Offline with Jon Favreau - “Tár” with Jon Favreau and Amanda Hess

Episode Date: September 12, 2024

This week Offline Móvie Clúb takes on “Tár,” the 2022 film about a music conductor whose narcissism and abuses of power bring about her very public downfall. Max is joined by New York Times critic at large, Amanda Hess, and Offline critic at large, Jon Favreau, to examine the movie’s takes on cancel culture, identity construction and the limits of control—especially online. Should we feel pity for cancelled celebrities? To what extent is social media real life? And is “Tár” secretly a comedy? For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

When he's talking about the denazification, he's like, yeah, and he had to go through denazification, even though he never saluted Hitler or wrote Herr Hitler in all the letters that he wrote to him. Caught him on a technicality. I know. Yeah. It doesn't doesn't count as Nazism if you don't say the magic words. That's right. I thought it was a great way to show that like this cycle has been happening forever. And that like as much as it's like plays out in the movie through the phones, that this is just something that happens generationally where these social norms get updated and people who got away with the bad things can't get away with them anymore. I'm Max Fisher. I'm Jon Favreau. And with us is Amanda Hess, critic at large for the New York Times Culture Section, author of the forthcoming Second Life, Having a Child in the Digital Age. Amanda, welcome. Thank you for having me. I just want to say that Second Life is being published by Doubleday, which is also the publisher of Tar on Tar.

We are colleagues in that way, just as a disclaimer. Well, I hope that you don't get bumped to the 53rd Street, Barnes & Noble amid personal scandal and student protests as well. Although if you did. Only hope, yeah. Great pedigree. Yeah. Well, don't bring Olga with you.

This is the Offline Movie Club. Every episode, we discuss one of our favorite movies and how it reflects or shapes how we think about technology and the internet this week we're talking about a big favorite of mine and I know also yours Amanda, Tar, the 2022 movie about an industry leading figure narcissism and abuses of power

bring about their own downfall that's right, finally the Elon Musk biopic is here wait wait sorry this is Tar about the downfall of the fictitious classical music composer, maybe fictitious. Wink, wink. We'll get into that. All right, Amanda, kick us off. What do you think makes this movie important for how we think about technology about this movie is like the first time I watched it, I was annoyed at how it used the Internet because I was like, this is not how people would about people having different perceptions of how the Internet works. And our closest figure we're following, Tar, like has obviously a very dismissive and general idea of how the Internet works in the sense that like she thinks she can just delete some emails that she got and they're just going to disappear from the world and like go away um and so i think the movie is about how the internet is really shifting these power structures um but it's doing it in a way that not everybody is on the same page about and not everyone

understands in the same way yeah kate blanchett the gen x are not knowing how to use the internet or email is a great bit but it's it's one of many things about this movie that's so funny that people did not appreciate the comedy of the time john you had not seen this before which shocked me i don't we enlisted you in this episode and i was like obviously john has seen this movie a hundred times and has thoughts on it well because i am uh quite addicted to the internet um i i missed some important cultural moments that just happens with me yeah so i did miss tar and uh i was just telling max not only did i had i not seen tar i missed the discourse around tar so always better off for missing a discourse which which turned out to be better but you know it turned out to be a good thing because um when all i knew about tar was it's a movie maybe about cancel culture and some people seem mad

that's it that's all i got uh so then i watched it and i think it says two things about the internet that are interesting to me one um twitter is real life yes the media is real life right like and it has this idea that being canceled can feel like a death um and i thought it does a good job sort of showing just how what that feels like just what the punishment is like for someone like tar um but also she's there's one point at the very beginning when she's uh talking to adam gottmick and she says she doesn't read her reviews um but she is she's kind of offline and i do think there's like a corollary to be to being you can be too offline in that like she she just was not she's so used to being ensconced in this like cultural elite bubble where all she has to she can only has to talk to powerful people she only gets you know people kiss her ass all the time her assistant is kissing her ass all

the time even though she's texting someone i assume that it's the assistant that's doing that about how awful she is yeah and so you can live in this bubble if you don't get any criticism or you don't take in any criticism. And then it just sort of fuels the narcissism. Right. Because she's so good at knowing how to manipulate and play within her world. Where she has power. Right. Where she has all this power that she's not even aware of this other world that is rising up parallel to her on the Internet. Yeah. I did think that that was and that was kind of to your point to Amanda that it's, you know, the movie is like not it's not really about the phones. It's not really about the Internet and its portrayal of them like on its face is like kind of power structures changing, of social norms changing, of the people who get swept up in that. Before I forget, Jot, you have got to tell the story about

how Cate Blanchett almost came on this show to talk about Tar. Yeah, I don't know how almost it was. In Austin's telling, she was like banging at the studio door to be let in to talk about this movie no i think it was let's just say there were some i think there's some uh you know miscommunication there okay or mixed up communication because all i knew was you know austin was like there's this movie it's kind of about cancel culture kate blanchett starring in it and she might come on the show would you want and i was like of course i'll talk to Kate Blanchett about literally anything if she wants to come on the show

but it didn't end up happening well I would not have let that happen if I was here I mean what a show that would be I don't know if you remember this but maybe she would be what if it was just me interviewing Lydia Tarr that was the very first thing I pitched to you when we were talking

about like should I come in a co-host offline, my first pitch to you, because it was when this movie came out, and I had seen it that morning when we met, and I was like, our first guest should be Lydia Tarr. Oh, see, I didn't get it at the time. Well, you laughed as if you got it, which is why I was like,

we have to have Favreau onto this. Well, as usual, just being nice does get you into trouble. That's right. Yeah, I thought I think my read was that it was just about just a really great portrayal of the idea of social change and power hierarchies changing and about how power is used and misused and the people who are involved in that. And I think it is like watching it this time, I was really struck by how even though I kind of talked myself into like, it's not really about quote unquote cancel culture. It's not really about the phones, the internet. The very first thing we see is like you said, is Francesca, the Naomi Malone character, like FaceTiming a video of her, which I think is such

a great moment because it's not it's not even clear to me if that like is how that app works but is it like i was very confused by that i don't know what app that was i it was an old moment for me okay i don't either they're so they're like texting over a live video of lydia tar which happens frequently in the movie i made a snapchat uh maybe i mean i don't think that's one of the many things where like i don't think that lydia tar's assistants and former assistants are texting over a live video feed of her but i do like in reality in the reality in which lydia tar exists but i do think that lydia tar senses that something like that is happening that she feels like watched in a way that is like outside of her awareness and really understanding and that that is like a visual representation

that todd field can use that also allows us to see her while they're texting right now right and it's and it's also a visual representation of the power inversion. That the first time we see her, she's completely powerless. She's asleep and she's at the mercy of these people around her who are also there to lift her up. So, I mean, do we think this movie is about cancel culture? Do we think it intends to be about cancel culture? I don't even like that phrase. Yeah. I kind of hate the phrase cancel culture.

I think it's been ruined it's like a shorthand because we haven't figured out I think we do need a better phrase for it because it refers to a real thing of like social norm enforcement changing over the internet and social media but yeah the way that that term has been co-opted

or opted I guess because that was always kind of how it was used yeah I feel like cancel culture is a force in the movie but it's really like this ghost story about the ghosts of her past coming to haunt her and like she deserves to be haunted by them like one thing that like you know lydia tar becoming this meme where she's like this icon or whatever lydia tar innocent like i love lydia tar as she sort of exists like as a twitter character and i'm like she's like vaguely in my awareness sometimes you know like uh at the dnc when there was going to be like a surprise

guest people were like it's lydia tar um i'm just like so aware of her as this like glamorous icon that when this is i think the third time that i watched the movie when i watched the movie again i was like oh yeah she is awful like the things that she does are awful and she like deserves to lose her job but one of the things that's interesting about the movie is like many of the ways that she is like taken down are probably unfair um but that you know like the video that comes out against her is like this hatchet job that i think also again serves to um represent that like this scene in the movie which was so when she's in juilliard the scene in the movie is this one uh shot uh scene and then um it's incredible uh and then when the video is used against her it's shot from all of these different perspectives to me that's obviously like a metaphorical

flourish on todd field's part um like that video is incredibly unfair uh but that's the tool that's used to take down someone who like truly abuses her power in like really horrific ways i think yeah also i i thought that was fascinating because if you had released the full video that was unedited, she still seems awful. Right. Which goes to your point about, there can be a debate about the tactics that took her down and some of them are unfair and some of them are fair. But there was justice done to Lydia Tarr in this movie, I thought. And so I did, as I started, you know, I watched the movie, I took some notes, and then just before we recorded,

I started reading some of the negative reviews. And the idea that like, she got away with anything, or it sort of like glorifies her. I was like, I don't think it did. I think it's a pretty damning indictment of her and powerful people who think that just because they are,

they have genius, they can get away with treating people like shit, which is a story of a lot of powerful people. Right. I actually really appreciated that the movie was, I don't know if neutral is the right word, but the way that it portrayed the like cancellation of Lydia Tarr. It was nuanced, I thought. It was very nuanced. And most of it happens off camera, which I thought was really good. Like we don't even get into like, well, who took the video and why did they take it? And did they have good motives? Do they have bad motives? It's just

like, it's something that happens off camera. You don't see it. And it's just this like impersonal force that kind of suddenly overwhelms her, which I thought was perfect because it's a way to portray that. It's like, look, maybe you like the people who are making these videos and how they're making them or people are sending the tweets up good or bad motives. But it's just a thing that happens when social norms inevitably evolve. When one generation like Lydia Tarras goes from young to older, when they become the people, when they go from the people who are challenging the power, the people who have it, there's a new generation that comes in and challenges that, overturns it, that this is just like the things that happen.

And so I really liked that as a movie that's very aware of like 2020 and post 2020 and how the Internet works and how social media is a force for change. But it makes a very deliberate choice not to say this is good or bad because it's not what it's about. It's about Lydia Tarr and her use of power and how she gets into that position. OK, well, we are we're kind of like well into our first question. What is the biggest thing this movie gets right? I feel like there's so many things we can talk about here. So like, where do you guys want to start? I mean, I thought this will be, I won't quote this piece too many times,

but Zadie Smith writes this review in uh new york review of books that is just fantastic i thought but um she sort of talks about lydia tar is like the prototypical like cultural luminary and i do think like it is it is such an accurate portrayal of the narcissism and just bullshit that you hear from cultural luminaries i laughed so hard in the movie at the very beginning just when she mentioned tar on tar it's good it's tar on tar is the funniest man i've been the funniest part of the movie this is one of those movies where every talk like that every talk like that sounds like that they did such a good job of portraying the like thought leader person who's not just he doesn't just excel in their field

but excels in everything and you know just they're just the bullshit flown out of their mouth same stories same anecdotes all the same shit amanda what was the funniest moment of this movie to you because there are so many oh my god um i mean first of all i saw this movie to you? Because there are so many. Oh my God. I mean, first of all, I saw this movie in the theater like shortly after it came out and I don't think anybody else thought it was funny. I didn't hear. I had the same experience.

It was so odd. I was the only one laughing and I was like, what is wrong with you? This movie is a riot. I thought so too. Yeah. I mean, to me,

the funniest moment is when she comes to understand that her daughter is being bullied and so she takes her to school, her daughter is being bullied and so she takes her to school which she never does and she isolates the bully and speaks to her in german and she says i'm petra's father in german to me that is like the funniest moment of the movie and then she like absolutely intimidates this girl which is the first time you know it's funny and it's not because then you realize that like wow like she is she can be a monster if she's a monster yeah to a child yeah yeah i thought

it was also a great way to like have the movie a little bit put its finger on the idea that lydia part of the personality that she has manufactured for herself is like a harvey weinstein yeah is that she wasn't, that's like not like who she is. She like made this persona and to like present herself as male when she is about to go bully a little girl,

a little child. This is like, yes, this is what she has built up for herself because it's who she wants to be. She's also created like a philanthropic organization that exists to source young women to be her I thought that was

perfect and mentees yeah it's amazing yeah her pipeline the accordion institute which I thought was so striking because then she plays the accordion later when she's having her total meltdown which I didn't quite know the metaphorical connection there but I believe that there is one and that it's probably great I know we also see her when she ends up going home to her house on Long Island or wherever it is. We see a picture of her as a child playing the accordion, which I guess is a nod to her humble, I don't know, like vaguely ethnic white origins. I'm not sure exactly what it is. But she didn't start playing the piano, I think is what we're supposed to understand.

Right. Yeah, I think her family is supposed to be like Baltic, like Eastern European. Anyway, I thought that the way like for me, the thing that the movie was most of all about and was best at portraying is the kind of like power the like todd field called it like the pyramid structure that builds up someone who is powerful and the like entire ecosystem that is around bolstering someone who is powerful not despite but often explicitly because they are like an abusive monster um he has this quote uh he gave an interview technically this is a film about power power is a pyramid what are the cornerstones and how is the apex of that support of the apex being whoever's at the top and that is about complicity and it's about many other things that involve many people and something that i really picked up re-watching this was how many of her interactions with the people around her are them saying to her implicitly or sometimes

explicitly like i know what you're doing i'm okay with it because I'm getting something out of this. Like her whole scene with, which we have a clip of, of Sharon, the Nina Haas character confronting her is like, I don't even care that you basically murdered this woman who you exploited. I just care because you're supposed to involve me in the power games and like the machinations and you left me out of that one. So let's play that clip. Do you understand what it was like to walk into my sectional yesterday and to see everybody whispering about me? It's got nothing to do with what they're accusing you of. It's a simple matter of not warning me that our family is in danger. And then later when she fires Sebastian, which is a great scene. I love the way that he shoots it where it's like this far wide shot.

It's really, it's like Kubrick. It's really scary. Almost like a horror slasher scene. And where he says to her, like, everyone knows the little favors you grant, even if nobody dares breathe a word of it.

And as soon as he says it, he's realized that he's broken some like unspoken rule that like he's allowed inside because he understands who she is but never confronts her with it i also liked that there was a line at some point where someone says every every relationship has been transactional every relationship with you is transactional except for the one next door her daughter petra yeah and that to me sort of kind

of you know uh characterizes the the power imbalance stuff more than anything else. Because she goes through the world with the same thing, doing the favors, doing these transactions. And never sees anyone except her daughter as like a human, including her partner. Yeah, right, right. But they're all, I think what's crazy is they're all in on it. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's this sense in the movie that there's one special girl and there can only be one special girl at one time. And we get a sense that like Tar, like when she was younger, she was chosen as the special girl by men, you know, and now she's like made it her job to select them.

Probably along similar lines that she was herself selected in a way and that she's, I guess, supposed to be very talented. We don't like hear her create music that much. I saw this movie, like it was shortly after my, I had a baby. And so I went to the theater and all I knew about the movie was that it was about this conductor played by Cate Blanchett. And I was like,

this is great. Cause there's going to be a lot of really loud music. And I'm, I like brought my breast pump and I was like this is great because there's going to be a lot of really loud music and I like brought my breast pump I was like I'm going to pump in the middle of the movie when there's like a big classical music scene and then it like never happens it's like such

a silent movie where you like just hear these like little tickings and like dings the whole movie it's so crazy until the very end but I guess you know she's supposed to be very impressive as a conductor but obviously you know she's surrounded by these men who are fascinated by her too yeah i wanted to ask you guys do we think that she's talented do we think she's actually a genius i think that she's supposed to be a shitty composer i think like every time we see her

composing she doesn't have any ideas she hears the like life alert beeping and plays that and then olga i was thinking and then fixes it yeah she's like this is amazing i'm like is that melody yeah no i think i think that we're supposed to see her as like she's a very good conductor and she really wants to be which i think it was Mahler who was like also a great conductor and then became a composer. There's somebody who they referenced. It might have been Schopenhauer. She clearly wants to be that person and just like can't do it, which I think underscores how much her power comes from her ability to like manage these networks and play within these power structures in a way that works for everybody. It also, to me, a message that came through was that like power dynamics are not always gender dynamics right because it's a little

me too ish yeah the movie but i think if it was i think if she had been a man in the movie it would have felt more familiar right and because of who she is and you know i think it was it kind of it just drills down on the fact that it doesn't always have to, it typically is gender. Right. But it doesn't always have to be gender. It's primarily about power. Yeah. And Todd Fields has said that he felt he had to make that character room because if Lydia Tarr was a man, you would know in five seconds how to feel about him.

Right. It wouldn't feel as nuanced or complicated. Right. You'd be like, oh, yeah, we've seen that before. Yeah. Especially, like, right after me too like i i don't want to know like what matt matt lauer is thinking i don't want to get inside his head and do like a deep character study of a figure like that but yeah i mean her being a woman sort of allows us to care about what she thinks and also like to celebrate her in a way like the

reason i think she's become this like weird internet cultural icon is because like she's very glamorous and she's played by kate blanchett and like that that would not happen with a a male tar right she is she is very very good at the thing that she does of like creating an image selling herself right which is also that's that's why it's about the internet yes that's true right because it is very much about the performative aspect of constructing an identity right in this age right right the line that she gives to francesca when they find out that krista dies i think is so telling. Like, the way she words it and delivers it

where she says, there's nothing we could have done to stop her. She wasn't one of us. Like, she wasn't one of us. I feel like communicates so much that it's like, we have an inner circle. We're all bought in. We're all lifting each other up in this power structure. And like, she's not in the inner circle,

so she's not a person. And you shouldn't care about her dying, which like kind of works. I think Francesca doesn't care. Francesca is like low-key also a monster. Yeah. I feel. Right. I mean, I think one of the most interesting points of tension in the movie

is like she has chosen Francesca as her assistant. And like she has this backstory that seems obvious of them having had a relationship perhaps also with krista in the past um but then it gets messed up because people start getting on to her and so she feels like in order to like push off these accusations she can't elevate francesca and that's what sets off this you know rampage it seems like that happens off screen right yes that right that was the same that was the same reaction the thing that felt like clicked for me this time around was like oh her downfall isn't krista dying or even krista accusing her in the suicide note her downfall is the people who support her sharon and francesca deciding to withdraw their support

because there's no longer something in it for them. Because Tar has to like withhold the job promotion for Francesca because there's suspicion around her now. And it's like the strategic choice that she makes. Yeah. And to your point about Krista, too, it's not just that, oh, we're all part of this power dynamic and we lift each other up. There is this she has this belief that like if you're good, if you're talented, right, you can a shitty person sure it doesn't matter yeah all that matters is the talent right right all that matters is the art and the creativity yeah and that lets you that gives you a license to just get away with anything else and do whatever you want and treat people like they're disposable i think that she says that like more or less explicitly at some points and it's it comes up also in her lunches with the andrews character uh which we also have a clip from i want to play as i feel like it's it comes up also in her lunches with the andrews character uh which we also have

a clip from i want to play as i feel like it's a really great scene um where she asks him and this is her like former mentor about have you ever had a misunderstanding with the student have you ever had an issue with a a student or colleague where that person may have misinterpreted your intention. Has someone been complaining about me? No, no, no, of course not. Because at this point they missed their chance. I'm out of the game. Yes, yes, I know, I know.

Of course you are. Thank God I was never pulled from the podium like Jimmy Levine or hunted like Charles Dutois. I take it you're asking for a reason? Well, there's just been so much of this sort of thing in the news lately. Like Charles Dutrois. I take it you're asking for a reason. Well, there's just been so much of this sort of thing in the news lately. Well, nowadays to be accused is the same as being guilty. I think those are great. And then he goes through and lists these composers who were previously accused of or conducted sexual harassment.

And one who was a Nazi. Yeah. He really slips into the Nazi comparison. Yes. Fairly quickly and easily. was a Nazi. Yeah. He really slips into the Nazi comparison. Yes. Fairly quickly and easily. Right, right. Which like she, I think is so, the way she plays her response is like she's initially appalled by it

and then she kind of remembers the game and is like, oh, well, of course you're right. And of course it's fine. And like when she brings up Schopenhauer and like he references, it's like, well, they tried to cancel Schopenhauer. It's like, well, he tried to kill his wife. So that was bad. But then she's, when he waves, well, they tried to cancel Schopenhauer. He's like, well, he tried to kill his wife, so that was bad.

But then when he waves it off, Lydia Tarr is like, oh, yeah, I guess that's fine because she remembers that this is her game, too. And this is what she bought into. There's also this line when he's talking about the denazification. And he's like, yeah, and he had to go through denazification, even though he never saluted Hitler or wrote Herr Hitler in all the letters that he wrote to him. Caught him on a technicality. I know, yeah. It doesn't count as Nazism if you don't say the magic words.

That's right. But I thought it was a great way to show that this cycle has been happening forever and that as much as it plays out in the movie through the phones, that this is just something that happens generationally where these social norms get updated and people who got away with the bad things can't get away with

them anymore. All right. Do we want to talk about the big scene, the Juilliard scene? Sure. Okay. Let's start. We got a clip of it and then we'll get into it. Now, the big question for you is, what do you think, Max? You play really well.

But nowadays, white male cis composers, just not my thing. Don't be so eager to be offended. The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring conformity. All right, John, you saw this scene for the first time. When did your, or did your sympathies flip in the scene? Post, basically, what she says to him right before he says, like, you're a bitch, fuck off. Where she's just humiliating

him yeah making there was a way because up until that point i'm like maybe she's going to try to persuade him in an interesting way right because again like i and that scene too is like the first time you see her really interact with people and so initially i was like oh i wonder if she'll just be one of these monsters in a way where she's just like tough on students and yelling at everyone all the time because she's like an important you know and then at the beginning of the scene she kind of seems like she's going to try to teach or empathize with them or whatever else i was like oh interesting maybe like maybe max needs to just like settle down for a second you know and then by then you're

like oh i get it. Right. She's a bully and she's using her power. Yeah. I thought it was, I really liked the way they played it. At first she is trying to teach him because you can see she really does love the music. And there is something deep down within her that is genuine, that she really does love Bach. She really does love the way that it's composed.

And there's a completely legitimate debate over that. that art right the art versus the artist yeah which is i is again is something that they could have spent half the movie getting into that and i was glad that they just kind of acknowledged it and sidestepped it amanda what was it like watching this for the third time did you were you kind of embracing the whole time for the tar monster to come out yeah i mean it's obviously like she can't handle her perspective not being shared by everyone you know it's not just that she wants them to be aware of this other perspective but i also felt like uh you know to me like one of the falsest parts of the movie is when max says as a bipoc pan genderangender person. I agree. I was going to bring this up later. It's the one wrong note in the movie, I feel.

I could see him putting those two words on his Twitter bio, but I don't think he says that to TAR in that way. You know, I just, it did make me feel like, you know, was that put in in order for me to throw my support more to Tarr, you know, because he sounds ridiculous in this way. That sounds false to me. But yeah, I agree.

You could have made him sound a little more ridiculous without having him doing this, like artificial identifying. The fact that he sounds like a Barry Weiss column version of someone she made up to get mad at is like is not super helpful for that yeah no i agree with that yeah and you can sort of like once that scene becomes this um hatchet job uh viral video like you can see something like that becoming a part of it when it sort of becomes her like phobic object or whatever like it like contains everything that she hates about like these students or whatever but in this like scene that's supposed to be very realistic i just didn't buy that particular yeah it did feel like they were they were putting their finger a little bit too hard on the like you're supposed to find

him annoying and ridiculous and it's like listen he's a child i already find him annoying and ridiculous. And it's like, listen, he's a child. I already find him annoying and ridiculous. You don't have to tell me. You're pushing on an open door. Absolutely. He's 19. It's like, come on. I thought it was so funny. I only caught this this time around.

She makes a Rene Redzepi reference in the start of the monologue. Did you guys catch this? The celebrity chef at Noma, the like five Michelin star Copenhagen restaurant, which I thought was such a great way to convey that like she doesn't know how to talk to anyone who is not her usual like New Yorker festival audience. She's talking to a bunch of Juilliard students and she's like, oh, Renee Red Zeppi, right, kids? Yeah, I mean, Tara is constantly making references that like I don't understand, which is part of her charm. But right. Right. That's the idea is it's a little a little power cudgel that she wields that like, oh, you don't know the references, which is definitely very real.

I have met those people, unfortunately, and they love to drop their little references. Yeah, even though she's like met by these blank looks from the students. We have no idea what you're talking about. For example, I didn't know what you were talking about when you said that that was the chef. I didn't know the Noma reference. I was like, OK, that one I got. I've heard of that restaurant. I admit even that puts me. I had to Google it.

I have not been to Copenhagen. I've not been to Noma. I did watch the first two seasons of The Bear, which does make me a culinary expert. And I think they referenced Rene Redzepi. Cool. So which is just as annoying, frankly, but at least they hold your hand a little bit through it. I was also really struck by the irony of her specifically belittling this Icelandic atonal composer. And the very first scene of the movie is her doing her fieldwork with like atonal Peruvian indigenous music.

And it really shows you how she has betrayed her own origins and how she's gone from the young person who wants to challenge things to the old who's bought into the status quo. But I also thought that's very typical of people like this. Oh, sure.

Which is like, I'm going to go, I'm going to go do my anthropology to some far off place so i can seem very cultured and in touch with another you know she was genuine in her love for the peruvian no i think it's just like something she did because you know it was going to look good on the resume that she could talk about at parties and in discussions with adam gopnik years later that's my cynical view of that. I buy that she in her youth was authentically

into it. And you hear her speaking the indigenous Peruvian language on the tape. But it can be both, for sure. It can be both. To me, the thing that's interesting about that choice is that the Tar score was written by a female Icelandic composer. Which I thought was supposed to be

a little joke, yeah. Yeah, and I'm just like really fascinated by how much Todd Field is talking about himself when he's talking about this. He's the director of this movie that is incredibly controlled, like obsessively controlled.

And he, you know, like his first movie was a Woody Allen movie. He worked for Stanley Kubrick, obviously. And so I, you know, he's also a musician. And so he knows a lot about that world, like way more than I do. I'm like vaguely aware of what he's talking about. But I did wonder, you know, how much he's trying to talk about his own movie making when he is making this movie. Right. And of course, like you mentioned, he was in a Kubrick movie. He was in Eyes Wide Shut and

talked a lot about watching Kubrick and trying to learn his filmmaking style, which is sociopathic in how controlling it is. And it does look like he's very much trying to reproduce that in Tarot, which I thought he did an amazing job with. But yes, I'm sure you're right that he is to some degree talking about his own filmmaking style. I have a quote from him about the Juilliard scene. Really the impetus for writing it, I think, was just an age old question. What would your older self tell your younger self? Which I think is such an interesting way to read the scene.

This version of these two individuals, one is 50, the other is half that age. The younger one is very much like Lydia Tarr when she was 25. And then that poses the question, quote, why does she go after this student? I thought is interesting. The idea that she is attacking the younger version of herself because she understands that is threatening now. That is a really, really smart way to read that scene. All right. What do we think of the ending?

The ending that everybody got so mad at? OK, now you guys get to tell me why do people get mad at the ending so amanda you you were deep in this okay so the ending is like um where tar goes to i guess in the movie ultimately it's an unnamed um asian country i think it is supposed to be the philippines it is i thought it was thailand why did i think it was well i think it was i mean it's kind of sex trafficking oh but i think it's you know they but they i think it was filmed in thailand but they do they reference like the marlon brando movie that brought the alligators to the river which i think is a reference to yeah which was filmed in the Philippines, right? Yes. Anyway, so she's there and she gets her like new post cancellation job, which is conducting a youth orchestra for like a monster hunter she's like conducting to a video game score which is i guess like her ultimate nightmare that she's stuck in this robot world now um but she seems to

be like thriving there also she seems to be taking it very seriously um i'm not sure why people dislike this. I think like there's this idea that like it ended on a joke. Um, yeah, I think people, I loved it as well. And we should talk about like how we read it. because they thought it was a joke at the expense of, I guess, Southeast Asian video game music, fan going culture, or they thought that it was, which I think it's fine to say that's less prestigious than the Berlin Philharmonic. I was not particularly offended by that. But in any case, or the thing people were offended by was they felt that it was too redemptive. And they would say, well, she had a big realization at the end and we're tired of seeing groomers and abusers be redeemed. I would say that I did not read it that way.

Yeah, I mean, I definitely saw it. I read it as her being so obsessed with Western culture and herself dismissive in a of lines that are throwaways, where she sort of indicates a dismissal of other like musical traditions. But I also like the idea of it being redemptive. I mean, A, Lydia Tarr is not real. She's not real. She can't hurt you.

It's a movie. I don't see it as a redemption um i do see it as like a confirmation that she like really loves what she does uh which is yeah i took that reaction yeah i i or that she she realized at some point towards the end when she was losing everything that she this is this is all she has she doesn't have relationships right except her in her mind i guess her relationship with her daughter which we could yeah whether that's a healthy relationship i don't know what that is it's the implication right and then there's no other relationships and all she has is the music and so it's fun it ends on like a funny note there right but i think she is a maybe i think there's a mix, right? She's genuinely happy that she is playing again or that she is conducting again. Right.

But I don't think it's redemptive at all in the sense that like she's so isolated by the end and alienated and being in whatever the culture is where she doesn't necessarily speak the language or hasn't been like it just she feels like she's so on an island that i thought it was a good um description of like what happens to someone who has a fall from grace like this who's a public figure and then the real tough thing to go through is that like all of your connections are just lost right to the world that you once had right so it is this sort of like this death yeah and she starts anew but she's completely alone the two scenes that i thought were really telling for her kind of like because i think you're right it is a kind of death or kind of rebirth after this is obviously the big one is when she goes to the massage parlor and she realizes what it actually is it's actually house of prostitution and she's like all these women are arrayed before her and a woman who is in the exact position that olga is in in the orchestra makes eye contact with

her and then she realizes who she is and she goes out and she throws up but i think the other really key scene that i don't hear people talk about as much is when she goes to the waterfall and she's hiding behind the waterfall and she sees these two young people kissing where it's like she is seeing the humanity of someone outside of herself and she's seeing a real genuine emotional connection between two people kind of for the first time in her life and that's not redemptive because that's just i think that's like deep sadness yes yeah i mean she's right because she's caught behind the waterfall and like see that is closed off to her now she's not gonna have that in her own life i mean the woman who makes eye contact with her also in the massage parlor is number five which is like the symphony that she's oh yeah oh right um yeah todd you did it again

i know todd is like he's todd's a wild one like i am very interested in him i hope that he makes another movie i know i do too uh all right do we have anything else before we move on to what the biggest thing the movie gets wrong no okay i our biggest thing for me i really agree with you amanda i think that the movie overplays its hands with the phrase bipoc pangender and just tips us too hard into telling us how to feel about the characters in a way that I think really like fed into the backlash of the movie because people took a message from it that it's about it's, you know, waving its hands at cancel culture and the young wokes who were so upset about. And there was the Venice Film Festival when it screened. The crowd cheered during the Juilliard scene when she's dressing down that kid. No way.

Yes, they cheered. It's a very funny case of people who should really know better, like, wildly risk meeting the movie. That is amazing. But it's also such a funny moment because, like, that's the New Yorker festival crowd. Do you know what I mean? Those are the people who are bought into the power structure that's being, I feel, indicted in the movie who were like, yeah, fucking get his ass, Lydia. Oh, my God. I mean, I do.

I would argue that there are things that appear wrong with the Internet that are that it's purposeful because it's a reflection of how Lydia Tarr sees the internet, which is, like, through this, like, completely distorted lens. But that part, I think, is not. And so I agree. To me, that was, like, the most off note in the movie. My biggest thing and smallest thing are both, like, same scene. Smallest thing, why did anyone let her in the performance in a tuxedo where she was standing next to the guy with the trumpet why was she there that was what i watched it last night with julia and she was like the trumpet player's not gonna

notice this crazy right no one's gonna notice her walking in and then she's got her key card after she physically assaults the conductor great scene great scene but i was like i feel like she would have been canceled a lot harder after that right that's not just like public shame like why wasn't she like led away and handcuffed taken to jail and taken to jail i believe maybe she spent a night in the slammer you think so shock me i just felt like that that was her tackling him was like like tipped it over into okay there's a little melodrama there's gonna be no other gigs for lydia tar after this not even in manila no not in manila i would book her i'd book her in a heartbeat lydia you're

welcome here anytime there's a whole internet discourse that's like uh the last third of the movie isn't real like it's something that's like a the last third of the movie isn't real like it's something that's like a hallucination that happens in lydia tar's mind after she like bonks her head on the stairs which i don't agree with but it's certainly like the fact that the trumpet player does not even see her is odd he's locked in he's got that he's got he's going mauler mode um what do you guys make of the score disappearing from tar's apartment that for me felt like a loose end that was just like never explained oh yeah my my reaction to that was what you don't have this on a hard drive somewhere

really there's only just only on paper i don't know how to do that i don't know if i don't know if conductors keep it on like Microsoft Word. or anything? Okay. Well, this is what the movie is about. It's about the importance of digital backups.

Don't keep hard copies. That's why it's off my movie club. That's right. Yeah. I mean, my theory now is like Francesca before her rampage

like just did a bunch of mischief. Especially like if Tara's wife like doesn't really know what's going on she is her assistant she can sort of come in and pick something up or whatever right um they're all popping pills literally i know yeah um but we also like in the background see krista a couple of times after she died like figures that appear like krista yeah um i'll send you some reddit links there's one

there's one that we see we see her once in tar's uh like flat like in her studio before we know that krista is dead but by the timeline like krista is dead yeah she's sitting she's like standing in the kitchen and then again we see her later when Petra calls her and asks her to come in to her room and hold her foot. We can see Krista sitting in a chair in the dark. I can't believe I missed that. I know. I'll send it to you. It's in the script, in the shooting script, too.

So it's like a real thing. But there's this, I don know if like she's literally supposed to be a ghost there's a tweet that i love i don't remember who tweeted it but it's something like when there was this whole debate as to whether the end of tar was a dream someone was like maybe a maybe tar isn't real and it's not a dream it's a third thing a movie and i do think like it's a movie and so like todd field is making all of these moves that are allegorical or whatever um but i do think uh there's supposed to be maybe a plausible literal explanation for why these things are happening and then maybe a slightly supernatural cast to

like the um skeletons in her closet coming out that's what i took it as like her subconscious haunting her and like waking up in the middle of the night and the metronome is going crazy it's like she equates herself with time so like time is losing control or like the time is out of control so lydia tar is losing control of the world around her and the like right dog is her being haunted by she understands that she's putting herself in danger that's so i kind of took it all as as metaphorical um moment you most related to personally boy i had a a much larger list here than i would have hoped for in a movie this is a much much bigger section of my google doc than is ideal to be honest

uh getting older and can't sleep through the damn night i related to that one that one tracks uh listening to npr in the morning and repeating back weird enunciations wow do you guys does everybody not do this no i don't the number of times i've been like in the shower and there's someone on npr and they like pronounce something a weird way like you have to say it back you guys are missing out i'm telling you try it it's fun it's fun wow that's great okay okay i had more but i would somebody else should save me from my shame and embarrassment here i mean for me it's like uh not to this extent obviously but when you're an assistant to a person uh that person plays this enormous role in your

life and you're like small to them and so this idea that all of these assistants have like kind of a parasocial relationship with their own boss that is only like maybe sometimes vaguely connected to like what she's actually doing and who she is as a person. I felt like was seemed incredibly realistic. So who was your Lydia Tarr then? I mean, I don't think i had a lydia tar although i would say like not not like with the sex stuff but there is certainly like a um there's a dynamic between i think like if you're in an industry that used to be dominated by men like there's a dynamic of like the first woman to really like break through who then like manages younger women where it's like she had to be more of a man than a man in order to survive and sort of like expects

you to like do the same uh but you're like well this isn't true of me like i'm you know i'm surrounded by women or whatever so um i think that is that's something that does happen. Yeah, her whole line in the New Yorker thing about they don't call them astronauts. That rings so familiar. There's so many I feel like I've encountered so many older women who were very successful, who were like, just pretend gender doesn't exist. Just pretend it doesn't exist, which is like very self serving once you're in the position of power but i thought rang really true um i it's a small thing but the pr team at the the pr teams throughout there's one i think at the with the in berlin and then there's one at the very end right and just like the advice that crisis comms people

give is just so there's another part where i just laughed really hard and i've just like heard it so many times and like working in campaigns and consulting all that kind of stuff. And it's just like, you know, we're going to like start small and we need to tell a different story. Yeah. We need to tell a different story. It did. That moment for me shed a lot of light in 2008 when you guys had Barack Obama go to Manila and relocate there and just give give big inspiring speeches in the backwoods of the Philippines. I was like, oh, that's how that happened. I get this now. We got to rebuild.

We got to rebuild. We got to rebuild. Start small. The part that I did sincerely relate to is the feeling of, and Zadie Smith talks about this in her essay, of when you realize you have gone from the young guard to the old guard, and that's a very destabilizing moment. And like being the like one time, you know, young progressive groundbreaker who now you like look around and you see everybody around you, like they're the young progressive groundbreakers now. And they just kind of assume that you are like, you know, defender of the status quo conservative. And you want to tell them like, no, wait, I was and continue in my mind to be you. Well, it's not just the politics, though, because that, you know,

I've seen before and felt before. But she goes on to say she's like, what's wrong with these people is that they are going to die. And for the first time in their lives, they really know that. And so she's like equates it with having a midlife crisis. And I never thought about a midlife. It's not just that you're seeing these younger generations, but you're also seeing like, okay, the end is coming. And now what do I, what do I do? And then she was also saying like, and maybe because the end of our time and the end of time itself has become somewhat muddled in our minds, which is also very true and very online. And very Gen X, frankly. Very Gen X and a little millennial too.

Yeah, right, right. But yeah, it definitely made me, it gave me a flashback to every time in the last couple of years, especially, or the last year, I should say, especially, I have been having a discussion with someone about the Israel-Palestine conflict. And I will see that they will just, they're polite about it. I will see behind their eyes that they assume, like, oh, you used to work for the New York Times, so i assume you have a certain set of views that i disagree with and don't like and i like really have to stop myself from launching into a soliloquy about like you don't know the things that i did to like challenge the status quo or like move things in a certain direction but then stop myself because i remember that was 10 years ago and it doesn't actually count for anything anymore and it's like oh no okay that's a little idiot tar yeah that's that's fine oh we have all worked with a sebastian who annoys the shit out of us even if their work is great the pen clicking i've worked with that guy i've worked with the pen clicker

to me like the most relatable moment in the movie is when we hear all of this stuff about how tar like doesn't read reviews like she hates social media and then we see her type at tar into the twitter search bar to like see what people are saying about her book talk that was great uh oh you know what i hate is when um your subconscious torments you with your misdeeds by manifesting your guilt as an ethereal wolf that's the worst right guys right guys fall flat on your face right and then you injure yourself physically yeah that's right that's always the worst one um oh the only other one i had was uh getting getting hauled in front of bosses i guess in lydia tar's case the board over a tweet that's definitely happened to me

i definitely had a couple of those yeah for sure in case, it was tweeting that the one I got in the most trouble for was when I tweeted that John Kelly watching an early Trump speech. He looked like Mr. Wilson after Dennis the Menace put a flaming bag of poop on his front yard. What the hell is the problem with that? I got in so much trouble for that tweet. Pretty lame. I thought so. Yeah. That was my case.

I don't know if it was unintentional or not, but Olga, that scene where they're eating together and olga tells her that she knows the music from um seeing someone play it on youtube and then at some point says i don't know who the conductor was yeah and you could just see the look on on tar's face and she was like but yet she loves her and welcomes her in and chooses her which Which is a great contrast with the Juilliard scene. Right. Because even though she's done maybe like the worst thing you could possibly do to Lydia Tarr, which is dismiss the importance of a conductor. Right. Yeah, it does.

I think that that is it's a great contrast with the Juilliard scene because it shows, OK, she's willing to throw all of that out the window when she's found a new young person to exploit. I mean, I don't think that Todd Field wants there to be any unintentionally revealing moment in this movie. I think he's intended for every moment to be revealing to the extent that the nursery rhyme that she's repeating with Petra in the car is about all of these animals

getting together to kill a rooster. She references the Jabberwocky which is yeah also about like killing this monster um so but to me like for me uh when she goes home and she watches the leonard bernstein tapes uh in her house like and she's crying like to me that's when i realized like this is supposed to be be the most emotional moment of this movie. And like, I'm not really moved by this. And I think there's something about the movie just being so controlled that I even though like, I find Lydia Tarr to be like a really interesting puzzle and I'm interested in her um i didn't completely like empathize with her at the end it's so funny i did find that scene to be a little emotionally affecting the close shot on her eyes when we first hear leonard bernstein talking about like the joy of the music and i think he's supposed to be talking to kids and you see her nod a little

bit i was like oh there is a real person deep down inside here who really does care about music. But I don't know. Maybe I just feel more. I don't know what to tell you. Linda. Linda Tarr. Linda Tarr. Two Rs.

Yeah. Yeah. The only thing I really had here was the extremely Gen X preoccupation with authenticity. That that's like her big redemption at the end. She connects with her authentic self as extremely Gen X preoccupation with authenticity that that's like her big redemption at the end it's just she connects with her authentic self is extremely Gen X which this whole movie is like one of the most Gen X movies I've ever seen

and then I think that just like the reception to it I found very revealing which is not something you put on the movie but the fact that everybody was upset at the movie for not specifically confirming their views on quote unquote cancel culture and that's not even what the movie was really about confirming their views on quote-unquote cancel culture and that's not even what the movie was really about yeah i thought it was like very telling

um biggest real world impact um that's a lot of people were trying to google whether lydia tarr is real or not she's real if you believe there's a debate seems like i love a world where like this is what biopics look like. Like people make biopics of real people and they're this movie. Like I welcome that. I think every real person should have a TAR style movie made about them. There was a whole New York magazine really went off on the whole Lydia TAR is real thing and had a number of SEO explainers about her. And there's one that I will quote later when we get to the true or false section,

49 facts about Lydia Tarr, where the URL, this is so funny, is, who is Lydia Tarr, Cate Blanchett, biopic real? It was a great bit. For me, the biggest impact was that it made me extremely mad at the Oscars. Because my boy Todd got robbed. My girl Kate got robbed. Everything, everywhere, all at once. It's fine.

Three and a half stars. Who won instead of Cate Blanchett? Michelle Yeoh. Oh, right, right, right. She got a kind of like, we're so proud of you for all you've sacrificed. Cate Blanchett did a... Cate, but come on. She's great. It was...

I know she already has... The guitar would have hated that choice. We were all waiting for a certain someone when Michelle Yeoh was up on that stage to come out of the wings and make their presence felt. Right by the trumpet player. I did want there to be like a big Oscars skit with Tar, but I'm sure that no one saw the movie. I don't know. I guess no one watches the Oscars anyway. So who cares?

Yeah. Yeah. Who cares Oscars? What would be different if it came out today? I think the reception would be really different. I really think that people would move. Oh, yeah. I think that we're just a couple steps further.

Yeah. I mean, it's twice as far away from 2020. I think people are like a little chiller about all this stuff now and ready to look at it with a little bit more remove i do also think that again the like bipoc pangender i think they would be a little bit more uh a little smarter about how to present the max character i could do that yeah i think there's something that's like on the tip of the movie's tongue all the time where like she talks about how she conducted in israel she's in this very jewish philanthropy world like she's talking about jewish figures all the time she cites hebrew like i don't see how those elements stay in the movie

and there's not some kind of israel relationship to her cancellation yeah it just seems like it's almost there right um there's also this there's this trailer for the movie that has all of these images that never showed up in the movie um and one of them is tar like moving backwards through um the berlin holocaust memorial and you know like like we previously talked about talking about the cancellation of Nazis alongside sexual predators. And so there's something going on there in the movie that's like just under the surface

and I'm not totally sure what it is. And I feel like maybe it would have made it a worse movie, but I feel like something from that would need to sort of come out more explicitly in campus conversation. You know, you would definitely pull that thread out more. Yeah, I agree. That's I hadn't noticed. I didn't put that together. But yeah, that all of the Hebrew and the references to Israel do feel very pointed and they don't feel accidental. I think maybe maybe if it came out today,

they would have given her a podcast. I don't we've got extra microphones here lydia tar wants a podcast she's got a podcast caster and quite successful there oh yeah no that that's true she would be on russell brand yes she does appear on alex she appears on alex baldwin's podcast in the movie i don't know if you got that she's like interviewed by Alec Baldwin, who like went on to accidentally kill a woman, you know, which is very odd. And so I'm not sure. It's great that it happens in the movie. I'm not sure that it would happen after that event. Yeah, that's true. Oh, yeah. Having Alec Baldwin in there would feel a little bit more, feel a little bit more pointed. I mean, it already feels on the nose. But, you know, after that, it's, yeah. I love that.

I love that in the first 15 minutes, they're, like, really rubbing our noses in the, like, manufacture of high culture and making it feel so, like, these are the steps. talk to Alec Baldwin. And then you like go out with your rich financier, but you belittle him a little bit because that's part of how you maintain the power dynamic, even though the Mark Strong character is like funding you and giving you his private jet. I thought all of those dynamics I thought were so great and they're so funny. All right, well, we are going to finish things off with our traditional round of true or false. I'm going to read out a series of quotes, plot points in the movie. You tell me if you agree, disagree with them. True or false is a quote from Todd Field.

If this story was about a white male, you'd know how to feel in five seconds. True. True. Yeah, I think true. Quote from Andrus that we played earlier. Nowadays, to be accused is the same as being guilty. But then he goes on to suggest maybe it was actually always like that.

I think there's truth to that. I think it's uncomfortable to acknowledge because it feels like a concession to a cancel culture narrative that therefore there's not real underlying guilt, which is that so often uses a deflection to be like, oh, you're accused. You're the same as guilty. But you know, that's part of how you know, conforming people to social norms works. I'd say generally true, slightly less true. Slightly less true than maybe it was

even at the time of the movie. Yes. Yeah. It's very true that Andrus would say that because when she brought it up, he was very alarmed that someone could have said something about him, obviously, like he's had incidents in his past. I thought that was the funniest part of the movie. Yes. He's immediately like,

if someone says something, I'm out of the game. Yeah, they can't even bring me down because I'm as low as I could be. Yeah, they're going to take my driver away. So yes, I think he's right. But it's also right that someone guilty would say that. Yes, I agree with both of those. Quote from Adam Gopnik.

Tar on tar is the perfect stocking stuffer. That's true. That's absolutely true. I would absolutely love the gift of tar on tar. I signed copy of tar on tar. What's better than that? Oh, my God. All right.

Let's do I'm going to do a few rapid fire ones from the juilliard scene and there are a bunch of these so we'll try to go through them quickly these are all lydia tar quotes from that scene unfortunately the architect of your soul appears to be social media true i don't it's true for you and me i don't know i don't manda i'm not going to implicate you here but i would say it's true for probably. It's very unfortunate. Okay. Don't be so eager to be offended. The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring conformity. I'm going to say she snapped with that one.

I think she's right. I think that's true. Yeah. You hate to side with her in this scene because she is a monster, but she's not wrong all the time. Her general point is correct. Not in that instance.

No, the way she's applying it is not correct. Okay. Quote, you want to dance the mask, you must service the composer. I don't know what that means. I'll be honest. I don't know what that means, but I love it. I'm going to say yes. Absolutely, that's true.

Perfect. How is mask, what is mask? I don't know. Okay. I don't know, but it sounds true. It's such authority. All right. Quote, you have to sublimate yourself, your ego, and yes, your identity.

You must, in fact, stand in front of the public and God and obliterate yourself. I'm going to say false. I don't think that's what Tars is doing. That's the opposite of what she's doing. Yeah, she is all about manufacturing identity. Quote, it is always the question that involves the listener. It's never the answer. I also didn't quite know what that meant.

I always like that. I was going to say true because I feel like, look, as a longtime practitioner of explainer journalism, that's how you pull them in. You give them the big question. And what is Tara if not an explainer journalist? Tara starts out this monologue like spitting truth, but then she sort of becomes like a magic eight ball of like. You might say that she's high in her own supply. All right. Two from the Zadie Smith essay.

Quote, it's a long climb down from cultural luminary to contra and no doubt a great shock to find yourself so sharply reassessed and redefined by the generation below you. That is five green lights. True. True. Ultra true. Yeah, green lights true. True. Yeah, ultra true. I'll say true. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Quote, the very phrase ad hominem has been rendered obsolete, almost incomprehensible online. A person is the position they're maintaining and vice versa. Opinions are identities and identities are opinions. False.

Thousand percent true. Yeah. No, I don't agree with that. Okay. Let's talk about it. Yeah, why not? I mean, it's just not, it's just not true. Like, Sadie Smith gets to write this whole freaking essay in, you know, what is it?

The LARB? And she wrote it like the next year after Tar came out. It's like, and she didn't even have to write it like she people get to have their opinions at length still oh i think that's fine sure i guess i'm thinking about like and maybe i've spent too much time in political twitter yes but you really are which maybe sorry sorry for the maybe but your opinions are like whatever someone's tweeting whatever their takes are. That's who that person is. There are no other sides to that person. There is no nuance or complexity to that person.

You their takes. You are your takes. You had a take that I didn't like. And that's what I'm going to associate with you. Yes. Yes. Unless you meet the person in real life and you're like, oh, that person sucked online. But I actually like them in real life.

I will. This is kind of like agreeing with Lydia Tarr in the Julia art scene, to be honest with you, where it's like, I really agree with what Zadie Smith is saying. And I feel slightly uncomfortable and old articulating that. So I will say it is true in some contexts and there are other contexts where that defense is used inappropriately is how I'm going to forgive myself for it. All right. Now we're going to do I know we're doing so many true and falses, but this is just it's a perfect movie for it. We're going to do a few from the Vulture article 49 True Facts About Lydia Tarr by Jason Frank and Rebecca

Alter. Incredible piece. Quote, interview magazine had to issue a correction following its Lydia Tarr and Lin-Manuel Miranda interview when page six revealed that Tarr lied about having seen Hamilton. True. She did it. She did that shit. False. False. Okay. Okay. She did that shit. False.

False. Okay. Okay. I think she would be open about not seeing Hamilton and it being underneath her wings. She'd hold it up

as a badge of honor. That's true. She would love to brag about that. Yeah. She would also never sit down with Lin-Manuel Miranda. Oh, come on.

She would do it. She would do it because there'd be something in it for her. A little publicity for Tar on Tar. If you search Gisley Maxwell, Lydia Tar and Getty Images, you get 49 hits. Yes.

Yes, but that, you know, that has more, that says more about Ghislaine than about Lydia Tar, I think, because she's just everywhere. Yeah, there's also there's a lot of Reddit links about those those images too. And about what's really going on in those photos. Uh, Kate McKinnon once depicted tar in a cut for time SNL sketch that has been called quote, my personal David pumpkins by more than one Brooklyn based queer comedian. It starts out. Yes.

And then it goes to a false. Same. Okay. Okay. Okay. All right. All right. Um,

true or false. The. Same with me. Okay. Okay. Okay. Alright. Alright. True or false, the most annoying imaginable way to respond to someone in conversation is by saying very punkt contra punkt. That's it. I think no one has been more annoying than Lydia Tarr was in that moment. I'm going to start using that. Yeah. I'm going to have them

shut off your mic. True or false, in a pinch, jail can be rhymed with hell. In the accordion scene oh you're all you're all going to hell your sister's in jail is in jail yes yes which we didn't really talk about you kind of referenced this i thought that scene was very good at conveying the like ego death that comes with being mega canceled online and like what that feels like and it really does feel terrible um but it's also true that everything she says in that song is correct right yeah no she's absolutely right they banished their sister

to an institution to sell her apartment like that is wrong and tar is rough yeah oh the scene when they knock on the door and she they, what times do you play music? She does a little pow. Another great laugh moment. Yes. This movie is a comedy. Incredible. It's very funny.

True or false, if you were to recount a story about a 19th century composer mistreating his wife and you wanted to end it in a way that showed how hip and online you were, it would be by saying quote, hashtag rules of the game. Lydia Tarr, explain a hashtag. What do you think a hashtag is? What rules? Of what game? What is she talking about? Now that you mention that moment, that was one moment I should have written it down. I was like, what were they doing here?

What was she doing? Hashtag rules the game, John. she doing hashtag rules the game john hashtag rules the game all right uh last one this is a quote from lydia tar an ironclad rebuttal to any accusation quote for a start this happened in a tech-free zone but she's right it's a tech-free zone you can't you can't be mad at her for anything she said in a tech-free zone you can't be mad at her for anything she did or she said yeah funny if they brought in a phone it was them it was they they was on now so yes take it all off the internet now so we just caught him on a technicality it's over uh well pals thank you so much for joining me in the tech free zone that was watching tar one of my favorites. Thanks, guys. I'm so excited that I finally watched it. I am too.

And now in the discourse, I love it. Yeah, and now we're going to have Kate on. Movie Club is a Crooked Media production. It's written and hosted by me, Max Fisher. It's produced by Emma Illick-Frank, mixed and edited by Charlotte Landis, with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Vasilis Vitopoulos. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeline Herringer, and Adrienne Hill for production support. 다음 시간에 만나요.