One of the most curious phenomena surrounding ‘TÁR’ is how many people have assumed that it is inspired by a real artist, despite the fact that there isn’t really a similar figure in those classical music circuits. We can attribute it to Todd Field’s exquisite attention to detail, which creates a absolutely believable character and it also loads the film with pertinent references, or also to the proliferation of the musical biopic in recent years.
If it were a real biopic, it would be an interesting and poisonous distortion of what the genre has become in recent years: conservative, white, mechanical, wikipedic and uninteresting. Interestingly, Cate Blanchett was indeed in a biopic of a real musical figure, and she is of the best and most transgressors that have been seen. It’s about ‘I’m Not There’.
an indecipherable judas
In this film, available to watch through Filmin, Blanchett does not place himself under the orders of Todd Field, but Todd Haynes, one of the most interesting names in American independent cinema. A good heir to Douglas Sirk’s melodramas, although on occasions he surprises with experiments where he tries to expand the shape of the medium to better explore the background, his characters.
Here the figure to study is Bob Dylan, one of the most important composers of all time and also an impenetrable figure. His multitude of different stages, which dodge the traditional story of rise and fall that usually works so much in Hollywood, or his way of building his public image through smoke and mirrors makes it very difficult to dissect him in a conventional film. That is why Haynes avoids making one.
Here portrays his legendary career through six different periods, which he represents with six different interpreters who pretend to give life to six different characters although they are all based on Dylan. He also tries counting them in six different styles, changing photography or tones to suit the period he seeks to portray. Blanchett is sharing the limelight with some also impressive Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw or Richard Gere.
‘I’m Not There’: putting together pieces of the puzzle
However, Blanchett gets to make one of Dylan’s most fascinating periods. The switch to electric, the conversion to a rock star, the accusations of Judas, the controversy. This is where the Haynes experiment show your full potentialreplicating but also subverting known public details about that moment and harnessing a magnetic performer to portray a maverick, though the enigma still remains impenetrable.
It’s hard to explain Dylan. Martin Scorsese already tried twice, and came close. As close as one can. Haynes too, thanks to his polyhedral drawing that, although he cannot put all the pieces of the puzzle together, seeks to order them in such a way that they forge interesting stories. Even with an imperfect result, due to the dense and experimental nature of the project, he manages to do well what a good biopic should do.
In Espinof | The best movies about the music industry