In previous responses, I’ve touched on the theme of control and how innate it is to the…

In previous responses, I’ve touched on the theme of control and how innate it is to the construction Lydia’s psyche. Being a musical conductor is an ultimate form of control over others … and reflects, I think, a subconscious need Lydia has for self-control. Why? To avoid dealing with her own shadow dynamics.

There is an ancillary theme worth noting: Time. Consider this exchange at the very beginning of the script in which Adam Gopnik is interviewing Lydia (5-9):

GOPNIK

Words of hope. Okay, let’s talk about

translation. Many people think of a

conductor as essentially a human

metronome.

TÁR

Well, that’s partly true. Keeping

time is no small thing.

GOPNIK

But there’s much more isn’t there?

TÁR

I hope so, yes. But time is the

thing. Time is the essential piece

of interpretation. You cannot start

without me. I start the clock. My

left hand shapes, but my right hand,

the second-hand, marks time and moves

it forward.

“I start the clock.” In other words, she *controls* time and the tempo the orchestra abides by.

Then later:

TÁR

You mentioned my ethnographic

fieldwork in the Amazon. Well,

Adam, the Shipibo-Konibo only

receive an icaros, or song, if the

singer is “there” on the same side

as the spirit who created it. In

this way the past and present

converge. The flip sides of the

same cosmic coin. That definition

of fidelity makes sense to me. But

Lenny believed in teshuvah, the

Talmudic power to reach back in

time and transform the significance

of one’s past deeds.

Lydia has events in her past which haunt her. Some which we do not know, but certainly contributed to her anxiety and perhaps other psychological dynamics at play in her psyche (e.g., fear of failure, self-loathing). But some we *do* get to know, specifically the disastrous relationship between she, Krista, and Francesca engaged in. While after learning of Krista’s suicide, she may tell Francesca, “It’s best we forget about her,” the recurring mystery of the maze and haunting Lydia experiences in the way of nightmares, visions, and teasing two-tone music suggest otherwise. The past keeps creeping into the present. She may attempt to control the impact of the events in the past … but ultimately the past prevails. Even the heavily edited video of her interaction with the student Max is an example of the past crashing into her present.

So while control is, I think, a central theme in the story, time is right up there and relates directly to it as an ancillary theme.

Next: Dialogue.