While it’s been very difficult of late to figure out what Martin Scorsese will follow Killers of the Flower Moon (already a couple years out from its Cannes premiere), today brings some of the closest confirmation of where he’ll head next. Surprise: Leonardo DiCaprio is coming with.

Per Publisher’s Weekly, Apple Original Films have obtained rights to Marilynne Robinson’s four Gilead novels, the second of which, Home, Scorsese has discussed since 2023. DiCaprio will lead the film, produced by Todd Field, who’s co-written Home with Scorsese and Kent Jones while said to be handling the first entry, Gilead, though the article notes an ambiguity around “plans to adapt the remaining books in the series.”

The news suggests DiCaprio would play Jack Boughton, a wayward alcholic who returns to his hometown of Gilead to take care of a dying father alongside his sister Glory. These roles recur in Robinson’s other books, suggesting notable commitments from DiCaprio and whoever is cast therein––a major prospect all its own. Whatever transpires, it’s wonderful knowing Scorsese is nearing a project for which he’s expressed such passion.

After last year’s triumphant return of Todd Field after a 16-year absence behind the camera, all eyes have been on what the Tár director may do next. He teased a collaboration with Adam Sandler but also said his Cate Blanchett-led drama is “highly likely” his final film. Now, we have the most concrete news yet on what Field is currently developing, thanks to Martin Scorsese himself.

A few months ago the Killers of the Flower Moon director revealed he is developing an adaptation of Home, part of Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead novel series, also including Gilead, Lila, and Jack. While Scorsese recently confirmed The Wager is next on the docket, he’s now revealed rather ambitious plans for the Robinson adaptations, which includes Field.

“I’d like to try and make another picture if I can. I’d like to move on. Well, we’ve come up with a script on Home, Marilynne Robinson’s book. It’s one of the four novels: Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack,” Scorsese tells Sight & Sound. “[Tár writer-director] Todd Field and I started on Home, and did a version before the writers’ [WGA] strike, with Kent Jones, a year ago. And we’re about to go into another, once the strike is over, a script on Jack. And Gilead, I think Todd might be doing. And so there’s that.”

It would be quite a fascinating project to see different directors take on each novel with Scorsese having a hand in each of the scripts. Jones, the former critic and NYFF director who has a long history collaborating with Scorsese, made his narrative directorial debut with the acclaimed Diana and this material seems like a perfect fit for his follow-up as well.

As we await more details, see a synopsis of the four novels below and you can pick them up here. Scorsese also recently took part in a conversation with Timothée Chalamet for GQ, embedded below.

Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead series—Gilead, Home, Lila, and Jack—is an intergenerational story about faith, race, and love radiating out from the interwoven histories of two families in a small Iowa town to encompass all of American life: our ideals and beliefs, our contradictions, failings, and hopes.

Over the past sixteen years, Marilynne Robinson’s now-mythical world of Gilead, Iowa, and the beloved characters who inhabit it, have illuminated and interrogated the complexities of American history, the power of our emotions, and the wonders of a sacred world.

These four novels, which have won one Pulitzer Prize and two National Book Critics Circle Awards, among many other honors, are a vital contribution to contemporary American literature and a revelation of our national character and humanity. Robinson’s meditation on the paradoxes of American life has given us “something we only occasionally find in the vastness of existence: a glimpse of eternity” (Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal).

A welcome annual tradition, the Directors Guild of America has once again gathered their nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film––Todd Field (TÁR), Joseph Kosinski (Top Gun: Maverick), Daniel Kwan & Daniel Scheinert (Everything Everywhere All at Once), Martin McDonagh (The Banshees of Inisherin), and Steven Spielberg (The Fabelmans)––for an extensive, nearly 2.5-hour conversation. Moderated by Jeremy Kagan, the conversation took place on February 18 at the DGA’s Los Angeles Theater ahead of Daniels taking home the top award.

The wide-ranging talk dives deep into the preparation and production of each of the features, with Daniels sharing their eccentric warm-up processes (sometimes involving all-crew fighting) while Spielberg chimed in about his champagne toasts for the first and last shots, no matter the time of day. The Fabelmans director also revealed he called Paul Thomas Anderson to see what it was like working with Paul Dano on There Will Be Blood before he cast him. Todd Field touched on working with Cate Blanchett, saying their conversations are “like talking with another filmmaker who happens to be a fucking fantastic actor.” Joseph Kosinski revealed the bar scene was just as complicated as the fight scenes in his Top Gun sequel due to amount of blocking and keeping all centered on Maverick’s perspective. He also didn’t want to rehearse the Val Kilmer and Tom Cruise scene for added emotion, because the actors hadn’t seen each other in decades in real-life.

Watch the full conversation below.

Considering it is his first film in nearly two decades, it comes as no surprise that Todd Field packed quite a lot into TÁR––so much that it can’t be contained to just one feature-length film. Having already directed a music video featuring his cast, he’s now releasing a new short that expands the TCU (TÁR Cinematic Universe). The news was unveiled in this morning’s announcement that TÁR will screen at Berlinale with the cast and crew present.

“Showing TÁR in Berlin for a special screening was a natural choice. In a cinematic way, the acclaimed work of Todd Field and his actors has captured the special flair of this city. We are very happy that Todd Field along with Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss and composer Hildur Guðnadóttir have accepted our proposal to share some of the secrets of their work in a public talk at Berlinale Talents. We are also delighted to be premiering a new short that expands the TÁR universe, THE FUNDRAISER, that will screen alongside their talk,” said Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian.

While there are no specific details on the length of the short or what it may contain, it’s no surprise the film is getting a premiere in Berlin, where it was partially shot. Here’s hoping the short film has more substance than simply being a deleted scene, and ideally it will make its way online around Oscar time.

As we await more details, Tony Gilroy also had some kind words to say about the film for Variety:

I want you to know how much I loved this film.

I want to tell you why in the most concise, controlled, compressed manner possible. But when I’m done, I want you feel that I’ve barely scratched the veneer, because that’s exactly how I felt seeing “Tár.”

I want you to know how blown away I am by Todd’s craftmanship and rigor; the casting, the performances, the specificity of the world-building, the exciting, unselfconscious camerawork, the color-temperatures, the mix, the tempo … I want you to know, from a purely technical perspective, how impressed I am with the way he’s made and delivered this unusual movie. But those are all tangible filmmaking components; a bit more than veneer, perhaps, but they’re all, ultimately, variables of taste, economy and how much obsession can be wrestled to the screen.

What makes this film extraordinary to me — the thing I want to carry forward and remember — is the chaos inside all that. Because it’s that friction that makes this film so powerful for me. How do you marry precision and enigma? How do you make something so firmly controlled and have it spilling over with the unresolved anarchy of real human behavior? How do you pull off disorientation and vertigo inside of such a confident machine?

And then, the coup de grâce — Cate Blanchett. How brilliant and brave to place, at the center, a character whose every scene builds toward that same idea, that same dissonance.

Hard and perfect on the outside. Mayhem brewing within. Masterwork.

Also, don’t miss our in-depth discussion of the film below.

If the memes and debates—not always so separate on a venn diagram—filling your timeline prove any metric, TÁR is the movie of this moment. It would be one thing for Todd Field’s thorny script and Cate Blanchett’s full-throated rendition of such to leave their mark, but you’re not thinking about TÁR without remembering those overcast Berlin days or bloodless academy offices—as a rare example of serious craftsmanship and harnessed mood in popular contemporary cinema we should give much credit to cinematographer Florian Hoffmeister.

I spoke with him at the EnergaCAMERIMAGE festival in Toruń, Poland, where he was less than a week from earning their top-prize Golden Frog. It seemed an opportune moment to inquire about the odd angles and unknown places Field decided to go his first time behind camera in 16 years; for this Hoffmeister offered valued, practical perspective on the how and why of a movie we’ve only started unpacking.

The Film Stage: Did I hear you’re going to watch the movie with the audience?

Florian Hoffmeister: I think so. Yeah.

How many times have you seen it?

With an audience? It would be the second time. First time was in Venice. But I’ve seen it a few times during post-production.

Which was probably not in a theater.

No, I was very lucky: we graded it at Company 3 in London, and of course the grading suites have real screens. The London one is spectacular. It’s bigger than the one where I’m going to see it today. So I’ve seen it in a “filmic” presentation but not with an audience.

I’m a huge advocate of proper home-video treatment, so it was great seeing TÁR will get a 4K UHD release. As a cinematographer, are you much for the home-viewing set-up?

I’ve seen some of the stuff that influences me or was dear to me on my iPad. I mean, I watch Tarkovsky on an iPad. So I do think it’s all about [Laughs] distance to the device to have an immersive experience. But the communal aspect I think is something that [is unique]. Even yesterday, we sat in this little room and did a check. You sit in a little room and think “God, you’re in a movie theater.” It’s like going to church, in a way. It just does something to you when you’re in the room. I think especially Todd: he’s a proper auteur of cinema, in a sense, in the way he makes films. I think the feeling of sitting there together, with other people—I think that’s the key.

Do you have much of a home-video set-up?

I don’t. I have an iPad. [Laughs] I have, actually, a 4K Sony HDR monitor that I use for grading, and sometimes I play stuff on it. No, I don’t really… I should maybe start having one. I’ve been in places where people have it. I don’t have one.

This is Todd Field’s first movie in 16 years, nobody knows what to expect, and in almost any possible respect it’s a surprise. So how did you two get involved? Did you know each other? Were you set up through mutual parties?

He called me. [Laughs] And I’ve never questioned that. When engaging with him, we came right out of the gate. I got an email in April—I was still in production on Pachinko—and I knew of him, of course; I really thought that when In the Bedroom came out, that was a really important film for me at that time. Not just as an audience member but also because it had such a strength in terms of arthouse cinema. I think it was a beacon of light, back then, for me. So suddenly being in touch with him, I considered it a great privilege. And then we only had four weeks. No, I think seven weeks later we met in Berlin and started pre-production. So we jumped in the car and I never really asked the question. [Laughs] I think when he called, I was there. And I was very happy he had called.

I found an interview where you called Field “a master at car work,” citing rear-projection effects from In the Bedroom.

Yes! Of course. I remember the American Cinematographer article back then about In the Bedroom, because of how he pushed rear-projection. He’s just a master filmmaker so it always feels slightly weird talking about such a little element of production. But I remember the AC article about In the Bedroom and the talk about the rear-projection stuff. Here we had car work and I was of course excited to be pushing this along with him.

It gets at one of the things about working closely with a director: you know more about their process—technically and intellectually—than anyone else. And Field, to the outsider, can be mysterious—he doesn’t do many interviews, he hasn’t been seen in a bit—while TÁR presents itself in pretty strong ways. What about his approaches might surprise people? Not per se invisible to the naked eye, but don’t announce themselves like other components.

It’s always hard to talk about someone when he’s not in the room. Or actually it’s easy. I think what I, personally—working with him—admire is a sense of bravery. When you do a film, obviously you have to take many decisions, and the more you decide the more you narrow your choices, and he is a man who is absolutely interested in narrowing them down. That’s a sense of bravery. Talking about cars: there’s a sequence in the film where Nina Hoss and Tár have a quarrel. Tár drives, we see them almost have an accident, and she jumps out the car. That is shot in one shot. So the entire scenario of that was: we shot it at this major intersection in Berlin. It’s really hard to control; we can only control it on Sunday morning for two hours. So normally, if you approach it—as I say— with the weight of the responsibility of achieving the sequence in the given time with the schedule… which is a big thing with filmmaking. We have these two hours, and that’s when we’re going to do it.

So how do you approach it? One approach would be, “We need to have two cars or three cars of the same build. We have cameras everywhere and we try to get the most out of the sequence.” With Todd, it’s the complete opposite. We kind of talk long, we test it very thoroughly. What is the one crucial shot we need to tell the story? That’s where the camera ended up: we put it right in that backseat. And then, now, you only have two hours. So how do you orchestrate this feeling of danger and stunt in one single shot?

So he takes Cate, they go out for a weekend, and we mount the camera in the car; they do stunt training—because she has to drive herself—and then we just pulled it off in those two hours. We just had two hours. We drove around the circle for two hours, she got one take right, and that was it. But the bravery in that—to actually concentrate and focus meticulously on this one task for that one moment—I think that’s what I could consider directorial bravery, and it’s actually a privilege to be working with somebody that kind of sets that as the bar to which, then, everybody has to live up.

Florian Hoffmeister

What’s getting discussed most is the classroom sequence at Juilliard. I found an interview where you said “it was planned in a full rehearsal day” with Blanchett where you showed up, Field looked at the room, and from there it was decided this sequence should play as one shot.

Yeah.

My actual question being: how much, in the rehearsal of a full day, did that sequence change from a first run-through to what we see? Differences in camera placement, blocking?

There is of course a lot to be said about that sequence. The idea, I think, behind it is when he said “let’s do it in one shot.” It’s not necessarily to have somebody dance and show “muscular filmmaking” where it’s all in one shot. There were about 35 points in the room where the camera wanted to be during this entire sequence that would have shot it traditionally if he had broken it down into set-ups. And the idea behind it is more philosophical, in the sense that it was basically that Cate and her performance would drive the editorial tempo in which this would happen.

But you want it to be close to her at the piano; you want it to be far, to display her, on the stage as she’s lecturing. All these visual beats have to be fulfilled; they were absolutely clear from the start. It was not about “finding it” in a rehearsal. It was: “How can we make those points have her drive the editorial tempo, and achieve that technically without getting caught?” Those were the three things. Because that’s a phrase he used quite often: “don’t get caught.” That’s actually one of the very simple lines to tell you about the magic of filmmaking. [Laughs] Just don’t get caught!

I only realized minutes in that it was a single shot.

That’s what I mean. You could probably cut it up in those elements and you would feel the core of our attempts to break it down into single shots—you would see that if you stop, start the sequence. That’s why it doesn’t feel like that.

In early conversations with Field—maybe after you read the script, and he hired you so he trusts you—was it clear how much autonomy you’d have? Was it immediately clear he had strong ideas about the visual fabric?

Oh, no, he has an extremely sensitive visuality. He has a visuality that’s very acute. He has a very, very, highly tuned eye. If you read the script you know that somebody knows exactly where he wants to put the camera. I, as a cinematographer, find this very, very liberating because then you can take it to another level. It kind of skips over a big process that normally takes a lot of time—figuring out where should the camera go. I think when you work with an auteur—a true auteur—then my position as a cinematographer is different than if, for example, I were to work in a context where somebody else has written a script and then you work with a director. Because then you exchange interpretations if you were a director and you were given a script and then you tell me “I read it this way.”

If somebody is a true auteur and has written—and is not only going to be writing and directing but producing—the film, my position is first and foremost to listen; to try and figure out what is his sensibility, his approach, his dreams about this. So it’s just a bit more of a quiet approach. The last thing he needs is my personal opinion about a scene, in a way. [Laughs] As a judgmental, “Oh I thought it was about this.” That doesn’t really count. It’s really more about getting a creative intimacy going that then lets us make the decisions about lighting.

The Berlin setting is in the script.

Yeah.

Do you think he asked you about shooting the film because you’re a native German and can approach the spaces more closely?

Oh, of course. I reside in Germany, in Berlin, even though I hadn’t shot there in 15 years. But I live there. That might’ve been one of the reasons: to get somebody who actually lives there. I know what he has said is that he was very interested in getting a European crew together. He’s worked 15 years, I think, in commercials. He’s very used to going all over the world and working with different crews; I think that’s what happens when you direct commercials. I thought what was interesting for me was: I hadn’t shot in Berlin for 15 years so it was interesting to go back to the city that I live in through somebody else’s eyes. We saw some places, and I rediscovered my love for the city as well.

We had a slight exchange when he was still in America—we talked on the phone. My thing is: it’s a hard city to photograph. I find Berlin hard because there’s a spirit in the city that it’s just hard to capture. He introduced us to a couple of spaces that I also had forgotten about, which I thought was one of the successes: we really captured Berlin as a place. And I think cinema, ideally, is about place as much as it is about time.

There’s a couple references in this movie I’m very curious about. One is a shot inspired by Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Blue: the shot of the bed on the water.

Yes.

Which apparently… have you seen Blue?

No.

Are you familiar with Apichatpong’s movies?

No.

Okay! So maybe you don’t know. I thought you two had talked about it.

No.

So the mystery of it deepens.

Because we came out the gate so quickly we had very little exchanges about references. We really tried to engage in a genuine fashion. When you make a film you really try to keep your head above water. There’s so many forces at work that seemingly try to prevent you from getting what you want that it’s always, in hindsight, things make more sense retrospectively than in the moment. So I cannot say. We wanted to create something new. That was not our intent. You just start working with each other and try catching something that’s in the air.

Maybe this answers the second question, but: I was just jaw-drop-shocked that the screams she hears outside are (maybe) taken from the ending of The Blair Witch Project.

Oh.

Did you know this?

No.

A lot of people are independently claiming it’s from there, so I rewatched The Blair Witch’s ending. And it does sound familiar. Have you seen The Blair Witch?

I’ve only heard of it. I haven’t seen it, no.

Okay. Neither of us know. That answers the question.

Sounds intriguing!

TÁR is now in theaters and on VOD.

Welcome, one and all, to the latest episode of The Film Stage Show! Today, Dan Mecca joins Bill Graham and Robyn Bahr, along with special guest Fran Hoepfner, to discuss Todd Field’s TÁR, now in theaters and on VOD.

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The most infamous musical figure of the season, Lydia Tár, has now dropped her new album. More specifically, a concept album for Todd Field’s first film in sixteen years, TÁR, is now out, featuring music from and inspired by it––including works by Mahler, Elgar, Guðnadóttir and more, as well as Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score and contributions from Cate Blanchett herself as she conducts a rehearsal of Mahler’s 5th symphony. While the vinyl version will come this January (and one can pre-order here), the one-hour, 20-track digital version has now arrived.

As noted in the press release, the concept album complements the film by inviting listeners to experience what Field refers to as “the messiness” of the work involved in preparing classical music for performance, via a combination of audio glimpses from real-life recording sessions, sequences from fictional rehearsals, music listened to by the film’s characters, and completed versions of the music on which we see Lydia working. 

Blanchett describes her collaboration with the Dresdner Philharmonie and its concertmaster Wolfgang Hentrich as “a great, and life-changing, privilege.” “How truly blessed I am,” adds Blanchett, “to have my name appear anywhere near this ridiculously talented assembly of musicians.” Blanchett also performs a Prelude from Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier as part of one of Tár’s teaching sessions. 

Also on the soundtrack is the jazz standard Here’s That Rainy Day (Burke/Van Heusen)—performed by the New Trombone Collective with soloist Al Kay, conducted by Martijn Sohler—and shaman Elisa Vargas Fernández’s icaro CuraMente, whose purpose is to illustrate Tár’s history in Shipibo-Konibo ethnomusicological fieldwork. 

Field also directed a video featuring Guðnadóttir’s cello performance of Mortar, which will be released on November 11. “The idea was born from conversations with Cate Blanchett,” explains the director. “This piece of film was conceived as an in-between place for the main character to fall into herself. A place where the natural laws of her waking state do not apply. The shooting process involved all cast members, and was photographed at the end of each day during principal photography in Berlin and South East Asia in 2021. In September 2022 Hildur and I met again in Berlin where she stepped back into this place and bound herself to the other players.”

Update: Watch the video for Mortar below.

“It’s been a real privilege to get to do a deep dive into the multifaceted process of making music with the wonderful artists that manned all the TÁR posts,” Guðnadóttir said. “And to get to release the music in a parallel world that is our reality, where we hear music they are writing and rehearsing in the film.”

Listen below, along with two chats from the 60th New York Film Festival.

With Todd Field’s first film in sixteen years finally arriving in just about a month, the release is thankfully getting a few more bells and whistles than your standard motion picture. Considering TÁR follows a conductor (as played by Cate Blanchett), a substantial album release is in store, not only featuring music from and inspired by the film––including works by Mahler, Elgar, Guðnadóttir and more––but also Oscar winner Hildur Guðnadóttir’s score and contributions from Cate Blanchett herself as she conducts a rehearsal of Mahler’s 5th symphony, as well as music from 20-year-old British-German cellist Sophie Kauer. The album, coming from Deutsche Grammophon, will arriving digitally and on CD on October 21, a few weeks after the film, with a vinyl edition on February 24, 2023. One can pre-order here.

Rory O’Connor said in his review, “for much of its first hour Cate Blanchett (eating up scenery as the eponymous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic) is made to deliver slightly unconvincing takes on the world of classical music. For the next two she is totally remarkable, stretching out those talents in a work that responds in turn. TÁR is an effort of tremendous skill and restraint, beginning with a confidence bordering on arrogance and building to a brilliant crescendo—only after that first act do the best things begin to surface, the compelling energy of ruthless ambition and the unmistakable, delicious hum of dread.”

Check out the album’s cover art below.

Watch the TÁR press conference, beginning at the 2:23:30 mark.

TÁR opens on October 7.

At the end of the 1970s, while working as a bat boy for the Portland Mavericks, Todd Field had a bright idea: why not make a stringy-shaped gum (call it Big League Chew) so that kids could mimic the tobacco chewing players on the plate? In 1980 he and his partner sold it to Wrigley’s. He was 16 years old.

Field knows a lot about ideas. He probably knows a phrase like “inside baseball,” too. You’ll find evidence of both in TÁR, his first film in 16 years. For much of its first hour Cate Blanchett (eating up scenery as the eponymous conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic) is made to deliver slightly unconvincing takes on the world of classical music. For the next two she is totally remarkable, stretching out those talents in a work that responds in turn. TÁR is an effort of tremendous skill and restraint, beginning with a confidence bordering on arrogance and building to a brilliant crescendo—only after that first act do the best things begin to surface, the compelling energy of ruthless ambition and the unmistakable, delicious hum of dread.

16 years is a long time in cinema; other ideas from Field, including a story about the soldier Bowe Bergdahl, adaptations of Cormac McCarthy and Jonathan Franzen, a film about the Mexican revolution, came and went. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Field suggested that he started to pitch projects he knew would never get made as a way to spend more time with his kids. So what happens when someone does say yes? You might end up with a film just like this: a nearly three-hour chamber piece with a funereally hushed mise-en-scène, full of stuffy conversations in cavernous rooms; a film about a problematic composer where almost no music is heard for the opening hour, where credits play in full at both the beginning and the end, and where the curtain raiser is a 15-minute (!) interview with the New Yorker‘s Adam Gopnik.

You also end up with the film Field probably wanted to make—one that asks a great deal but returns something richly satisfying. TÁR, for its faults, is mercilessly watchable, boasting quality in every position: there is Florian Hoffmeister’s exquisite cinematography and Hildur Guðnadóttir’s note-perfect score (the composer also gets name-dropped); the tasty casting with Nina Hoss’ sad eyes (and her side-eyes) and Mark Strong in a hairpiece; and, amongst other surrealist flourishes, a dream sequence reminiscent of Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Blue. Best of all, Blanchett is present in almost every scene: going for runs in the Tiergarten’s soggy leaves, slurping noodles like Anthony Bourdain in Vietnam (the budget here is also notably present), or feverishly conducting in the genuine Berlin Philharmonie––a building so grand it once inspired a Wim Wenders documentary.

Blanchet plays Lydia Tár, an artist as famous for her combative personality as for her Mahler interpretations. The film’s brewing storm is an unfolding scandal: allegations of seduction and gaslighting from a former assistant; a pattern of behavior that Field accentuates by including a current victim, her assistant Francesca (Noémie Merlant, great as always), and a potential future one (played by the cellist Sophie Kauer). Lydia lives alone in a high-ceilinged Altbau out West while frequenting the starkly modernist apartment of her first chair violinist and long-term partner Sharon (Hoss), as well as their adopted daughter, Petra—the only being capable of disarming her. The film’s men are consigned to the margins. A loyal board member (a great little turn from veteran actor Julian Glover) and a New York funder (Strong) comprise about half of them.

The richness of this story is so hard to resist you begin forgetting that Field may not be the most appropriate person to do its telling; curiously, TÁR is his from an original screenplay. As portraits of monomaniacal, problematic artists go, however, it’s a doozy. TÁR is less a treatise on abuses of power than a character study. There isn’t a single mention of MeToo, and Field is too smart to really go into the weeds with cancel culture—though he flies close to the sun on more than one occasion. Its running time appears indulgent but the film more than earns this, and it grants Field the right amount of space to eke out his drama—the red flags take time to appear, then suddenly they’re everywhere. Similar to her conducting, Lydia’s relationship with the world is one of total control, sucking friends and lovers into her tyrannical orbit to the point that even the hum of a fridge or the slight rattle of her electric car’s A/C unit is enough to trigger. Field takes that precious, hard-won, festering silence and drives it headfirst into cacophony.

Writing for the Village Voice, the formidable Dennis Lim once called Field’s debut In the Bedroom “the long overdue coming of age of American independent film.” TÁR might not be fine art (many points for trying), but it is a great reminder of what grown-up, middlebrow filmmaking, given the right blend of confidence and nurturing, can do—a work that, unlike its protagonist, refuses to talk down to you.

TÁR premiered at the Venice Film Festival and opens on October 7.

Following 2001’s In the Bedroom and 2006’s Little Children, writer-director Todd Field will finally return with the long-awaited TÁR, a drama set in the world of classical music starring Cate Blanchett. Ahead of premieres at Venice and New York Film Festival, followed by an October 7 release, a new trailer has now arrived for one of our most-anticipated films of the fall.

“This script was written for one artist, Cate Blanchett,” Field said in a director’s statement. “Had she said no, the film would have never seen the light of day. Filmgoers, amateur and otherwise, will not be surprised by this. After all, she is a master supreme. Even so, while we were making the picture, the superhuman-skill and verisimilitude of Cate was something truly astounding to behold. She raised all boats. The privilege of collaborating with an artist of this caliber is something impossible to adequately describe. In every possible way this is Cate’s film.”

Also starring Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, and Mark Strong, with a score by Hildur Guðnadóttir and cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister, see the trailer and poster below.

TÁR plays at Venice and NYFF and opens on October 7.

Following 2001’s In the Bedroom and 2006’s Little Children, writer-director Todd Field will finally return with the long-awaited TÁR, a drama set in the world of classical music starring Cate Blanchett. Ahead of a full trailer, Focus Features has now unveiled the first footage in the form of an enticing teaser.

“Set in the international world of classical music, [the film] centers on Lydia Tár, widely considered one of the greatest living composer/conductors and first-ever female chief conductor of a major German orchestra,” the official synopsis reads. Also starring Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, and Mark Strong, with a score by Hildur Guðnadóttir and cinematography by Florian Hoffmeister, we hope a festival premiere is officially confirmed soon.

See the trailer below.

TÁR opens on October 7 in theaters.

Production is now getting underway in and around Berlin for Todd Field’s first film in fifteen years, TAR. Led by Cate Blanchett, the first announcement for the long-awaited new feature by the director of In the Bedroom and Little Children was slim on details, but now after a logline was revealed, more of the cast has been announced.

A pair of international cinema’s greatest talents, Nina Hoss (Barbara, Phoenix, My Little Sister) and Noémie Merlant (Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Paris 13th, District), have joined Blanchett in the drama, according to the German outlet Diesachsen. Icelandic composer Hildur Guðnadóttir (Joker, Sicario: Day of the Soldado) will provide the score, with filming confirmed at performances of the Dresden Philharmonic this month.

A casting notice recently revealed the film is an “intellectual drama [that] tells the story of world-renowned musician Lydia Tár (Blanchett), who is just days away from recording the symphony that will take her to the very heights of her already formidable career. Lydia Tár’s remarkably bright and charming six-year-old adopted daughter Petra has a key role to play here. And when elements seem to conspire against Lydia, the young girl is an important emotional support for her struggling mother.”

Expect a 2022 release for TAR.