 Oh! Sweet. I could have watered all over you. I like that. Yeah. Shrekka. Shrekka don't preach. It's just for drinking. What is that? There's ice. It's frozen. It's frozen water. This was in my car. Welcome back to life lessons in the film. Hello. Today we're going to be making sense of life through Tar. That's the name. That's the name of the movie. It follows Lydia. Lydia Tar. Lydia. That's the name of the movie. That's the name of the movie. That's the name of the movie. It follows Lydia. Lydia Tar. Lydia Tar. Lydia. This is a fall from grace story. A famous conductor from the height of her career to her absolute demise. She's an esteemed conductor. Many accolades. She has written books. She's also an egot. Obviously an egot. She's an egot. She also lectures at Juilliard. She's preparing to perform this famous symphony. Mahler's Symphony No. 5. Yeah. It's going to be recorded. It's just basically going to be the capstone to her insanely incredible career. When you're done watching this movie. You have so many questions. Yes. A lot of people be like, this happened. This happened. Yeah. No, this happened. Yeah. We find out that there may be issues. Yes. There are lots of things that happen that come to pass that suggest that Lydia has been abusing her power by way of treating badly the people she works with like the orchestra, for example, or taking advantage sexually all for students and all of these things. She had to mount up. She ends up from performing as a conductor in Berlin to then performing, we're not really sure where it is, but then she's performing in front of like cost players. Once you board this ship, there's no turning back. There's one student who's kind of stalking her and it looks like she's blacklisted the student. I think what she was hoping for is that Lydia would get her off the blacklist basically because Lydia has emailed everyone in the game that don't hire her. It seems like there was some kind of romantic relationship or at least maybe Lydia was interested in the student and the student wasn't interested. And so Lydia just decides, I am going to cut you down. It looks like. Yeah. That person that she cuts down ends up killing herself. And she deletes all of the emails where she's blacklisting her and then all the communication that she's been sending to them. The movie's ambiguous. Not only like, even though there's certain things that happen with her that you're like, did that really happen? Was that just in her head? But really, even when it comes to the allegations, we never get the proof that it was true, right? I mean, you think, okay, she was deleting, she was being sketchy, deleting emails. But, you know, when she says. She was disturbed. I mean, she fixated on me. In what way? She sent me weird gifts. She trolled me online. She tried to send me signals. Maybe she wasn't. Maybe she wasn't. We don't know. Some events felt like they may not have been happening. Some things felt like, is there something going on with her mind? Maybe she's in a certain kind of mental state in the beginning of the movie when she's getting ready to go out and perform. Do you remember all those little ticks and stuff that she does? Yeah. And then she takes a pill and she just seems like someone who has a lot of pressure. Yeah. And that kind of pressure can take a toll on the person. And it just seems like there is a sense of her being out of it throughout the movie with the dreams and the weird things that we see. Yeah. There's a metronome that was set off. She doesn't know who started it. And then she goes to Olga's apartment. Yeah. There's no one that lives there. Yeah. So those kinds of things make me wonder. We're seeing events that are unfolding in her own head. Yeah. And I feel like if that is the case, I wonder if she's tormented by the things that she's done. Every single relationship she has, she's a gaslighter. She's a manipulator to get the things that she wants all the time. Even when she fires that guy, Sebastian, I think is his name. She gaslights out of him. She's so good at that. She pulls it around again and makes him feel like, okay, yeah, I don't know I'm sorry. We know the things you do, the little favors you grant. I'm, I really don't know what to say, Sebastian. You, of all people, have the temerity to question my integrity. No, no. I'm sorry, Maestro. I don't know what I'm saying. No, no. It's clear you know exactly what you're saying. I mean, if that's how you really feel about me, then wouldn't you say that staying is entirely out of the question? Then please, Maestro, please forgive me. For what? And then with the assistant, I think her name is Francesca, always dangling the carrot or someone to live that way. I feel like you'd be worried every single time because you're basically creating enemies. You're creating people that don't support you or that you can't really feel secure in. When you're stringing people along, eventually it catches up to you. So Francesca eventually gets fed up with being strung along all the time. She quits. She quits, yeah. The only communication we received from Francesca was an email to my assistant in the middle of the night, tendering her immediate resignation stating she would be in contact when she had more details to provide. I feel like there was such a betrayal for this person who was just literally, you know, dying at the cross for you. Honestly, like every single time she's working to the bone, this woman, Francesca, and she was, and Lydia knew what that she wanted to become a conductor herself and allows her to think that when this guy, Sebastian leaves, you're going to take the position and then doesn't, and that doesn't happen. How can you have sincere relationships and have people that you can trust in that position? Because you're not cultivating those kinds of relationships. And I feel like even if you're not killing anyone, there's a seediness to the way that you relate to people. And you know that when you keep doing that, when you keep treating people that way, it's going to come back to you somehow. Her partner decides to basically cut Lydia out of her daughter's life. Yeah, so nothing works out. So just everything's falling apart around her. Don't do this. Please don't do this. Please don't. When Sharon, her partner, says to her, You asked me what were the politics? What were the moves? How could we swing it? How do I work the politics in this situation? You know, help me out here so we can navigate this. Maybe she learned too well. And then she started to turn it against people. You know, at the top, I guess, of any industry or any community, I guess, there's that pressure to function at the top of your game all the time. And then that also creates a lot of competition, envy, betrayal. You kind of see the impact that power has on individuals. We give people power at the end of the day. They say, judge people by their character. Someone has a big house. Someone has a big card. This is like in the most superficial sense. Right. And you're in your mind. Okay, well, you are someone who's to be respected because you have money, wear certain clothes, designer clothes, et cetera. Right. And that's more of a materialistic way to judge someone. So then we say, look at a person's accomplishments. And that will tell you more about what this person is like, whether or not this person is valuable. But when I'm looking at this situation with Lydia, I'm like, looking at her accomplishments, she is assessed by her accomplishments, but in this way, her accomplishments feel to me quite materialistic. In 2013, Berlin elected Tar as its principal conductor in succession to Andres Davis, and she's remained there ever since. Like her mentor, Leonard Bernstein, Tar has a particular affinity for Mahler, whose nine symphonies she recorded during her big five stints. For me, it kind of made me reflect on how accomplishments looked at on their own could be quite materialistic, because you're like, okay, this person came from nothing. She's now a big conductor. Being a conductor, she's a conductor. She teaches at Juilliard, and she's conducted all these symphonies. She's written all these amazing books. If you looked at those accomplishments, those are accomplishments. For someone to have done that, you think this is a valuable human being. This is an incredible person, exemplary person that anybody would aspire to be. So those are just accomplishments on their own, right? But then when you're looking at the backdrop against all of which this is happening, then comes the content of this person's character. I think the problem with power and fame, people in these kinds of positions, the celebrities, we forget all about the content of the person's character, and we just focus on the accomplishments. When she's interacting with people, my God, she's so arrogant. She's allowed to be arrogant that way. That's maybe a theme of the movie, is she herself starts to get judged now or buy like these other older conductors. She talks about her issues with Beethoven, and she's like, you know, I mean, she kind of alludes to him maybe being homophobic or something, but she's like me being a lesbian, it's kind of like makes me think, you know, how do I feel about old Beethoven, but then I listen to his music, you know, and then I judge it in this other way, and I can't help but just be in awe of what he accomplished with his art. And then I think they also have a conversation about Schopenhauer at one point. She also brings up, I was like, didn't he also throw a woman down the stairs one time? So in the movie, there's a lot of talking about people's like reputation and accomplishments versus what they did in their private life or how they treated people. And it's really tricky, right? That's the point that that guy's trying to make. I can't respect Bach because he, you know... He's a white cis man. Yeah. Who, well, there was also the issues of morality there too, right? Oh, you had a bunch of kids. Really? Kids. Probably from multiple marriages. Yeah, so he had a bunch of kids. He doesn't go into the details. That whole conversation is really tricky. I felt like neither Lydia nor the guy were really trying to have that kind of conversation where you're open, that open conversation. It felt like those conversations where you just talk to someone, you're talking at someone. And when, as the person is communicating to you, you're just preparing a response. But you're not really listening. I would say Bach's Missalton's Life makes it kind of impossible for me to take his music seriously. Come on. What do you mean by that? Well, didn't he say, like, 20 kids? Yes, that's documented. Along with a considerable amount of music. But I'm sorry, I'm unclear as to what his prodigious skills in the marital bed have to do with being minor. Lydia was kind of more about, no, but, like, judge the people off their art. Yeah. And kind of, well, you know, you don't want to, you know, we all have our issues with our project. We'll have skeletons in the closet, right? That's kind of, you know, a moot point, because we all have that. He's kind of the other way of words. Like, it's all about the private life and nothing to do with the stuff that they do out in the world. Which was interesting, right? Because before, he talks about who he's inspired by. And it's Anna something. And so I'm not into Bach, but I'm inspired by Anna because Bach was a cis male white and, you know, had a bunch of kids. I think, to her credit, Lydia really tries to educate this guy out of this superficiality. Right. And it's a basic way of assessing people and not giving respect to the nuance of human beings. Yeah. And to those that came before, so if you're a conductor or a composer, there's still so much you can learn from people in your field that came hundreds of years ago because it all builds on each other. And so I feel like at first she does try to show, like, you know, it's complicated, right? But, like, this is art, you know, the idea of looking at art on its own, you know, without everything else, right? So she's trying really hard to educate him, but he's like, no, I'm sorry, I just can't. I'm literally frustrated. And it's like, you say you are inspired by Anna, whoever's last, I don't know her, yeah, this artist. Yeah. She's from Iceland. Right. She's blonde. She's a white blonde woman. Right. Right. And she's hot, right, everyone? Right. And then she asks the class, turn your attention to the person at the piano. All right, now let's turn our gaze back to the piano bench up there and see if we can square how any of those things possibly relate to the person we see seated before us. Where are you going? The whole time he complains that I cannot take Bach seriously because he's a straight guy who's white, but I'm inspired by the woman. Well, she's different also from you. She's different also from you. And that's, what does that mean? Do we take you seriously then? Do we not take you seriously because what standards would you want us to be judging you on? I thought that was a great conversation. Yeah. I personally felt like this was, I guess, it's not a shot, but like it's like a reflection on castle culture and the dangers of castle culture. That is a danger of castle culture. Looking at dissecting things in that superficial way. There's almost some virtue signaling there of like, no, I don't do Bach because of this, this and this and that makes me kind of having progressed morally beyond Bach. When you think about Lydia, when she talks about your soul, she has to sacrifice as an artist. When she's saying that, she's trying to change his view on this. It's also her own personal experience. This is a very patriarchal environment that she's operating in. She would have had to fight tooth and nail to get to that position. It is hard for a woman to get that position. And so she actually has that personal experience of what she's trying to get this guy to see. I think the guy's concern that he expresses as a black person with an indigenous background, there are certain challenges which I feel like she could have actually identified with being a woman who's gay in this kind of community and that's something that they could have bonded over. They both probably could have related better. They could have related better and I feel like unfortunately, sometimes that happens and that's where I'm like, sometimes when you're so staunchly for a certain kind of ideology, you miss opportunities to see the commonalities that you share with someone. That could really be a moment of growth. I think that that was something that was lost on both their ends. I feel like there is a truth to what she's saying where art on its own moves you. No matter who wrote the song, if the song is good, if you heard the song and you didn't know who wrote it, if that song is amazing and it taps into it. That clearly it can stand apart from the person. Yeah, and at least that's a conversation to be had. Whether or not it's right, we don't know. It's a great opportunity for discussion. The thing is too, there's no easy answer. I think that's maybe for her too where you get to the point where you're like, she's pointed out, she's like, yeah, I have issues with Beethoven or other conductors because you know their private lives do affect how you see them or their music say. But it's no easy answer to say, well then I just can't listen to it anymore or it's not worth still remembering or learning, you know. There's no easy answer to it. Most things don't have an easy answer but... Don't be so eager to be offended. The narcissism of small differences leads to the most boring conformity. I think there's a couple of different uses or variations of what narcissism of minor difference means to different people in different fields but one at least in terms of like pop culture that as far as I understand it is the idea that you know a group of people that are all very conformist and want to believe that they just fall along with everybody else and they want to believe they have some individuality so that they'll pick little things that are very safe that are not challenging the ideology or the dogma and they can feel like well that, so I am an individual because I only like peanut butter in my sandwiches, everyone else in my bubble thinks that you need to also have jam with your peanut butter so I'm an individual, I'm a free thinker. I question things, you know. That's the idea, the narcissism of believing that that makes you actually a critical thinker that's very individual is you know deluding yourself and I think you know it's very easy to fall into that. There's this race to who can be the most virtuous or moral, you know. There's this weird kind of competition this endless need to be one up on someone else for who can be the most moral. I think that the danger there with social media in that is you have a lot of people that feel like they're all individual critically thinking vigilantes fair and just but that narcissism of minor difference it keeps them as a ideological blob this dogmatic kind of force it can get dangerous real quick when again who will defend you when no one else is around to defend you because everyone else has been accused of something. Now it has to be accused of the same as being guilty. Now let's turn our gaze back to the piano bench up there to be a super hot young woman. That's very good. Now, you can masturbate but what are you actually doing to me? The reason for her getting canceled and how she's treating her students there are systemic issues there that are left unattended to because you're cancelling one person cancel culture cancels the individual not the institution and not the system and so that's a failing there with this whole trend of cancelling people because yeah okay Lydia's gonna leave you're gonna cancel her but someone else is gonna replace her and do exactly the same thing how long are we gonna cancel people? It's kind of like a new version of when people were just trying to assassinate the head of a company okay great well then the second command will step up. Exactly, yeah. But then in the past many people are trying to assassinate certain figures thinking okay now we fix it we'll take out one person. If Bach's talent can be reduced to his gender birth country religion sexuality and so on then so can yours. Someday Max when you go out into the world and you guest conduct for a major or minor orchestra what kind of criteria would you hope that they would use to do this? How would you want to be judged then? Exactly. You know just for your race and your gender is that how you want to be reduced to? Yeah. You know doesn't sound so great to be reduced just to that when years pass that's probably what you'll be reduced to if people look at things that way. Really she's a tricky character Lydia you know the thing that helps me sympathize with her a little bit is just how much she's done to get to where she is. Right. Understanding that even though we don't really see it towards the end when we go when she's at her home and she's talking to her brother it was kind of like wow this woman has dragged herself out of a really tough situation that's not an easy thing to do for anyone right but then there was also the way that she relates to how fiercely she protects her daughter to the point of bullying a child right and that's a hard thing to do I don't think that as an adult bullying a kid is not something that you're waking up today I want to go and bully someone else's child but you know if you've ever been bullied you know that it never really works to look at kids who bully as oh they're kids you have to be there and you have to explain there's so many things that are happening in the background most likely their parents are treating them like heart so that's why they're bullies themselves so you're not going to be able to actually even go to the parent and talk to the parent and say hey get your kid to stop bullying my kid that would actually make the situation worse the relationship between her and her kid you know that's the one relationship where we can say okay this is yeah there's some humanity there there's some humanity there I said the one both the cock and the hen I'll we'll bear the paw who'll sing a song I said the trash as preset on the bush I'll sing a song she's really making there's a tenderness we see in Lydia that we don't see when she's with Petra that we don't see with anyone else so that's where I'm just kind of like you know what she's really making an effort there with the daughter the daughter does seem to be sad yeah because I'm like even if your parent you have a parent who's trying to love you and show you love and fighting bullies for you you still have a parent who is in a relationship with your other parent and it's not really that great yeah Lydia is cheating it looks like a a cold sad home yeah it looks like a cold sad home they don't get intimate they look just like colleagues who live together yeah and I think there are lots of resentments that Sharon has we see the gaslighting she gaslights Sharon whatever why did you go with Olga? did you have fun with her? my back is killing me Francesca left and I simply needed someone to carry my bags I mean who was I supposed to ask to go with me noot and so she kind of like solves the seas of doubt even though I feel like Sharon was justified to be concerned I wondered if you would be at all bothered if we were to hold auditions well that's a bit unorthodox but in theory I have no objection it's unconventional I guess it's I feel uncomfortable to go against what the conductor suggests and no one stands up for her which I'm like what? those dynamics are so hard so it's understandable you can get used to that power that abuse that because you you feel just like you can kind of decide these things and the whole orchestra that's used to following your lead all the time just kind of gets used to that role of like okay whatever the conductor suggests we'll do it we'll go with her she is so stuck in these power dynamics she doesn't realize that you need the orchestra just as much as they need you there is no conductor without an orchestra and so when you're relating to people that you work with for example remember the camaraderie that is important remember that both of you depend on each other she doesn't treat people like that she's manipulating she gas lies she's insensitive she does not whatsoever reflect on how her behavior impacts other people that is not easy and that's why in this movie we're trying to figure out whether or not their scene's happening because your psyche is kind of you're losing your mind because you have made people every single person in your life is an enemy to you everyone becomes an enemy in your eyes even if it's not true because people aren't necessarily going to retaliate because people aren't necessarily like you but because you know who you are you look at people through your own lens so if I'm treating you like this I feel that you're probably going to do something given the chance do you know what I mean when someone who is normally very passionate about their craft or something starts to get too obsessive about it and then they can't enjoy it anymore then the obsession turns into mental illness basically and addiction and so they become very cut off and isolated and it destroys them it turns into obsession and sickness I think that's what happens to her I was just thinking about how she is in the beginning you look at her from the very first scene I felt like like you have people we know people in the world who are smart they are aware of it but they don't act with that kind of arrogance they don't enjoy the superiority they feel over other people she enjoys it and inflicts it at every turn every opportunity and it's so hard to sympathize with someone who does that there's an an expectation reward cycle with some works and spots in them that I find so incredible that when I'm conducting it's not that I'm rushing exactly but I just can't wait to get to that spot and yeah it does it it does it every time God it was just like she knows like you can nobody here can say that I'm not smart because I am an egot we're all here discussing my achievements exactly but probably a lot of people are just like because it's easy to zone out when you don't feel like the person is being real with you or being respectful or or humble or open that's where I'm like despite your accomplishments to me I don't think there's anyone that I can look up to an ill character maybe it's not right to play Lydia Tara's music because of her character and how awful a character she had I don't know I have to reflect on it because I've never actually grabbed we've tried yeah there are some actors that we were cut there's always an individual decision on kind of like how far is it is it beyond the pale versus you know for each person what they can tolerate I guess or what they feel is understandable actors or celebrities are it's now in the moment unlike someone who passed away hundreds of years ago but when you like oh my god I'm gonna wake up and watch that movie that guy came out with if you're really immersed in this guy's art and he's alive or she's alive and they do something bad it feels so devastating and you're just it feels like your whole life has to you gotta change gears now you can't watch that thing anymore without feeling like a horrible person are you a horrible person or is this art if I guess like someone finding out a family member was a murderer or something and then you have to come to grips with like that how do I accept that and that's why I think that I can't say whether or not Lydia or that other guy is right that's a good example because if like if your brother or your mom or your dad turns out that they're a murderer you have a certain relationship they didn't murder you they loved you as a mother brother or sibling would yeah so that's what we could glean what we tried to put together it was hard in terms of thoughts yeah it was a tougher one it was a lot of stuff but yeah that was some stuff that we thought about tar what'd you guys think if you've seen it let us know in the comments down below share your thoughts on art thoughts until next time thanks for watching bye peace