Did you miss the scene where
we learn that her name is actually Linda Tarr and she changed it to come across as fancy/exotic/pretentious instead of common and lower-middle class?
Not sure what “daring you to like it” means. I thought it was one of the best films of the year.
A character addresses her by her first name, but there was no scene and no dialog reference to her last name. So I guess I missed something.
“Tár” is a word with that accent in Faroese, Hungarian, Icelandic, and Old Norse. Whether any of those words are related to the movie is hard to tell. I don’t remember any scene where the character explains her name, but it’s too long since I saw the movie, so that proves nothing about whether there was such a scene.
I saw the movie last night so I can attest that there is no scene explaining the choice of name.
It’s really more of a marketing choice. You can call your film (and your character) anything you want; why would you choose “Tár”?
Susperia (2018)
Recommended for sure.
I’ve not seen the original from 1977. I thought this movie was excellent, but I wonder if it was possible to trim it by about 20 minutes.
This is a movie fully dependent on the final 30 minutes, which are worth getting to even if you aren’t fully gripped by the opening two hours. I didn’t find the opening two hours boring at all, but even if you find the opening two hours only pretty good, I bet the final 30 minutes will fully pull you in and surprise you. Truly incredible stuff and I felt a bit of shock watching it. It blew me away. I was nearly speechless.
Sometimes I see a movie, or even an extended sequence in a movie, and I think, “I’ll never forget this.” That was how the final 30 minutes of this movie were. Memory implanting.
All we are told about where the character has lived in her life is that she presently lives in Berlin where she conducts the Berlin Philharmonic and that she is spending some time in the U.S. while teaching as a guest lecturer at Juilliard. I presumed that the name “Lydia Tár” had something to do with her ethnic background. This is never explained in the movie though.
This is one of those things where I’m actually not understanding the questions, but just to be clear, you learn from her visit to her childhood home that she was born Linda Tarr, and then at some point she changes her name to something more fancy.
Some of us remember such a scene and some say that there was no such scene. Human memory works in strange ways (and, please, I’m not saying anyone is lying). It’s much better to show us the scene rather than just say what you remember. Can anyone here give us a link to the scene? Please, please, please, I’ve been involved in discussions in SDMB threads where there have been people swearing absolutely honestly as to their memory about something and other people swearing absolutely honestly as to that memory being incorrect.
I just did some online searching. There are some places in social media sites where someone says that she doesn’t say anything about changing her name. They say that there’s a flash to a certificate on a wall with her named “Linda Tarr” at one point and another scene in which her brother calls her “Linda” but then changes his mind. Again, it would be much better to give us a link to this scene. Human memory is too unstable to be always trusted.
ETA in my opinion, this guy is patting himself on the back a bit,wasn’t blink and miss it, it was there long enough that I saw it, and everyone I was with saw it.
FWIW, I found Blanchett’s performance riveting, but the movie less so. I always felt the title was a way of coming up with something punchy and playing on the plain reading (no accents) of “tar”, as in “stuck in”.
However, I do remember finding out the she had changed her name in the scene when she visits the home she grew up in.
I did a search for the scenes of her returning to her home, but didn’t find much. I’m not going to pay for the full movie to search through, so I looked online for the script. Here is a link to Todd Fielding’s script (from Variety this January) and the scene is below (page 86 of the script). Note the props called out in all caps, which I interpret as Fielding’s instructions that these are important to have in the scene as-described.
A BACKSEAT VIEW
Traveling Cannon Avenue in Staten Island into a small-lot pre-war neighborhood of UTILITY POLES wrapped in RED, WHITE & BLUE RIBBONS, curbs parked with PANEL VANS & PICK-UP TRUCKS.
TÁR STANDS WITH HER BAG
At the door of a paint-faded two-story. Tries the door, locked. Squats down, lifts a GNOME, and finds the extra KEY.
INSIDE
The place is tidy and, like Eleanor’s mother’s apartment, hasn’t changed much since before Tár was born. The SPINET PIANO and its bench now used for POTTED PLANTS, KNICK-KNACKS and poorly composed PHOTOS.
SHE ENTERS A BEDROOM FROZEN IN TIME
Music notation-themed wallpaper, keyboard bedspread, MUSIC STAND gathering dust, FRAMED SCHOOL AWARDS for LINDA TARR.
O.K., so it appears that she visits her childhood home in the movie. There’s a certificate on a wall there for a “Linda Tarr”. The time that the certificate is visible is a little longer than a flash, but it’s not really that long. Just after that she runs into her brother Tony. He at first calls her “Linda”, but he corrects himself to call her “Lydia”. She never says that she changed her name though. Incidentally, here is a list of how many people are named “Tarr” in every country:
A reasonable guess is that her original last name was derived from one common around Bristol in England:
Exactly. And her brother calls her Linda then corrects himself. It’s meant as something for the audience to see and notice without being blatantly spoken out loud like “hey remember when I changed my name to something fancy-sounding so people would think more highly of me and not that I’m from Staten Island?”
It’s not an easter egg, you’re supposed to get that from it. If you missed that it’s on you.
You’re supposed to get it unless you’re not watching carefully.
I watched the Tom Hanks movie A Man Called Otto yesterday. It’s about a grumpy old man. That’s really the whole premise. He has had some struggles, and he was a bit emotionally stunted, but eventually he softens. Somewhat formulaic.
And frankly, judging by some of his neighbours, I was on his side. His grumpiness was completely justified.
It’s fine if you’re in the right mood for it, but it’s not a cheerful movie at any point.
There was some mention of her birth name in the original lost ending of Big, I think. 
For those of you who don’t understand this, see this SDMB thread:
Did you see my famous(infamous?) thread was finally locked after 21 years?
Please pour one out for it.
That has creepier connotation than the tried and trued, “she fucked a kid,” complaint. There’s no way that sequel could be filmed without the FBI confiscating the dailies.
I just realized I haven’t contributed any movies I’ve seen recently in almost 2 months. In that time, I’ve seen 29 movies in theaters, so I’ll just hit some high spots that haven’t been mentioned (take it as given that I’ve seen movies like Asteroid City, The Flash, The Blackening, Indiana Jones, Oppenheimer, Barbie, etc.). And, yes, most of the movies I picked out are subtitled.
Revoir Paris (English title: Paris Memories) A film about the aftermath of a (fictional) terrorist attack in Paris. Emotional struggles and growth, relationships altered and damaged, and a sort of mystery story are entwined in this riveting story. This is a movie that rewards focused viewing. It’s one of the best films I’ve seen this year. I realized after the movie was over that I felt more intensely during the movie than I’d felt in any of the blockbusters I’d seen up to that point this year (Indiana Jones, Spiderverse, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.).
Scarlet Essentially a fairy tale (the old, more adult versions that never make it onto the screen). Think Cinderella with a loving family, but evil surrounding the family. Set in post WWI France, it tells a story of a secret princess raised by a kindly woodcutter, finding her prince and saving him. The lead is a first timer and is a revelation.
The Childe, Lost In The Stars I lumped these two together, though I saw them about a month apart and one is Korean and the other Chinese. They both take a decidedly different twist on some western genre films. The Childe is a Korean film about a lost heir to a billionaire empire that is also a crime family, assassins sent to kill him and assassins sent to save him with one lone wolf playing both sides of the street. It’s a bloody, kinetic ride, with no character completely safe. One twist is that the “hero” is a champion Thai boxer and you keep waiting for him to unleash his skills, but he just reacts like the panicky every man thrust into a situation beyond his comprehension that he is. It’s somewhat refreshing, actually. Lost in the Stars is sort or a Chinese Glass Onion, very twisty, with another every man caught in a web of deceit when his bride of one year disappears on holiday and no one will believe him, especially since another woman, with papers and a documented backstory shows up claiming to be his wife. If it sounds Hitchcockian, you won’t be surprised that the property this film is based on was once slated to be adapted by Alfred H. himself
The Passengers of the Night It’s about a Parisian family taking in a street kid and their ups and downs over the years. As usual, the difference between this film and an American version is that the French version is clear eyed on the emotions, entanglements, and outcomes along the way, as well as the narrative conclusions. A bonus: Charlotte Gainsbourg stars as the mother working through her own issues while parenting this brood. I wouldn’t be surprised if an American version is in the works, with cuter kids, less sex, and a more mawkish ending.
Theater Camp A bit of a lark, written by two of the leads based on their experiences as kids learning to be actors. Not much of a story, but the bits and pieces with the camp kids are delightful and carry you through. One odd thing: I saw the film when it was only playing in 4 theaters. When I went to buy a ticket online, I found all of the showings to be virtually sold out (less than ten available seats in any showing), but when I went to the showing, it was maybe 10% occupied. I suspect someone bought a large number of tickets to provide a huge per theater gross for the weekend (in fact, it was the largest per theater gross in the nation for its opening weekend). This kind of thing is very possible when the theater count is so low.
Return to Dust This is a slow, but moving Chinese film about the lives of a quiet peasant farmer and his arranged bride. It rewards patient viewing, drawing you into the characters lives and emotions slowly, eventually making you see how their way to happiness makes sense for them. Highly recommended, but not if you can’t spend the time and focus on it that it deserves.
And to forestall any accusations of elitism or narrow selection of what I watch. Here’s my list of movies seen since last post in June:
Asteroid City
God is a Bullet
No Hard Feelings
The Flash
The Blackening
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Prisoner’s Daughter
Revoir Paris
Scarlet
The Childe
Pixar’s Elemental
Joy Ride
The Passengers of the Night
Contempt
Amanda
Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One
Theater Camp
Afire
Lost In The Stars
Oppenheimer
Barbie
The Miracle Club
The Baker
Return to Dust
Meg 2 The Trench
Dreamin’ Wild
Til’ Death Do Us Part
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem
Shortcomings