Tar begins (after presenting audiences with the credits usually reserved for a film's end) with a handful of lengthy scenes, mostly notably top-of-her-world conductor Lydia Tar (Cate Blanchett) being interviewed on stage for ten minutes or so. Putting aside the fact that these scenes establish much about the film's central character and subject, they are - to be fair - basically just people talking about things we're yet to know whether we need to know.
It turns out we do; this isn't a film that wastes our time. But even at that initial moment those scenes are interesting viewed purely as exposition. That's a term that gets a bad rap these days ("show don't tell"), but when you're already asking people to sit around for two and a half hours the idea of "showing" the entire world of high-end orchestra conducting seems a stretch. Tar shows us plenty; it tells us more.
And these scenes are deeply interesting in their own right. They're as much world-building as any science fiction epic or horror movie based around a convoluted mythology; a look behind the curtain at a hidden world that (rarely) intersects with our own.
It's backstage gossip; it's a skilled professional explaining how they see their art; it's the inner workings of an organisation and community that clearly wields great (cultural) power. Why would anyone think these things are boring, just because we're learning about them by eavesdropping on two people at lunch?
Part of the reason for the critical acclaim Tar has (rightfully) received despite the "slow start" comes from the later realisation that all this world building is essential: Tar's world needs to be built up before it can come crumbling down. And as the film progresses, it moves closer to a more traditional mode of storytelling. Things happen, Tar reacts to those things, the story begins to take on a clear shape and move forward in more obvious ways.
But it's those early scenes, those weighty infodumps, that make Tar something more. A lesser film would just throw around some jargon, drop some names and move on, assuming the audience would fill in the gaps; a bad film wouldn't bother at all, or have extras mutter "that's Tar, the genius conductor" as she walked into a party.
Instead, Tar throws the audience in at the deep end of Tar's world. There's no scene that rings false, that doesn't provide essential character insights or set up personal interactions that will pay off later. Those initial lengthy, verbose scenes create in front of us a world she controls through a narrative she creates.
Explaining, dismissing, ordering, are all central to who she is. She talks (at length), others listen. When the world changes around her (because of a refusal to communicate; it's when she doesn't want to talk to someone that her world crumbles), the film's silences lengthen. She loses control, scenes become short: people start to tell her what's going to happen next.
As a conductor, she's a performer who works through others. Her job is to tell her orchestra what she wants, so they can then show the results to the audience. It's obvious to say, but when she's being interviewed on stage, or having business lunches with co-workers, or giving orders to her assistant, it's as much a performance designed to create an effect as when she takes the podium.
There's a reason why how you behave in public is known as "conducting yourself".
- Anthony Morris
