Cate Blanchett, In Lieu Of Lip-Syncing, Conducted The Actual Orchestra In TAR

In TR, directed by Todd Field, Blanchett portrays a made-up composer named Lydia Tár, who is a winner of the prestigious EGOT and is universally praised as a pioneer for women in her field. But unfortunately, sexual misconduct allegations cause Lydia’s once-promising career to plummet.

Blanchett, 53, learned how to lead an orchestra herself with the help of a tutor so that she could make the many on-screen rehearsal and performance moments believable.

She joked about not being involved in the “conducting lip-syncing version” of the film during a press conference on Monday morning at the New York Film Festival.

We’ve all watched movies about artists and prayed, “Please, God, don’t turn the canvas around; I know that you’re not really a painter.” Blanchett clarified that they opted out of that particular adaptation. It was crucial that we could compete musically with the actors cast as musicians. Being actors required us to train ourselves to sound as much like musicians as possible.

Blanchett, who also does some piano playing and German dialogue, said she listened to one of the film’s key symphonies uninterrupted for an entire year in order to learn it inside and out.

Then, she said, she felt ready to take on the part. So when I learned to read the symphony score vertically and horizontally, I began to piece together who she was and how her terrible mechanisms worked. It was a musical connection.

She said the screenplay was rhythmic in its plot and dialogue, like a musical soundtrack. Blanchett remarked that she felt overwhelmed by the script’s complexity because each character had their unique cadence, intonation, and dynamics, and there seemed to be an aching metaphysical tragedy at its core.

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