Tár, Los Espookys, and Richard Brody
Horrors big and small, plus to critique a critic
Hello!
On this week’s episode of Criticism Is Dead, we discuss Tár and Los Espookys, a film and a series about what lies beneath the surface of a performance.
Click here to listen to the full episode on the web
Or listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, or other podcast apps.
01:46 Tár, playing in theaters, is an ambitious, relentless, engrossing film about art — and the great and terrible artist.
For all that Tár shows of its protagonist Lydia Tár’s life — the rehearsals, the panels, the classes, the meetings, the jogs, the drives, the sleepless nights — it’s a film that deals in what’s left off camera. We don’t bear witness to the things to which Lydia has allegedly subjected her protégés; they remain in the trails of whispers and emails that still haunt. In her most overt exercises of cruelty, we often don’t see her face; the reactions of the people around her, whether it’s her assistant or her orchestra members or her wife, tell us all we need to know. It is left for us as viewers to decide how to feel about Lydia and the kind of figure she represents, all god-like genius and ugly human baseness. Lydia’s charisma is such that part of you wants her to emerge triumphant — but the power of the film and its crux of ambiguity is in that moment when you catch yourself, and you must confront why.
P.S. Links to the reviews that Pelin mentioned: Richard Brody’s for the New Yorker, Fran Hoepfner’s for Gawker, A.O. Scott’s for the New York Times.
26:48 Los Espookys, available on HBO, is a gem of a surreal, absurdist, magical realist comedy series.
We have a real affection for Los Espookys, which is not quite like anything else on TV in the American market, especially someplace like HBO. It plays by its own rules, which is really having no real rules at all: Odd things happen and are accepted as part of this world’s reality, no further explanation or expansion needed. But at the same time, there’s an intelligence to the comedy, an edge of cleverness that allows the show to exist in its free-for-all state.
P.S. Two interviews with the creators.
39:31 Plus, culture notes about our favorite curmudgeon/New Yorker critic Richard Brody’s very strange week.
The article: “Is Richard Brody Okay?”
Bonus links
Maybe a bit media-insider baseball for our normal topics, but here’s an interesting post from Max Read (of Read Max) about the business of newsletters, Twitter, and writing.
Okay may have teared up at this…
That’s it for now, see you next week!
— Jenny
P.S. I have tallied the votes from the three concurrent polls we ran last week about House of the Dragon vs. The Rings of Power, and the very unscientific result is:
HOTD: 33 out of 49 votes = 67%
ROP: 16 out of 49 votes = 33%
Follow us on Twitter and Instagram.
Please rate/review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, Google Podcasts, WHEREVER, and tell a friend about us.
Inquiries, complaints, and recs for what to watch can go to criticismisdead@gmail.com.
Some credits:
Music: REEKAH
Artwork and design: Sara Macias and Andrew Liu
Tar is what I want and need, but my local movie theater disagrees.