for younger generations. But that’s on dark days. The clouds lifted when I experienced Todd’s film, Tár. What you’ve done, Todd – is that the very fabric of the movie you created doesn’t allow this. All the aspects of cinema and the film that you’ve used, attest to this. The shift in locations for example, the shift in locations alone do what cinema does best, which is to reduce space and time to what they are.
This is conveyed through masterful mise-en-scène, as controlled, precise, dangerous, precipitous angles and edges geometrically kind of chiseled into a wonderful 2:3:5 aspect ratio of frame compositions. The limits of the frame itself, and the provocation of measured long takes reflect the brutal architecture of Tár’s soul.
