Martin Scorsese Praises TAR at New York Film Critics Circle Awards

The bell of the ball at New York’s Film Critics Circle Awards on Wednesday night was “TÁR,” which took home the awards for best picture and best actress, Cate Blanchett. Todd Field’s fast-paced epic about the downfall of a Berlin Philharmonic conductor still has a long way to go to the Oscars, but the film has one fan whose praise is important: Martin Scorsese.

While the star power of the evening was clear compared to last year’s Best Actress winner Lady Gaga, the event hosted at TAO in downtown Manhattan felt like a group of critics trying to mix mainstream commercial fare. Known for (Best Cinematography winner “Top Gun: Maverick”) with potentially more challenging art and independent fare (Best International Feature winner for “EO,” as well as Best Director winner SS Rajamouli, the wildly successful Indian The legend “RRR” is as accessible as every last foreigner. – tongue out).

Cate Blanchett gave an emotional speech accepting the award for best actress, praising director Field as “the most inventive collaborator I’ve ever met” and “a director like no other.” She said that “Todd is the kind of guide you go hiking with, and he warns you that you’re definitely going to run into a bear, and there’s a strong possibility that you’re going to lose a part or part of your face, and You find yourself really interesting. A beard? Damn it!”

But the best moment on a night that also saw Todd Solondz awarding “Aftersun” director Charlotte Wells the best first feature award was undoubtedly Scorsese’s unexpected appearance to best picture “TÁR.” There’s no better bias these days than the poignant words of a man who, when he last took the stage in New York, called the obsession with box office numbers “a cult.” (“TÁR” is light on those, which only have $5.6 million at the box office so far, but no matter.)

“For a long time now, most of us watch movies that pretty much let us know where they’re going. I mean, they take us by the hand, and even if it’s confusing at times, they guide us along the way. It kind of gives a sense of comfort in the long run that it’s going to be okay in the end,” Scorsese said. “Now it’s fake, because one can get involved in it, and eventually get used to it. Leading those of us who have experienced cinema in the past – more than that – from the future of the art form. Despair, especially for the younger generation.

He continued, “But these are dark days. The clouds lifted when I experienced Todd’s film ‘TÁR.’ It doesn’t. All aspects of cinema and the film you’ve used confirm this. A change in locations, for example, only changes in locations does what cinema does best, which is the location and Time cuts are what they are, which is nothing.

“You make it so that we exist on top of her. We only experience it through her vision. The world is hers. Time, chronology and space, become the music she lives by. And we don’t know. That’s where the movie is going. We’re just following the character on her strange and depressing road to her even stranger final destination. Now, what have you done, Todd? Moved through, as controlled, precise, dangerous, sharp angles, and edges are geometrically varied.An interesting 2:3:5 aspect ratio of the frame compositions.

Ultimately, Scorsese said, “the limitations of the frame, and the length of the scale all reflect the brutal structure of its soul—the soul of TÁR.”

See the full list of New York Film Critics Circle winners here.

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