The Maestro is a Monster: Lydia Tár, the Fictional Female Karl Böhm

Is Lydia Tár a real person? No — in reality, a woman can’t get that job — the movie mimics and mocks hundreds of years of real male ones

God knows I seldom watch television. I’m so sick of bullshit-frosted Hollywood superheroes that the last thing I want to do is sit down in any movie theater.

I’m not alone, but you’d never know that from the endless stream of appalling, sad, overproduced, underwritten time-wasters produced by Beelzebub’s hardworking staff.

Screenshot from Tár — photo by author

What do I mean? [link]

I think you’ll like Mr. B. L. Zebub. I did for the short time I apprenticed in his shop.

In the linked novella that I wrote “back in the day,” Emilia Bassano is the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets and she, like the Bard, was also a writer. Emilia deeply resented having to take a back seat to Will and the other men.

She was a woman who wanted to do a job almost wholly-dominated by men.

I just invested nearly three hours of my life watching an oddly-made movie starring one of the best performers of our time: Cate Blanchett. Cate’s acting is incredible. Blanchett portrays fictional orchestra conductor Lydia Tár…